Why Should You Spend $220 for the Bioneers Conference Oct. 14-16?

Why you should:

Because, as someone on the video linked below says, you'll engage "the hottest topics our culture doesn't want to talk about."

• Clean Energy Opportunities for Alaska by Chris Rose

Because as the world struggles out of the old human era of fossil fuels and predatory capitalism [hey, I'm not saying all capitalism is predatory, I'm identifying the kind of capitalism on the loose these days as embodied by big banks and telecommunications companies with all sorts of hidden gotchas that suck up your money in ways you didn't know they could] we need to be creating the new era where we live in harmony with nature and with each other. 

• Alaska Food Challenge by Saskia Esslinger & Matt Oster

And one of the organizations that I've had my eye on as doing this well is the bioneers.  Their weekly show on KSKA and KNBA (here's a national list of stations) offers a practical consciousness of how to envision better social and economic alternatives.  So if you've got the money, pay the full fare or more to help support this organization.


Why You Shouldn't

1.  Because they have discounts

If you've already cut out $5 beers and $3 coffees, or you've gotten rid of your car for a bus or bike because your budget is shrinking uncontrollably, then you should look at other ways to get to this conference. 

•  Transitioning your Neighborhood: Building Resilience into your Community by Cindee Karns

If you're really desperate, you can contact them to work for attendance.

If you sign up online, the full show is only $180.  Besides an intensive two and a half days of stuffing your mind, meeting others who are thinking like you are, they also serve lunch on Saturday and Sunday.  So if lunch is $10, then you're down to $160.  (You were going to eat anyway, right?)

You don't have to go to the whole thing.  Daily prices are Friday:  $15;  Saturday $100;  and Sunday $65  (if you buy online, walk-in is a little more.)  So, just check out Friday and decide then if you want more. 

•  Tumbleweed-inspired houses: Building and Living in a Tiny House on a Trailer by Kevin Cassity & Dave Mortensen

If you're a student, a senior (can't find the cutoff), or have special needs, you get a discount.  Of course, there are financially comfortable students, seniors,  as well as those who need help.  I think special needs probably stretches to cover anyone who really wants to go, but can't afford to.  Call them and negotiate, but don't be a cheapskate.  If you can afford it, pay it.  They need to cover their bills for the conference and if they have some left over for their regular expenses that would be good. 

• Ancestral Celtic Knowledge for Today’s Sustainable Communities by Nancy Lee-Evans PhD

Register in advance (up to October 12) here.




Expensive is Relative 

People pay $10 or more for a two hour movie.  Plus more for popcorn and drinks.  And how much do you pay to spend a few hours in a bar?  Eight hours Sunday is $65 in advance and it could change your life as you see an alternative to the gloomy scenario we get from the media, a way to get to the next step in human social/economic evolution.  Meet people who are committed to making the world a better place. 

•  What are On- Line Food Cooperatives? By Andrew Crow.

Here's a video from 2008 by some of the local folks who have been working on this.  The production quality is low.  I'd say this is probably the best the local folks have.  If the conference is like the video, then you should ask for your money back.  Or better yet, volunteer to make them a better video.  (I don't know the person who made the video, but I applaud him for documenting what he did.  But it's not a good ad for the conference.)  The Anchorage group is small and stretched.  But in addition to local speakers, there is a panel of national speakers you'll be watching with other conference attendees around the country.

OK, I just can't bring myself to post the video here.  If you really need to see it, click here.

But here are details from some of their online listed workshops. 

Clean Energy Opportunities for Alaska by Chris Rose
Alaska is at an energy crossroads. Villagers in small, remote villages that rely almost exclusively on oil for heat and electricity are paying some of the highest energy prices in the country. In the Upper Cook Inlet where more than half of the state’s population lives supplies of already discovered natural gas are diminishing quickly. In June 2011 the local Anchorage heating and electric utilities announced that they are preparing to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the world market, beginning in 2014. But Alaska also has vast renewable energy and energy efficiency resources. This presentation will discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with developing these clean energy resources, and what Alaskans can do to expedite a clean energy future. Chris Rose is the founder of REAP, and has served as its Executive Director since October 2004. He is an attorney, mediator, and activist. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa and received his J.D. from the University of Oregon, with a certificate in environmental and natural resource law

