Off To Portage Pass Trail

With Tony Hopfinger free on bail  and my audio/visual of the Joe Miller's East German border comments posted AND the sun showing through the window, we thought we should get out of town a bit.  We heard through family connections of a great spot - a place we'd never been or even knew about, so we headed south down the Seward Highway toward Portage.  We'd checked on the tunnel schedule (to Whittier on the half hour and back on the hour, with a 15 minute window in each direction.) 

We headed down the Seward Highway along Turnagain Arm.

Then the cutoff to Portage Glacier.

Getting near the tunnel to Whittier and there's still plenty of blue sky.

Portage Pass Trailhead

As you come out of the tunnel toward 'downtown' Whittier, there's a road to your right at the end of the airport runway (on your left).  That goes to the trailhead.

We encountered some berry colored bear scat right away.

It's a 750 foot climb.  Not a lot compared to a lot of the hikes in Southcentral.  But it pretty much just keeps going up.  I figure that's like climbing 75 stories.  But the view of Prince William Sound got better and better, even on this now, mostly cloudy day.

Now we're almost at the viewpoint.

There were three guys and two dogs there ahead of us.

Here's the view from the viewpoint.  And the photo is pretty lame.  Between the clouds, the white of the glacier, and shooting into the sun, it was hard to get decent lighting.  The view was spectacular.  And what you see is not what you see from the visitors' center.  This part of the glacier is still down in the water.

 

 Here we are, trying the rocks out.

And then back down.  You can also hike down to 

the lake in the picture, but we came back.  

Beautiful Downtown Whittier.  Is this where Nixon went to school?

We got back to the tunnel just in time for the 4 o'clock opening.  According to the Department of Transportation, this is the longest Railroad/Highway tunnel in North America.

Then back on the road headed north to Anchorage.

We passed several sets of swans before we got home.

Joe Miller: "If East Germany could, we could."

I went to the Joe Miller town hall this afternoon at Central Middle School.  It was an interesting session, about 175 people, and I was impressed with how courteous, for the most part, the audience was with several questions from people who were clearly not Miller supporters.

Most of what he said, he's said before.  I'll try to post more on this later.  But the comment that caught my attention most was one he made was in response to a question on illegal immigration. 

Miller replied:  "The first thing that has to be done is secure the border. . .  East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow.  Now, obviously, other things were involved.  We have the capacity to, as a great nation, secure the border.  If East Germany could, we could."

Back in 1887, Woodrow Wilson published what many claim to be the seminal article on the field of public administration.  He argued in it that we should borrow the civil service systems of Europe.  But he knew there was a strong anti-Europe sentiment, so he made several references to being able to borrow good ideas from countries without also taking their negative features.  

"We borrowed rice, but we do not eat it with chopsticks."

And, "If we see a murderous fellow sharpening a knife cleverly, I can borrow his way of sharpening the knife without borrowing his probable intention to commit murder with it . . ."

I'm not sure Wilson is one of Joe Miller's heroes.  And despite Wilson's reassurances, I would hope Miller could come up with a better role model than East Germany.  Their guards' orders were shoot to kill.



[Note: I've cut out some after the question because it was about getting out to vote, not answering the question.]

And I have to admit that when I told my neighbor, who has a McAdams sign up, his response was to build a fence too.  For the record,  Wikipedia reports the East German border fence at 1,381 kilometres (858 miles) long and it ran from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia.  That doesn't include the Berlin wall since Berlin is well inside East Germany.

The US border with Mexico, again according to Wikipedia is 3,169 km (1,969 miles).

A fence along the border might slow things down a bit, but it won't stop illegal immigration.  We need to help Mexico build its economy so coming to the US isn't necessary for a decent life.  As it it, people risk their lives to get to the US and that won't stop with a border fence.  And it's not like we don't have a role in Mexico's problems.  Their horrendous drug wars result from our appetite for illegal drugs.

Besides, I'm not sure that the costs of staffing a 2,000 mile border tightly enough to keep out illegal aliens wouldn't come to more than the costs the US bears now - which we don't really know - for schooling and health of illegal aliens.  But maybe we could hire cheap labor from Mexico to make it affordable. Besides, Miller also makes reducing the deficit his main priority.  Building and staffing such a border isn't going to help there. 

It's a long way from the Statue of Liberty as the symbol of the United States to an East German style barbed wire fence with mined no-man's land, guard towers, machine guns, and German shepherds.  I know what that looked like.  When I was a student in Göttingen, Germany, the border was just a few miles east of where I lived and we rode out there now and then.  It wasn't pretty.  But it certainly cut down the flow of people escaping to the West.

"We've had ice ages and yet there were no SUVs"

The quote comes from a video clip from the October 15 Glenn Beck show and is posted on Media Matters.

Think about people trying to argue that the earth is round 500 years ago.  "But if the earth were round, people on the bottom would fall off."  Actually, that makes a lot more sense than the SUV/Ice age argument.   But for someone who is already skeptical about 'intellectuals' this probably proves that global warming isn't human caused.

Who creates this stuff?

ThinkProgress writes about this video:

 Today, Fox News hate-talker Glenn Beck brought on a representative from the group to tout Cornwall’s new DVD, “Resisting the Green Dragon,” which claims the climate change movement is a “false religion,” and a nefarious conspiracy to empower eugenicists and create a “global government.” The DVD, which Cornwall is distributing to evangelical churches around the country, seems to be designed perfectly for Beck’s world view, and unsurprisingly, the Cornwall guest and Beck exchanged bizarre conspiracy theories.

 Fortunately, ThinkProgress has been doing its homework and is able to link Cornwall with a Global Warming Denial website, CFACT.

CFACT's  (Campaign For A Constructive Tomorrow) website is littered with headlines like:

All Pain No Gain - Exposing the True Costs of Global Warming Polices

Renewables are Unsustainable

3 billion and counting by Paul Driessen
New film challenges DDT myths and lies that have caused millions of needless deaths.

Greens shackle national security - and renewable energy

ThinkProgress continues:

CFACT is a gimmicky right-wing organization that does everything it can to try to discredit the science underpinning climate change. For instance, staffers from the group traveled to the Copenhagen conference on climate change to stage silly press conferences with Rush Limbaugh’s former producer and stunts aimed at mocking Greenpeace.

But who is the “driving force” behind CFACT? According to disclosures, CFACT is funded by at least $542,000 from ExxonMobil, $60,500 from Chevron, and $1,280,000 from Scaife family foundations, which are rooted in wealth from Gulf Oil and steel interests.

Think Progress then links CFACT to the Cornwall Alliance that produced the video introduced on the Glenn Beck Show.

CFACT and the Cornwall Alliance, according to disclosures filed with the Washington State Secretary of State’s office, share a common fundraising firm, ClearWord Communications Group. ClearWord has helped raise millions of dollars not only for CFACT and Cornwall, but also for infamous polluter front groups like FreedomWorks, the Institute for Energy Research, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Last year, Cornwall produced a video with former Sen. George Allen (R-VA) attacking clean energy legislation as part of a campaign by the ExxonMobil-funded “American Energy Freedom Center.”

Winning for many is more important than the truth. Figuring out sincerity, especially for the marginally educated, isn't easy.  One clue is the level of transparency.  How easy is it to find out who is behind all this?  Even the Alaska legislature - both Republicans as well as Democrats saw the need to require disclosure for 'Independent Expenditures' after the Supreme Court's  Citizens United case.  When the funding sources are hidden, even lied about, then our crap detectors should light up.

ThinkProgress relates that they got denials about linkages between these organizations.

In a call to the Cornwall Alliance’s media office, spokesman Quena Gonzalez said Cornwall has no relationship to CFACT and said CFACT President Rothbard has no official capacity with his group. Gonzalez said that in “several years of working” at Cornwall, he had never heard any questions about working with CFACT, and instructed ThinkProgress to contact Calvin Beisner, the national representative for Cornwall. Beisner is a board member of CFACT.

Rothbard had a central role in sparking the founding of Cornwall and is currently a partner with Chris Rogers, the man who runs Cornwall and CDR Communications. Nevertheless, under his capacity as CFACT President, Rothbard’s anti-Greenpeace publicity stunts are reported regularly on the Cornwall blog as breaking news, without any acknowledgement of Rothbard’s relationship with Cornwall.

Gonzalez also said he had never heard of CDR Communications. But according to his own LinkedIn profile, Gonzalez works for CDR Communications as the “Director for Religion and the Environment” at the firm. ThinkProgress contacted Chris Rogers on Monday, who contradicted Gonzalez and said his firm CDR Communications provides “support” for Cornwall but did not clarify.

It appears that Cornwall attempts to carefully hide its backers. Not only did Gonzalez refuse to provide much information, but Cornwall’s website is registered with a special service to hide the identity of the person or group who purchased the domain address.

 There are a lot more details in the ThinkProgress post.

This sort of work by ThinkProgress gives me hope about the power of blogs, but also concern that this power is likely to attract attempts to make access to the Internet for bloggers and readers more difficult in the future. I'm sure there are those who are busily plotting ways to restrict this ability of anyone to publish to the world.