Alaska Food Challenge by Saskia Esslinger & Matt Oster
Matt and Saskia are four months into a challenge to eat all Alaskan for an entire year. Come find out what they’ve learned about growing, foraging, and sourcing local food, as well as how this challenge has affected their finances, time, and health. We will discuss the larger implications of this project and how all Alaskans might become more food secure. Saskia is a certified Permaculture designer and teacher, and has a master’s degree in Regenerative Entrepreneurship from Gaia University. She co-owns Red Edge Design with her husband, Matt, and offers edible gardening workshops, consultations, and designs. Matt is a general contractor and certified home energy rater, and has helped over 1000 homeowners in Alaska save money and live more comfortably in their home. He is certified in Permaculture design and utilizes systems thinking to analyze homes and their outside environment.

Transitioning your Neighborhood: Building Resilience into your Community by Cindee Karns
Have you heard of the Transition Town movement but never took the time to read Rob Hopkinsʼ book? Have you always felt like you should connect more with your neighbors? How DO we ride the slide with grace in a post peak world? This workshop will give you the basic ideas you need to start a transition neighborhood of your own. Be prepared to practice the tools/methods needed to be successful. Cindee Karns is owner and operator of the AlaskanEcoEscape Permaculture Center, Alaskaʼs only Bioshelter, and has been involved in Anchorageʼs Transition Movement for 2 years.

Tumbleweed-inspired houses: Building and Living in a Tiny House on a Trailer by Kevin Cassity & Dave Mortensen
In this workshop Kevin will share his experience designing and building a tiny house on a trailer, dealing with municipal requirements, and living in the house. Kevin’s house is an original design inspired by the well-known Tumbleweed Tiny houses and built with some extra attention to using non-toxic components and finishes and minimizing negative environmental impact. This workshop will include slides of the house in progress and a house tour if this can be arranged. Kevin has been an itinerate river/wilderness guide and private music instructor. He lives in a 150 sq. ft. moveable cabin on a trailer on the Anchorage hillside, getting to know the area and preparing to build a more permanent dwelling.

What are On- Line Food Cooperatives? By Andrew Crow.
Many communities in the lower 48 have turned to on line cooperatives as a way to increase access to local food. This workshop will describe how on line food cooperatives have been organized, how they function, and will give suggestions to anyone interested in setting up an on line food co-op

Ancestral Celtic Knowledge for Today’s Sustainable Communities by Nancy Lee-Evans PhD 

Cheap oil has produced many layers of separation in our lives – from family, traditional knowledge, the land and our spiritual connection to all of life. Expensive oil will of necessity force us back together into more locally close, interdependent systems. While we mayhave the technical means for sustainability, how we negotiate the social aspects of that reconnection will have a great deal to do with the level of ease with which we live with our sustainable solutions.Nancy Lee-Evans PhD, author, Celtic scholar, permaculturist, holistic healer and director of The Anam Cara Program teaches classes on wild plant lore, the sacred relationship with all life, ancestral knowledge and lifeways that are central to indigenous traditions and which support the social fabric of sustainable communities and lifestyle.

 These are just the 9am Saturday workshops. 

Guest Post: Vet Health Issues - Depleted Uranium, Asbestos, and the Insurance Gap

Occasionally I get requests from someone to put up a ‘guest post.’  I’ve only done a couple and they’ve been from people I know who tell me I should post on a topic and I’ve turned it around and asked them to write it.  Most guest posts end at that point.   I’ve turned down a couple of unsolicited requests from people I don’t know. 

But then I got one recently and I responded by saying something like, I don’t promise anything, but send me the piece and I’ll see if it ‘feels right’ for here. 

This one is an important topic and raised some issues I hadn’t thought of, so here it is.  The writer is  Douglas Karr, USN Veteran of Operations Desert Storm & Desert Shield. 