By the way, Alaskans will be pleased to know that we too aren't without connections to this world.   Last year at least one of our state legislators, Carl Gatto, Republican from the Valley, and running unopposed for reelection, received $2,249.68 from the Heartland Institute to attend their 2009 climate change conference in his hometown New York City.

The mission of The Heartland Institute is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

They strongly oppose government efforts to combat global warming. And their website embraces the Tea Party Movement.  I can't find any direct links between CFACT Sourcewatch cites Greenpeace's ExxonSecrets claiming Heartland received $675,500 from Exxon between 1998 and 2006.

47 Children Saved From Abusive Homes

This is a story you aren't going to see on television news:

Police around the country rescued 47 children aged 6 months to 13 years from dreadful situations in 27 states.  The children were abused in many different ways.  Some of the kids came from seemingly normal homes others came from single parent homes.   would beat the child   Young girls raped by family members, a three year old child scalded with boiling water,  a two year old suffered even worse.  Alcohol played a role in the abuse of many of the children.

Outpourings of support came from around the world.  A consortium of 23 hospitals pledged to take care of all the medical needs of the children until they were 18.  Intensive psychological help was pledged for all the children through age 30.  Families opened their doors to take in the kids and seven different retail organizations pledged to keep the kids clothed in style until high school graduation.

Authorities promised $8 million to fund a cross-disciplinary task force of scholars and practitioners to study over 200 research projects to find patterns of child abuse, characteristics of abusers, successful abuse detection and prevention programs, and to develop a plan to cut child abuse by 70% in the US.

The National Governors Association and a bi-partisan group of senior Members of Congress and Senators pledged to work together to implement the task force's recommendations with complementary National and State legislation. 

All that above is a pipe dream I had while watching the miners as they were rescued from the Chilean mine.  The story this past
week was the kind of television moment that unites people all around the world.    


But I also thought about all the kids in abusive families who need to be rescued.  Why the miners and not the kids?


It got me thinking about Edward Jay Epstein's News From Nowhere.  Epstein studied network news creation in the late 60's.  He looked at how news stories were chosen and then how they were packaged.

While the changes in technology mean that his model probably needs some tweaks, I suspect the basic process of creating narratives is still recognizable today. 

At each network, the process by which national news is gathered, edited and presented to the public is more or less similar.  A limited number of subjects, usually no more than twenty or thirty, are selected each day as possible film stories by the the news executives, producers and assignment editors on the basis of some form of advance information, and camera crews are dispatched to the scene to capture the event, or a re-enactment of it, on 16-mm. film.  The filming is supervised by either a field producer, a correspondent, or in some cases, the cameraman himself.  The film is then either shipped directly back to one of the network’s headquarters in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles, or if time is an important consideration, processed and edited at the nearest available facilities and transmitted to New York by cable.  Through editing and rearranging of the filmed scenes, a small fraction of the exposed film, usually less than 5 percent, is reconstructed into a story which has a predetermined form.  Reuven Frank, then executive producer of the NBC Evening News, instructed his staff in a memorandum initiating the half-hour network news program in 1963.

Every news story should, without any sacrifice of probity or responsibility, display the attributes of fiction, of drama.  It should have structure and conflict, problem and denouement, rising action and falling action, a beginning, a middle and an end.  These are not only the essentials of drama;  they are the essentials of narrative.

So, all the news is wrapped into a narrative structure that neatly tells a good, dramatic story. Parts that don't fit the narrative are left out.

A sound track, using either the “live sound” recorded at the event or “canned” (previously recorded background sounds) from the network’s sound-effects library, is added to the edited story.  “Its symbolic truth, its power of evocation is enhanced by the supposed reality which the sounds which surround it stimulate," Reuven Frank continues in the same memorandum.  Finally a narration, written either by a correspondent or by a writer, synthesizes the piece, which is introduced and integrated into the news program by the anchorman or commentator. 

Network news organizations select not only which events will be portrayed as national and world news on television but which parts of the filmed portions of those events, when recombined by editing, will stand for the whole mosaic.  This necessarily involves choosing symbols which will have some more general meaning to a national audience.  “The picture is not a fact but a symbol,” Reuven Frank notes, “. . . the real child and its real crying become symbols of all children.”  [pp. 4-5]

So, Epstein explains, there are set story lines into which news stories have to fit.  The events that get onto the news are those events which are predictable (so they know to have camera people there), which take place in a location where a crew can be on hand, etc.  The coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is very different from the coverage of Vietnam where media had much more access to film the fighting. The US government does a much better job now of controlling what the American public sees.

And the story of the miners, which fits neatly - at least as it was shown on television - into Mr. Frank’s elements of drama,  is a perfect story.  We’ve known for two months now about the planned rescue and when the miners were supposed to be brought out of the mine.

But kids in abusive homes are a much harder story to cover.  All the miners were together in one place.  The kids are hidden from sight and scattered in many locations.  You’d have to have many different film crews in many places.  The miner story was characterized as a classic 'man against nature" story.  The narrative for abused kids isn’t as neat.  The 'saving the innocent victim" narrative comes in conflict with our narrative that children belong with their parents.   The situation in each individual suspected abusive home is much harder to prove than the trapped miners' need to be rescued. And interviewing the rescued kids would be more ethically challenging than interviewing the rescued miners. 

What we know as news then is shaped by the reporters of the news and their narratives of what it means.  And the news they report is shaped by what  fits the emotional, political, dramatic, and technical requirements of the news media. 

There are lots of kids trapped in abusive homes throughout the US and the rest of the world.  But we focus on the rescue of a small number of miners.  (There is no intent on my part to diminish what they went through, but merely to put the news coverage of their ordeal into perspective.)  And besides the kids, there are all the other miners that have been trapped and died in mine disasters around the world who we don’t learn about. 

And let's see how much we will find out about the mining company's responsibility for unsafe conditions and changes in the regulations of mines in Chile.  Those stories don't have the same dramatic impact as the rescue.  

One last thought:  In some ways the miners' story follows the dramatic narrative of the 1989 Alaska whale rescue, which is being made into a movie now in Anchorage. But the characters are being modified, I'm told, so that they make for a better movie.  Further complicating the accuracy of the our understandings of the world.  But making the movie potentially more likely to make a profit. 

"I want the same health care system that my senators and congressmen ...have"

If you look around, you'll probably notice that there are people who have more than you have.  Maybe a nicer car, a bigger house, a bigger bank account, more 'successful' children.  Well, it's not fair.  You should demand to get what they get.  Right?

That was my first reaction to this ADN letter writer.

I want Congress' health coverage

This is very simple. I want the same health care system that my senators and congressmen and their staffs have. I also want the same retirement system that my senators and congressmen and their staffs have. They are not royalty.

No cost-of-living increase in my Supplemental Security Income is a travesty beyond words.

-- Gary Maxwell

Anchorage

Let's look at this line by line.  

The newspaper, not the writer, is responsible for the headline so I'll skip that.

• "This is very simple."   

There are some things that are simple.  But not most public policy issues.  Generally, the more you know about something, the more you realize how complex and interconnected things are.  I just did three posts on how complicated the world is.   

When politicians say things are simple, it usually means they're ignoring all those pesky facts and questions that don't support their position.

• "I want the same health care system that my senators and congressmen and their staffs have. I also want the same retirement system that my senators and congressmen and their staffs have."

It would be nice if we all had this.  The Democrats tried to make sure everyone had at least minimal health insurance and were slammed by Republicans for, among other things, the costs. Tea Party folks are trying to undo that new health program. 

If Mr. Maxwell is making a point about the Congressional health care and retirement systems, well, there are serious issues to look at there.  We could argue that lawmakers should be paid well and have good retirements so they are not as prone to corruption by all the people who want to influence them.  But as we frequently see,  even good pay doesn't seem to prevent this, in part because elections are so expensive.

Perhaps Congressional pensions should be contingent on a former legislator not taking lucrative jobs or contracts from people dealing with Congress.  But that doesn't seem to be the drift of Mr. Maxwell's complaints here.

Another perspective is that Members of Congress worked very hard to get elected.  They've put themselves up for public scrutiny and made family and financial sacrifices to serve the public. They deserve a decent compensation. 

Or one could argue, this is government, taxpayer money, so tax payers have rights here they don't have with corporations.  But lots of corporate profit is also taxpayer money  (such as contracts to build roads, military aircraft, university buildings and sports arenas); services to government agencies;  tax incentives; or various subsidies and governmental guarantees that help businesses.  And all these businesses work because of government supported infrastructure whether it's roads and air traffic control or a monetary system, or the legal system, or public health programs that provide an environment where business can survive. 

I don't hear complaints about corporate health care and retirement benefits in this letter.  It's the relatively modest government (compared to executive level corporate)  benefits. But one could argue that the jobs of legislators are similar to a board of director for a large corporation.  In this case, they are the policy makers for the United States of America.  These perks are part of the pay and incentive system for these positions.