So here's his post:

Access to medical insurance leaves much to be desired for veterans

What’s the biggest threat facing the health of those men and women who’ve served in our armed forces? Believe it or not, it’s lack of access to medical insurance. A 2003 report, authored by Harvard University and the advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen, found well over 1.5 million veterans fell in between the cracks: They earned too much money through their jobs to qualify for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) services, yet did not earn enough to be able to afford private insurance. 

In 2005, the Department of Veterans Affairs, which oversees all veteran benefits including health care, was operating at a one billion dollar deficit. By the following year, health and disability payments for veterans injured in the Iraq War had tacked on an additional $228 billion.

The healthcare costs of our Iraq veterans will only rise in the next few years. In addition to the grueling physical conditions these veterans served under, they were also exposed to a huge number of toxic substances like depleted uranium and asbestos.

 

Once considered a byproduct of the manufacture of uranium 235, today depleted uranium (DU) is prized as being an ideal weapon for penetrating heavy armor and tanks. When a DU shell is shot into the air, it bursts into flames; as the burning mass of uranium travels through the air, it releases millions of radioactive particles that have actually been transformed into ceramics because of the punishing heat, making them very difficult to excrete from the body. DU has been at least anecdotally linked to a number of cancers and other debilitative diseases, but most conclusively linked to birth defects including hydrocephalus, spina bifida, collodian membrane ichthyosis and severe malformations.

 

While asbestos has not been widely used in the United States since the late 1970s when federal agencies began regulating its use in occupational settings, it is still a popular insulating material throughout the Middle East, including Iraq which imports approximately $200,000 worth of the toxic mineral every year. Iraqi asbestos imports are used largely in construction; therefore, every time a US serviceman or servicewoman is at the scene of a bombed building, he or she is at risk for breathing dust impregnated with deadly asbestos microfibers. Once these asbestos microfibers are inhaled, they become embedded in the lungs where they precipitate inflammatory changes that over time become the precursors of deadly diseases like malignant mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that attacks the protective lining of the lungs, the abdomen and the heart. Also referred to as asbestos cancer, this disease is characterized by a prolonged latency period: It may take 20 to 50 years before veterans exposed to asbestos in Iraq are diagnosed with mesothelioma.

I was busy when Doug first contacted me so I didn’t even try to look him up until after I’d said ok.  It turned out that he wears several hats.  He's got the MarketTech Blog and he's the co-author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies.  Is this slick marketing on his part?  Maybe, but he didn't tell me anything about the book or the website.  He did tell me that he's the Veteran Advocate for the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance, but only after I asked for more information.  And he only told me, after I asked, that he now lives in Indianapolis and how you can email him. My sense is that the Vet health issues are important to him.  I'd heard about depleted uranium bullets and the potential harm they were going to cause, but I hadn't heard about the asbestos issues in Iraq.  And see his 'infographic' poster below.

Thanks Doug.

Warning:  Don't get your hopes up if you're thinking about sending in a guest post.  I suggest people (including myself) regularly break their patterns and do something they don't normally do.  So this fits in with that, but I don't expect it to be repeated too often.

To GREATLY enlarge, click on image.

Tracked Down By A Blood Hound

I never know what adventures await me.  There I was tonight, against a chain link fence, somewhat behind the bushes, knowing that a blood hound was trying to find me.  The sun was just going down.   And then I heard a dog yelping. 

Our meeting today back in the Frontier Building was winding down and a woman came in looking for volunteers for an outdoor adventure.  It turned out it was Cindi of the Alaska Search and Rescue Dogs (ASARD).  She needed a body for the training of a dog.  My colleagues volunteered me.  We went to a nearby park area and she gave me a map of where she wanted me to go. [I noticed when I got home that I didn't quite follow the route in one part.  Sorry Cindi.]

The route included parking lot, grass, woods, alongside a wet area, more parking lot, and a sidewalk.  It was somewhere between a quarter and half mile.  When I got to the destination, she picked me up in her car, gave me a gauze pad to open and wipe on my hands and neck and stick in a plastic baggie.  Then back to where the meeting was and I biked home.