Mr. Maxwell had the same opportunity to run for office and get elected and acquire a Congressional benefit package.  He didn't take that route.  Mr. Maxwell doesn't explain what he has done to deserve these benefits. 

Perhaps he's claiming that he should have kept those dollars he had to pay as taxes.  But would he have forgone the Iraq war to save all that money?  Done away with the Border Patrol?   He obviously doesn't want to cut social security. 

Yes, there is government waste, just like there is corporate waste.  If Mr. Maxwell has a better plan, he could work to convince his fellow citizens of his wisdom, get himself elected, and fix things.  We all make choices in life.  What sort of career we choose impacts the kinds of benefits we can expect.  How we interact with others and how we spend our money throughout our lives also affects how much we will have left over when we retire.

• "They are not royalty"

No they definitely aren't.  Royalty inherit their privileges, have them for life, and pass them on to their children. (Passing them on to their children, alone, doesn't make it royalty.) Members of Congress  have to prove themselves to the voters every two or six years.  

Retirement benefits require some member contribution and depend on how long a person serves.  These benefits are not significantly better than what employees in private sector firms made until those pension plans began to get gutted in recent years.  And today, the higher level private executives, which Members of Congress would be equivalent to, still often get benefits that lure legislators and staffers out of their relatively low paying government jobs.  (President Obama made $400,000 last year and Bill Weldon of Johnson and Johnson made $30 million as did Derek Jeeter.)  These government benefits are based on service, not birth rights. 

• "No cost-of-living increase in my Supplemental Security Income is a travesty beyond words."

  The Social  Security website tells us this about Supplemental Social Security:

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a Federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues (not Social Security taxes): It is designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income; and It provides cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

First, I'm sorry that Mr. Maxwell is in a situation where he requires SSI.  I would note this money comes from all of us who pay taxes - general tax revenues - not from money Mr. Maxwell contributed specifically to the program.  While some people would characterize this as "a handout,"  I recognize that many people have had accidents, illnesses, and other unavoidable problems. Programs like this help them cope.  We're a rich enough country, we don't  have let people starve or go homeless around us.  So we help out people in trouble.  It's a very Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish thing to do - help out people down on their luck. 

That said,  Mr. Maxwell doesn't explain why this is a travesty.  A cost-of-living increase, as I understand it, is not an automatic annual increase.  It is supposed to offset increases in the cost-of-living.  If there is no such increase, then there is no need to increase the payment.  This year there hasn't been an increase according to the data.  

It's not clear why Mr. Maxwell is on SSI and how he might be affected by changes in prices.  The system isn't perfect.  Lower housing prices are part of the reason that there is no cost-of-living increase and people on social security (not specifically SSI) often aren't buying new homes.  Meanwhile, other items that directly affect them, like health care, go up.    Again, it's not simple to devise a system that works perfectly for everyone.  'Travesty' seems a bit harsh.


Mr. Maxwell may have other evidence to support his reasoning, but it seems to me it was his responsibility to get it into his letter to the editor so we could evaluate it.  And there is also the chance that his letter was badly mangled by the ADN before it was published. Or maybe he wasn't trying to make a logical argument, he was just venting.  If so, my apologies to Mr. Maxwell.

Everyone has a right to an opinion.  But not all opinions are equal.  Some opinions are better informed than others.

Islam (Not Cable News Version) or Cyber Bullying?

Universities don't just teach students.  There's a lot going on at UAA and APU today where the public is welcome as well, most for free.  (UAA Parking is free on Fridays too.)

Two of the many choices for what to do tonight include chances to fill in gaps in what we know.  One at UAA and one at APU (and noon at the World Affairs Council.)

AT UAA:

Cyber Bullying: 
Relevant Research lecture, Dr. Claudia Lampman

When    Fri, October 15, 7pm – 8pm

Where   Fine Arts Room, 150 (map)

Description     Dr. Claudia Lampman, UAA professor of psychology, is this fall's speaker for the College of Arts and Sciences Relevant Research Speaker Series. Dr. Lampman's studies were recently highlighted in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Her talk will review her own and others' research on the causes, consequences and frequency of contrapower harassment in education -- where a student (with seemingly less power) bullies or harasses a teacher or professor. Along with vivid examples of such bullying, she will offer practical suggestions for educators, parents and students on how to prevent and cope with these experiences. . .

AT APU:

What You Won't Learn about
Islam from Cable News

Nihal Awad, a major, national Muslim leader, will be in Anchorage at noon on Friday, October 15, to address the World Affairs Council.