Then I had to return to the scene of the crime about 90 minutes later.  This time by car and I sat and read until I got a call to wait by the fence.  That's when I saw the berries and a bunch of other plants I hadn't noticed before.  I thought about different people who had been sought by blood hounds - lost children, elderly folks who wandered off, runaway slaves, criminals and thought about how each might feel in my spot.  I leaned against the fence waiting to be discovered. And then I saw the faint moon.


And then I heard the yelping.  A big floppy dog rushed to me and a happy handler followed, delighted her dog had sniffed me down.

In the video (it's real short) Cindi explains what the exercise was about.




Want to train your dog to sniff down lost kids and hikers? Here's what the ASARD website says in answer to the question "What are ASARD's expectations of me and my dog?"

"We expect the following from all new dog team members:

• Attend at least one or two training sessions per week.
• Train in all types of weather.
• Attend outside classes (obedience, agility, first aid & specialty classes).
• Work with other handlers on practice search problems.
• Volunteer to be a subject for ASARD training and tests. [I guess that was me.]
• Have a positive and constructive attitude.
• Develop/demonstrate adequate physical fitness.
• Be willing to train up to 2 years to achieve mission-ready status.
• Be willing to train independently.
• Purchase necessary personal equipment.
• Work with your dog every day outside of unit training.
• Maintain a written daily training log."

Autopsy on 42,000 Year Old Corpse - Mammoths and Mastodons

We stopped by the Anchorage museum's visiting Mammoths and Mastodons Exhibit Sunday.  It will be here until Sunday October 9 for those of you who have been putting it off.


There are lots of pictures and replica's of mammoths and mastodons - some you could hold and others life size.  .   There are lots of "Please Touch" signs. There are also lots of videos and interactive exhibits  A good one was the cave where you can use a remote control to shine light and identify some of the drawings on the walls.

But the exhibit that grabbed me most was Lyuba.  This is a life size replica of a complete one month old mammoth found in Russia.

Click to enlarge and make clearer

Great video describing Lyuba, how she died, how she was found, and how they learned from her.

[UPDATE May 22, 2012: Here are two videos from National Geographic. I think there were parts of these two, plus another in the video we saw. The first is about the discovery of Lyuba:

Here's a link to a video of the discovery of Lyuba. (I couldn't get the embed code to work.) The second is of the autopsy:

Any idea where or when the most recent mammoth tusks were found?

3,700 years ago isn't that long a time.  There were some relatively sophisticated human societies living then in China and the Middle East.


And then we went outside, got rid of most of our clothes and went Mastodon hunting behind the museum.

Brilliant Day - Spectacular View

I had a meeting all day at the Frontier Building at C Street and 36th.  The view faced east.

That's Loussac Library in the foreground. 36th Avenue on the left. And the snow's crept down the mountains a little bit lower.

Marked Cards

I stopped by to pick up a blind friend the other day and while waiting for her to get ready I noticed a deck of cards.  Ah, I thought to myself, a real deck of marked cards.  At first, though, I didn't see (as a sighted person, I was looking, not feeling) the braille.  But then I did.

I didn't pull out enough cards to figure out the numbers, but you should be able to do 6 and 7.  And you should also be able to figure out the Braille for the four suits.


 Just to help out I found this list of Braille letters and numbers at the Federation for the Blind website.

I called up my friend Lynne to ask some more questions about braille and how you differentiate between letters and numbers.   It gets complicated.  For numbers there's the number symbol that goes before so you know they are numbers, but . . . there are exceptions.  On the cards, for example, they don't use the # symbol because they know there are numbers, not letters.  Except the Ace - but A is the same as 1 anyway.  See, it gets complicated.   I decided to save some for another post when I can video tape Lynne using her various tools for reading from the computer, for taking notes in braille, etc.  Maybe I'll start to understand.

I also had other questions - like given modern technology and the emergence of software that can read text out loud, is braille still needed? (Short answer, Yes!!!)  As you can imagine, being blind in a world designed for sighted people has its complications.  And frustrations.  People see your blindness and make all sorts of assumptions about what you can't do and don't recognize what you can do.  When your eyes don't work, you know you are blind.  But when your eyes work, you don't realize that you can still be blind to so many things around you.  You can get inside Lynne's head on her blog, Koraling Genius.