He will also offer a free public lecture at APU Grant Hall at 7:00 PM  FRIDAY.

Nihal Awad is a co-founder and national director of the Council of American Islamic Relations (the anti-defamation group for Muslims) in Washington D.C and is frequently consulted by American Presidents.  We are fortunate to have him here in Anchorage.  The WAC lecture is on Islamaphobia.  The lecture at APU is FREE and will address "What you Won't Learn about Islam from Cable News".  The World Affairs Council luncheon will take place at the Hilton Hotel; there is a cost for nonmembers.

Someone from my bookclub alerted me to this one because we're reading No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan this month. 



When I was getting information about these two events (three actually if you count the World Affairs Council) I saw how much more is going on today at UAA - from stars to tutus, clay to music and the environment. 

Helen Nelson's tutu workshop

When      Fri, October 15, 1:30pm – 2:30pm

Where     UAA Campus Bookstore (map)

Description    Due to popular demand and intrigue, Helen Nelson has agreed to demonstrate how to make your own tutu. Materials will be on hand. Let your twirling creative spirit soar in a fashionable tutu. For more information, see http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/bookstore or contact Rachel Epstein at (907) 786-4782 or anre@uaa.alaska.edu. 

 Dr. Amy Miller:   Environmental monitoring in southwestern Alaska national parks

When     Fri, October 15, 3:30pm – 4:45pm

Where    CPISB, Room 120 (map)   (This is the New Conoco -Philips Bldg near the Library and Administration buildings)

DescriptionThe Biology Department announces guest speaker Dr. Amy Miller from the National Park Service. She will speak on "Current Trajectories of Environmental Monitoring and Research in Southwestern Alaska National Parks." Parking on the UAA campus is free on Fridays. For more information, please visit the Biology Dept.’s seminar schedule website. http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/biology/seminar-schedule.cfm.

  

Student Recital - Music Majors/Minors

When     Fri, October 15, 3pm – 5pm

Where    Fine Arts Building Room 150 (map)

Description     Come watch our UAA Music Students as they showcase their wide array of talent at this free recital.   Parking is free every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Claybody presents potter Stephen Roberts

When     Fri, October 15, 6:30pm – 7:30pm

Where    Gordon Hartlieb Hall, Room 108 (map)  (Behind the Cuddy Dining Hall)

Description   Claybody presents potter Stephen Roberts in lecture at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 15 in Gordon Hartlieb Hall, Room 108. Steve Roberts studied painting at The Art institute of Chicago. He went on to study ceramics and receive his BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA from UMASS Dartmouth. Roberts has taught ceramics at Bowling Green State in Ohio and foundations art at the Kansas City Art Institute. Most recently, Steve was a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts In Helena Montana. He is currently a full time studio potter in Helena. Montana. 

Awesome Light Planetarium Show with Dr. Andy Puckett

When    Fri, October 15, 7pm – 8pm

Where   Conoco Phillips Integrated Science Building (map)

Description   Enjoy a 25-minute show (described below) followed by a live tour of the night sky, the Solar System, or whatever you would like to see! Awesome Light A fulldome show from the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai‘i, shows discoveries from the giant telescopes of Maunakea. With unique access to these telescopes, it showcases the latest discoveries from the major international observatories located in Hawai‘i. Learn about the "Big Mirrors" on the mountain! Voyage into Subaru, Gemini, Keck, and Canada-France-Hawai‘i observatories to explore exo-planets, supernovae, and stars orbiting around the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Shows are free for current UAA Planetarium members, $10 for adults and $5 for UAA students (with a valid ID) and $5 for children (4-18 years). Parking is free at UAA on Fridays, Saturdays, & Sundays. Because the theater is dark and can be scary for young children, we do not recommend bringing kids under the age of 4. Follow the shows at the Planetarium on their website: http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/planetarium

Some people might want to bookmark the UAA Calendar Page.

The ADN Won't Review This Play

Seafarer at Cyrano's before Act I

We only got back to Anchorage late Wednesday night, but I was getting emails already in LA inviting me to give money at receptions Thursday night, for about five or six candidates, there was a talk at UAA, and an email from Cyrano's about The Seafarer.  

"...each member of the cast nailed it. I felt intoxicated myself just from watching the booze go down. The way they tossed those lines around, with that Irish version of the English language, was the best, most realistic conversational exchange I've ever seen in a play (didn't seem like I was watching a 'play')." -- Kerry Feldman

"The Seafarers is FANTASTIC. I'm super impressed with the acting. Congrats on a great show." -- Scott Schofield  [Note:  Everything else calls it The Seafarer.]