Rainy Fall Day

We're headed to the museum to check out the mastodons before they head south.

Is the Polar Bear the Earth's Canary? With Cameos by San Antonio Water and Moneyball

Canaries were an early warning signal of low oxygen levels for coal miners.

[T]hough low-tech, [canaries were] extremely effective and rather easy to read: if the bird died,  miners had to get out of the shaft. .  .

The bright yellow canary birds were an early coal miner's life insurance policy. Carried below ground in cages, the animals' highly sensitive metabolism detected methane and carbon monoxide gas traces that signaled potential explosions, poisoned air or both.  [from petcaretips]

It's just possible that polar bears are now playing that same role for the earth.  Global climate change naysayers argue that the changes we have to make to save the polar bear aren't worth it.  For those people who think taking polar bears to extinction is just the cost of human 'civilization,'  I'd propose the idea that it isn't just for the bears we take precautions, it's for all the others who live on earth as well.  Like the canaries, the polar bears are simply in a part of the world that is being affected by the consequences of human activity in a dramatic way earlier than other animals and plants and humans.

We're all susceptible to resistance to change.  We don't like our routines disturbed.  We don't like people challenging our world views.  And if we've established a comfortable life, we don't want that threatened.  If one's comfortable life is based on resource extraction and one's world view sees free market capitalism as the answer to all of humanity's problems, then the idea of resource - particularly fossil fuel based resources - consumption reduction is a threat to what one believes and how one lives.

Of course, everyone's life style is threatened by weaning human beings off of fossil fuels.  Even many environmental activists probably have no idea of all the implications of pulling back on our use of traditional energy sources.  But the word 'threatened' is loaded.  It suggests that the consequences will be bad.  I would argue that they will be different, and yes, the change over time will bring uncertainty and, for many, discomfort, even severe discomfort.  But climate change will also bring those things.


So, the question is:  Why do some people see the obvious long term consequences early on and others do not?   And why don't some people ever see the obvious? 

There are lots of examples of changing 'truths' over the last 50 years.  When I started graduate school in the 1970s students and teachers smoked in seminar rooms.  There was a lot of resistance to banning indoor smoking.  But I think today most people appreciate the cigarette-smoke-free indoor air we breath.  And most people put on their seat belts without even thinking about it, but these and other mandatory auto safety rules were resisted strongly.  Tobacco and auto  companies didn't want the government telling them what to do.  Consumers, they argued, weren't going to pay more for amenities like seatbelts.   But it turns out that lung cancer deaths have dropped and so have car deaths.  It's not just lives that were saved, but lots and lots of money.

According to an '02 report by the NHTSA, between 1976 and 2002 seatbelts prevented 135,000 fatalities and 3.8 million injuries - saving an amazing $585 billion in medical and related costs. Their report states if everyone had used seat belts during this period, nearly 315,000 deaths and 5.2 million injuries could have been prevented, saving roughly $913 billion. [from Insurance.com a business group that has a vested interest in preventing injuries and deaths from car accidents]

Saturday NPR had a story about San Antonio's water supply.   By cleaning and recycling waste water, through an aquifer storage system, and through working with businesses, San Antonio's goal is to reduce water usage by 1 billion gallons a year.  Sea World, according to the report, has already cut its water usage from 8 million gallons a month to 4 million. 

"Guz says it started in the early '90s when the Sierra Club sued the city in federal court to protect an endangered species — the blind salamander — that lived in the water supply of the Edwards Aquifer.

When the judged ruled in favor of the Sierra Club, San Antonio politicians and newspapers spitted with rage. Twenty years later, the current San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro says his city has learned the judge was right."

Sound familiar to anyone?  Our Governor here in Alaska may not be spitting, but he and his Department of Natural Resources officials are voicing the same sort of outrage over the change of status of the polar bear and the beluga whale.  Life as they know it is threatened.  But they don't have the imagination to envision a way to adapt so that we save the polar bear, the beluga whale, and move to a better overall solution - as the people in San Antonio, according to the NPR story, have done.  They're not willing to think bigger and longer term to find a way for humans, belugas, and polar bears to all live.  Is it just lack of imagination?  Or maybe the governor has been hanging around the oil industry so long that he's bending to the same sort of peer pressure that causes high school students to do stupid things.