Sandy Harper, Cyrano Producing Artistic Director, post show

I've known Kerry for a long, long time at UAA, and I've met Scott a few times now at Out North and if they both gave such strong recommendations, I had better pay attention.  ( I didn't realize until I read the program Thursday night, that Kerry is a member of the Cyrano's Theatre Company and one of Scott's 'sustaining volunteers' at Out North was one of the actors in Seafarer.) 

I called to see if there were still seats left for tonight's show and there were.  

I'm not a fan of literature that focuses on dysfunctional alcoholics. (Are there functional alcoholics?)   It's painful to watch and it's not a world with which I identify.  But  these works take me into a world I don't know and can learn from.  If they're done well.  It took me a while to get over my bias, but as things progressed, the play had a lot more to say than I was expecting. 

Dick Reichman as Richard Harkin (after the show)

It turned out to be outstanding - five male parts, all with Irish accents - and the playwright, Conor McPherson is hailed in the program as "the best new playwright of his generation."  Of course, I had to check that.  Wikipedia says, "He is considered one of the best contemporary Irish playwrights."   The LA Times review of his recent movie "Eclipse" was very positive.





And I feel a responsibility to let Anchorage folks know this is really good theater and you have just Friday and Saturday evenings at 7pm and Sunday afternoon at 3pm to see it. I asked Sandy if there were tickets left and she said yes.  But tonight's show was pretty close to full, so I'd recommend you get tickets ahead.  Cyrano's is downtown at 413 D St.

Why a responsibility?  The play's program says:

So, here I am online telling Anchorage and beyond. 

You aren't allowed to take pictures during the performance so the ones here were taken before the play started - at the beginning and during the intermission - and after it was over.  So the actors I caught were out of costume.  Except Sharky's band aid which Rodney Lamb forgot to take off. 

The Guardian wrote about McPherson and this play:

Mark Stoneburner as Nicky Giblin (post play)

There's a distinctive sound Conor McPherson makes when he describes how he writes plays: a sort of viscous, splurting noise, like something gooey landing, splat, on a table. Plays come "very much from the unconscious for me", he says. "I describe it as coming from the body and your brain is catching up." It starts when an image arrives unprompted in his head; slowly the people it contains start to move and talk, then splurt: there they are on the page.

It's not an explanation that quite does justice to the poetry and magic of his work. Ever since The Weir opened in London in 1997, when he was just 25, McPherson has held audiences and critics spellbound with his tales of lost souls and troubled lives. Often, the trouble he depicts reflects his own: although he says he never sets out to write about his own experience, you can trace the path of his life in the stories of alcohol abuse, broken relationships, death and disappointed hope he depicts.

Rodney Lamb as Sharky (post play)

Next week he makes his debut at the National Theatre with The Seafarer, a fable about two brothers - one an incorrigible drunk, the other newly, tentatively sober - playing host to the devil on Christmas Eve. McPherson is the first to admit: "I'm all the characters in the play" - perhaps most especially the disappointed demon, Lockheart [all the other sources leave out the 'e'], who envies the men among whom he moves. McPherson wrote the play in fewer than eight months; it could be his most moving, accomplished work yet. .  .

 By the way, Wikipedia says the play's name comes from an old poem by that name.

The Seafarer is an Old English poem recorded in the Exeter Book, one of the four surviving manuscripts of Old English poetry. It contains 124 lines and has been commonly referred to as an elegy, a poem that mourns a loss, or has the more general meaning of a simply sorrowful piece of writing. . .

It is told from the point of view of an old seafarer, who is reminiscing and evaluating his life as he has lived it. In lines 1–33a, the seafarer describes the desolate hardships of life on the wintry sea. He describes the anxious feelings, cold-wetness, and solitude of the sea voyage in contrast to life on land where men are surrounded by kinsmen, free from dangers, and full on food and wine. . .  [There's more at Wikipedia The Seafarer.]

Just before Act II

 

 I probably better mention that Brian Saylor did the set design.  I worked with him at UAA  too.   

Boxing, Soccer, Private Jet, Lemons, and an Old Chair

I still have things to post from LA, so they'll show up for the next few days.


I ran around the Santa Monica airport Monday and here are a few shots.


These two guys - Ignacio and Rudolfo - were working hard in the hot sun.  (The fog rolled in Monday evening and Tuesday was cooler.)

At the same park overlooking the airport there was 

a woman's soccer (real football) team practicing.