After all,  Deputy Commissioner of Natural Resources Joe Balash this summer essentially told folks that the biggest dangers Alaska faces due to global warming are the climate change prevention regulations coming out of Washington DC. 

So, all this was in my head when we saw Moneyball Saturday afternoon.  Here was yet another example of resisting change and sticking to 'the way we've always done it."

Billy Beane, former big league ball player, is now General Manager of the Oakland A's, a low rent, small-market team that can't compete with other teams for big stars.  As he listens to his scouts go over prospects for the year using Old Scouts' Tales ("he's got an ugly girlfriend, which shows he has no confidence") to justify their picks, Beane gets impatient.  Scouts told him when he graduated from high school that he had all five qualities a ball player needed and made an offer that lured him away from a full scholarship to Stanford.  And he failed miserably in the majors.

So he hires Paul Brand (the original script uses his real name Paul DePodesta), a numbers whiz who uses a computer program that evaluates ball players on an array of statistics.  Beane's coaches are appalled.  You can't pick players on a computer.  You're throwing away our decades of experience and wisdom.  But, Beane argues, we can't pick players like the Yankees do because we don't have their money.  And Brand has software that analyzes stats that really matter so they can put together a team of people who get on base - even if it's just by getting walked. They're looking for the overlooked gems that they can get cheap. 

The connection here is that like with the introduction of new ways of thinking about how 'we've always done it' in other areas - smoking, water, seat belts, global warming, etc. - there is plenty of resistance.  Red Sox manager, John Henry, explains* that the new system threatens all they know, threatens their jobs, so of course they resist it.   And at first it looks like they're right.  The team is terrible.  But then they go on the longest winning streak ever in baseball.  Even though they don't get into the World Series, John Henry points out that the Yankees paid about $1.2 million per win while the A's paid about $200K per win.


The Red Sox then use the system to get their first World Series championship in 86 years.

New ways of thinking are always resisted the most by people with the most invested in the status quo.  Some human beings can do amazing things.   Some humans also can be really dumb.  (And smart humans can sometimes do dumb things and dumb humans can sometimes do exactly the right thing.)  We can shift society and economies and energy use in ways that give people comfortable lives and that allow the other animals and plants we share the planet with to survive as well.  Whether the people with smarts and imagination will prevail over the people with ambition, power,  and vested interests in the status quo remains to be seen.


*Caveats and other extras that I left out because I didn't want to totally hide the key points with side comments:  While writing positively about the use of quantitative techniques to find better ball teams, I couldn't help but also think about my skepticism over how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) uses quantitative techniques to evaluate schools.  Teachers and their unions often use the same kinds of responses the coaches used in the movie.  "But the numbers can't tell what's really happening."  I've often pointed to the uniqueness of baseball in class when having students come up with personal work measures.  Baseball has lots of things you can keep good track of.  And those stats are easy to track during a game.  It's also possible to keep better track of teachers and schools, but it's a lot harder than with ball players.  I want to make it clear - I believe that good quantitative techniques, used intelligently and in good faith, take us a long way, but they aren't a panacea.  Given the kinds of numbers NLCB  tracks (as well as the kinds that aren't tracked) and the emphasis on identifying failed public schools and closing them down I understand why some people believe its intent is to destroy public schools.   The irony here is that many liberals agree that public schools are in big trouble, that they are fundamentally flawed.  But not that the answer is to push everyone into private schools using publicly funded vouchers.  As I said, I believe in using numbers, but they have to be the right numbers for the right reasons.   In fact, inthe movie, the computer generated team was going down in flames until Beane used some old fashion human relationship work to get the players working as a team. 

Also, in the movie, Red Sox owner John Henry's gives Beane a great explanation why the rest of the league is fighting him over the new system.  I tried to find the script online so I could post his words.  It summarizes a lot of what I'm trying to say here about resistance to change.  But the only online Moneyball script I could find was an earlier one by Steven Zaillian and revised by Stephen Soderbergh.  It didn't have that mini-speech in it.  In fact things were a lot different.  For example, Beane went to visit him in Boca Raton, not Boston. I guess they just wanted those shots of Fenway Park.  The film almost got scuttled when Columbia executives saw the Soderbergh script. 

Low Tide at Mudflats

We walked down from Kincaid to the overlook over the beach, then down onto the beach Friday afternoon.  The tide was way out.  The mudflats beckoned.  We walked some on the beach and some on the bike trail.

Redistricting Board's Submission to DOJ - Part 1

The Alaska Redistricting Board submitted its plan for approval from the Department of Justice (DOJ) on August 9, 2011.  DOJ has 60 days to approve or not - which gets us to about October 10 or 11.  It's taken me a while to get to posting about this, but I do think people should know about it.  So I'm finally getting Part 1 up.

Alaska is one of 16 states (I've seen different numbers, but this seems to be the most common) that are required to have their decennial redistricting plans cleared by the DOJ.  I haven't tracked down the specifics of what got Alaska onto the list.  You can read more on the Voting Rights Act on Wikipedia.  Here's a bit from the Minnesota Senate website on preclearance under the Voting Rights Act:

In 1975, Congress extended the preclearance requirements for an additional seven years (through the 1980 redistricting cycle). The 1975 amendments added to the list of tests and devices the conduct of registration and elections in only the English language in those states or political subdivisions where more than 5 percent of the voting age population belonged to a single language minority group (including Alaskan natives, Native Americans, Asian Americans and people of Spanish heritage). The 1975 amendments also required the use of bilingual election materials and assistance if 5 percent of the jurisdiction's voting age citizens were of a single language minority and the illiteracy rate of that language minority group was greater than the national average. Finally, the coverage formula was extended to include jurisdictions that maintained any test or device and had less than half of their voting age population either registered on November 1, 1972, or casting votes in the 1972 presidential election. In all, 16 states or parts of states now are covered by Section 5 preclearance requirements, as shown in table 6.  [red font added]

You can get a .pdf copy of the Alaska Redistricting Board's  submission at the Redistricting Board's website. (See DOJ Submissions on the right at the Board's website) They sent in lots of material. 

A key part is the Submission Statement.  The statement is 18 pages long and essentially goes through the steps of how the plan was developed.  It's relatively straightforward, though it is written by an attorney for attorneys in the Department of Justice and uses a lot of terms of art that people familiar with the topic will understand, but others might find hard to get through.  This isn't a criticism, just a warning.

As I understand this, the key thing the DOJ must do is determine that there has been no retrogression - or as the board's attorney would assert, "No unjustifiable retrogression."  The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, shortly after the Civil Rights Act was passed to ensure that barriers to voting under segregation in the South would be removed and that African-Americans would be able to not only vote, but have meaningful votes.  Part of this means that they wouldn't be gerrymandered into districts that diluted their voting strength.  But this applies to other minorities whose voting strength is diluted by the way districts are drawn.

Alaska is one of the 16 states because the courts, in the past, found discrimination against Alaska Natives.  Part of the test of the fairness of the districts is whether the votes of Alaska Natives can make a difference, whether their percentage in the population is reflected in the voting results.  Past law suits have resulted in what are called Native Districts.  From the Board's submission:

Alaska Natives are the only minority group covered under the Voting Rights Act (“VRA” or “Act”) of sufficient size and geographic concentration in Alaska that qualify as a language minority of potential concern for purposes of redistricting. The proposed redistricting plan is free from discriminatory purpose and will not result in retrogression in the position of Alaska Natives with respect to their exercise of the electoral franchise because it maintains the same number of effective Alaska Native legislative districts as the Benchmark plan.

"Same number of effective districts" is the key phrase here. 