People have their private jets parked along the fence next to the park.  If we want to talk about government services for the wealthy, I'm sure that the fees folks pay for using the Santa Monica airport don't pay for what it costs the City of Santa Monica - especially if you consider the lost property taxes on this huge area.  Now, I do believe in government infrastructure, and keeping this open land rather than increasing the population density is a good thing, but I suspect a relatively small percent of the population actually use this one and a large percent of the users are probably in the higher income levels.  (This is all speculation.  Someone else can see if there's something there or not.  A lot of the airport is being filled in - Santa Monica City College buildings, restaurants, more soccer fields and playgrounds, a place for live theater, etc.)

The birds of paradise were blooming.

I ran down this Santa Monica alley to see the backsides of the houses.

This lemon tree leaned over the fence into the alley.

And this chair beckoned, but I kept on.

LA - SLC - Anchorage

We biked down to Venice Beach to get in a bit of beach time before leaving.  The fog had cleared up about 11am but was coming back at 1pm already.  But it was nice being there and the sun was visible, barely.

There were flu shots available at our gate at the airport.

There was an entry for Free Public Wifi at LAX on my computer, and it checked it off, but I wasn't getting anything.  I think they want you to pay T-mobile instead.   I forgot to mention that Vancouver's Airport had free Wifi. 

The fog was pretty low at LAX.

 But we were above it in ten or fifteen seconds.  (Two people and google have told me that black spot is on my sensor and I have to open the camera and clean it.  Now I'm back home I'll take it in.  Someone else said it was easy to fix in Photoshop.  Sometimes I've cropped it out.  A couple of times I've rubberstamped it out.  Mostly I try to get it on a background where it won't show.  And it isn't always there with other light source exposures.)

This picture, according to the map in the plane, was almost at Victorville.

We landed in Salt Lake City about 8:45pm and were back in the air at 9:35pm.  Enough time to find our gate, pee, and buy a sandwich.  And take this picture. 

Flying Delta through SLC added two hours and saved $100 each compared to the LA-Anchorage nonstop on Alaska. 

Too dark and too bumpy to get a sharp shot, but here's Anchorage as we pass by to turn around and come in from the north.

People coming off the plane in Terminal B.

And for the record, there's now a Humpy's in Terminal B. 


It's good to be back and the low 30's (about 1˚C) didn't feel too bad.  But it did feel like we've been gone forever, not three weeks.

No Spoiler Movie Reviews - Catfish - The Movie

The best way to see a movie is to go knowing nothing about it.  No preconceptions, no expectations, it's up to you to see, figure out, and experience the movie on your own.

On the other hand, you could go to a lot of junky movies.

As I tried to find a movie that was playing in LA but less likely to be in Anchorage Monday, I ran into the problem of having to look at the reviews.

Well written and well thought out reviews are good after you see the movie.

What we need is a new form of movie review.  The reviewers list about 20 films they really liked, 20 that were 'OK', and 20 they didn't like.  Then you can see if a particular reviewer's taste matches yours.  Then you could see if he likes a movie or not and decide on that alone without getting any spoilers.

Another option would be to list what you like and don't like in movies.

That said, I like movies if:

they are technically interesting
they draw me in so that I forget I'm at the movies
the actors are so good I forget they're acting
I learn something
I'm amazed
They stretch the medium a bit and me as well


I'm not excited about seeing a lot of violence, especially if it isn't integral to the story.

While I didn't read more than a bit of one review, I read enough to take away some of what I should have discovered myself while watching the movie.  So, my review below will be very careful NOT to do that.

I liked Catfish.

It fused internet visuals appropriately and cleverly, the main actor was very engaging and likable, and the story was relevant to the modern world and poignant.  It dragged a bit toward the end, and you do learn why it's titled Catfish.  I suspect they started out with that idea and then the movie went off in its own direction and in the end the explanation of Catfish seemed a little contrived.  That's all I'm going to say.

The movie made me think of  "Run Lola Run."  It's not nearly as tight and good a movie, but it's clever in its own way.  There are problems, but they are minor.

Oh, yes, at the Landmark, not far from my Mom's, you have to choose your seat before going into the theater.  As we did that, I thought, "Gee the theater must be tiny."  It turned out that we were in the "lounge."  A theater with maybe 25 seats - but all very cushy couch like seats. 

Sorry about the photo, it was the best I could do quickly as we left.  But you get the idea.





[UPDATE:  October 17, 2010:  This NY Times piece "Documentaries (in Name Only) of Every Stripe" talks about the tantalizing questions in Catfish I didn't address here so as not to spoil the movie.  Don't read this until after you've seen the movie!]