The Benchmark Plan reflects the current legislative districts with the 2010 Census population data. Using the target “effectiveness’ standard derived by Dr. Handley, the Benchmark Plan contains four “effective” Alaska Native House districts (Districts 37, 38, 39 and 40) and three “effective” Alaska Native Senate districts (Districts R, S and T) that consistently elect Alaska Native-preferred candidates even when voting is polarized. Additionally, there is one “equal opportunity” House district (District 6) that contains substantial Alaska Native voting age populations but did not always elect the minority-preferred candidate, and one “influence” district (District 5) that has consistently elected an Alaska Native even though not always the Alaska Native-preferred candidate.

What does that mean?

Benchmark plan, as I understand this, is the plan the new one is evaluated against.  It's the final 2001 plan which was the basis for the existing Alaska legislative districts which, until the new plan is adopted, is still in effect.  The VRA requires that there be no 'retrogression,' that is, no decrease in the number of Native districts from the benchmark plan.

It turns out there are different kinds of "Native" districts:

Effective districts - consistently elect Alaska Native-preferred candidates even when voting is polarized. [Polarized voting means that non-Natives vote as a bloc against the candidates the Native voters favor.]

Equal opportunity districts -  contain substantial Alaska Native voting age populations but did not always elect the minority-preferred candidate,  [Minority here means Native]


Influence districts - consistently elected an Alaska Native even though not always the Alaska Native-preferred candidate.  [The key example used here was District 5 where a Republican Native was elected over the Native preferred Native.]

Actually, the terminology used last time and at the beginning of the process this time included "majority" and "influence" districts.  I discussed the old terms - Majority-minority and Minority-influence districts- in a post last April for those who need more than this post to get to sleep.

In any case, no retrogression means maintaining nine Native districts at least six of which are, in the new lingo, "Effective Districts" plus three "Influence Districts." 

The Board's submission explains to the DOJ - which of course understands the terminology since they created it - how things had changed in Alaska (ie. many rural Alaska Natives had moved into the cities thus decreasing the populations of the previous Native districts) and how the Board adapted to the changes.  I would note that the census indicates there are enough Alaska Natives living in Anchorage to make a Native Majority district, but since they are scattered throughout the Anchorage area and not 'geographically concentrated,'  it's probably impossible to create such a district.



Why is it likely to be approved?

I'm not an expert on this and I'm simply going on what I absorbed watching the Board meetings.   On the whole, I'm guessing the DOJ will approve the plan even though one of the districts (38) is very large and combines suburbs of Fairbanks with Yupik speaking coastal villages off the road system.

• The old plan contained a similarly large district (but without such an urban area)
• None of the private groups that submitted alternative plans were able to come up with more than nine Native districts - though perhaps DOJ might find that they have better districts
• There have been no court challenges regarding the Voting Rights Act districts (the deadline for suing is long past) and 
• the Voting Rights Act consultant, Lisa Handley, is someone who works closely with the Department of Justice on these sorts of issues.   As she presented herself to the Board, she's pretty current on the standards they use to approve and she herself approved the plan before it got sent in.  

But it's much less expensive to send in comments to the DOJ than to file a law suit, so perhaps people who think the VRA standards were not met have sent their comments to DOJ.


There are three law suits - two from Fairbanks  about District 38 and one from Petersburg.  District 38, which splits relatively close Yupik villages from Bethel and connects them to Fairbanks, may be of interest to DOJ as well, but I wouldn't hold my breath.  The Board had a difficult job crafting a plan with nine Native districts which also following the other standards set forth in the Alaska Constitution and statutes - particularly having compact and socio-economically integrated districts.  It's hard getting districts the right size (close to 17,755 people each) and meeting all the criteria.  And, as the Board's attorney told the Board, Federal law supersedes the State Constitution and Statutes.


Coming Soon

What I've discussed above is the important part of the Submission.  But my time has been spent recently focused on the section of the Submission called "Publicity and Participation."  It's the part I have the most expertise in and the part I encountered daily as I blogged the Board.  It's also the part where I think the board did poorly.   I spent a fair amount of time comparing what the Submission says to what I experienced.  I've sent a lengthy comment on that to the DOJ and am figuring out how to make that into a reasonably sized post.  I'll get something up on that soon.