Budget Reduction Act - High Stakes Poker?

I'm still trying to figure out this deficit reduction exercise.  The Budget Committee has a few more days to create and pass their plan.    There needs to be seven (of 12) votes to pass anything.   That would result in a bill that would go to the House and Senate for an up or down vote.  No amendments.  No filibusters.  Simple majority passes or rejects it.

Was this committee a set-up?  If so, who set it up?  The Democrats or the Republicans?  At first glance, it looks like the Republican got dealt all the aces.

The point is to try to balance the budget (at least to greatly reduce the deficit) in a reasonable time period.  The Democrats are willing to include cuts, but also want to increase revenues (taxes mainly).  The Republicans only want cuts.  Most have signed a No Taxes pledge and that's where they've been sticking.  

The deal starts with cuts.  There are no taxes or other revenue increases.  And if they fail, there are automatic cuts, no taxes.  So, as I see it, the Democrats have already given up most of the concessions the Republicans want.  (Well, they want the Democrats to give up more.)  But the Republicans haven't given up anything serious.  OK, some don't want cuts in the military and there would be some big ones if the committee fails.  But it's cuts.  If they want to keep the military whole, they'll have to agree to some revenue increases.

But if they don't agree,  automatic cuts (and no revenue increases) begin.

After looking at a number of websites that explain the Act, I decided to borrow part of this summary from the blog of Keith Hennessey, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution [a conservative think tank] at Stanford University, and a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford Law School.

• If this new Joint Committee legislative process fails to result in a law, then there will be no tax increases and there will be triggered $1.2 T of across-the-board spending cuts in discretionary spending, Medicare, farm subsidies, and a few smaller entitlements. These triggered spending cuts would hit defense more deeply than other types of spending.
  
• The additional deficit reduction could include tax increases, but only if:
• 7 of 12 Members of a new Joint Committee of Congress agree to raise taxes, including at least one Republican Member of the Committee;
• and a majority of the House and Senate vote for the Committee’s recommendations;
• and the President signs the bill into law.

 So, was this some slick deal the Republicans pulled on the President?  After all, the default is big spending cuts and no taxes, just what the Republicans want.

Or did Obama pull one over on the Republicans?  I'm not sure, but there are some signs that this might fail in Obama's favor.  The cuts don't automatically begin until 2013, and Congress can pass legislation between now and then to stop or change the automatic cuts.

And while the Republicans can argue that the Democrats refused to compromise, anyone looking at this can see that it's full of the cuts the Republicans wanted and that there are NO taxes or other revenue increases that Democrats want.  That is, no Republican compromises.

And a lot of folks are saying the automatic cuts, during a recession would be a disaster.

Here's today's (Nov. 20, 2011) Wall Street Journal:

However, in the wake of the committee's expected failure, the additional spending cuts—including $600 billion from the Pentagon—don't take effect until 2013.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he didn't believe Congress would allow those cuts to take effect in the defense budget because of the dire warnings of its detrimental effects.

However, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) have opposed attempts to mitigate or tamper with the spending-cuts mechanism, which once had been considered a powerful incentive for the panel to reach a compromise.

But the one-year time lapse before the enforcement mechanism kick in reduced the sense of urgency and eased pressure on the panel.

So, if the intent of the drastic cuts that are automatically triggered if the committee doesn't create and pass a bill (or the Congress doesn't pass it or the President doesn't sign it), was to force the committee to pass something, it doesn't seem to be working.

And now with an election coming up in less than a year, how is the electorate going to evaluate who caused the problem?  The Democrats who wanted to raise revenue, but were willing - from the git go - to cut some of their cherished programs?  Or the Republicans who started with the Democrats taking huge cuts, but were never willing to make any revenue increasing compromises until the very end, when they offered a very symbolic revenue compromise, but with conditions that seemed to canceled out the benefits.  Here's a New York Times report on the Republican proposal.

And CBS News reports that 64% of Americans support tax increases on the rich to lower the deficit.  Perhaps it's beginning to be clear that the Republicans are less interested in decreasing the deficit than they are interested in keeping their rich supporters rich and untaxed, and in chipping away at government so their rich friends can do whatever they want - whether it's increasing credit card fees or extracting resources - without pesky governmental regulations intended to keep the environment clean and workers getting a livable wage and not getting injured or killed on the job without any health insurance or pension.

Maybe even the police monitoring the Occupy demonstrators are recognizing that their jobs and pensions are vulnerable too, that they are part of the 99%.  Maybe this whole exercise was simply to expose the protectors of the 'job creators' for what they are.  And perhaps Obama couldn't lose this game.  If they got Republicans to raise taxes in the committee, that would have been good in general.  If they couldn't, then it would give the public one more example of the Republicans' "heads I win, tales you lose" strategy. 

Only time will tell.  Perhaps the Republicans haven't learned from the housing crisis where consumers were lured in with deals that were too good to be true, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.   Perhaps this committee - already stacked with cuts and no taxes - looked too good to resist.  They thought they couldn't lose.  But maybe they have.

Or maybe not.  We'll see.

Tip Down

I saw these scissors in a parking lot the other day.  I'm guessing they fell out pointed down and just stuck in the compressed snow of the lot.  It's harder to imagine that someone purposefully left them there, and they weren't in very deep.  I did move them out of the parking lot after I took the picture and into some eye-level snow on top of a wall.

I'm not even sure what kind of scissors these are.

Yes, I know this isn't much of a post. I'm stalling while I work on longer ones and other things.

Profligate Consumers or Greedy Bankers? Which Story Will Prevail?

[Of course, you all know it doesn't have to be either-or.]

What are some of the possible stories out there about the US financial crisis as well as the European crisis?


The Establishment Stories:

1.  The banking system is the backbone of our prosperous societies.  It keeps money moving in our economy so that businesses and consumers can get the cash that keeps capitalism rolling and everyone can enjoy a much higher living standard than would otherwise be possible.  The housing crisis put that whole system into jeopardy and only through bailing out the banks could governments prevent civilization as we know it from collapsing. 

2.  Greece and Italy, among others, have been profligate in their spending and now can't pay back all the loans they took. Greece and Italy must now tighten their belts and pay back the loans they made.


Counter Stories

1.  The US  banks and the real estate industry, not to mention the American dream, all ganged up on consumers (is that how you identify yourself when someone asks you to say something about yourself?) to sell unrealistic loans to millions of Americans.  Those in the system who had any brains at all knew that many loans would never be repaid.  But they lied to the consumers and convinced them to take out the loans, because they got well compensated, and they weren't going to be the ones holding the loans when they went belly up.

2   In Confessions of an Economic Hitman  John Perkins describes his job as an expert consultant sent to developing countries to do studies of their infrastructures.  The studies were designed in advance to recommended huge construction projects that were more than the country needed, but perfect for the needs of foreign companies that wanted to extract the countries natural resources.  And these projects came with loans that the country could not afford and would put them in debt to the countries or international organizations lending the money.   Is this what happened with Greece and Italy? 

What really happens if the banks take the big hits instead of the Greek people?  Or if the hit is shared to some degree?  And what would have happened if instead of paying off the banks, the US would have given the money to the people defaulting and just let them pay their mortgages?

This piece from George Friedman at Stratfor fleshes out the Greek scenario:

Two dimensions explain this outcome. The first was national. 

1.   The common perception in the financial press is that Greece irresponsibly borrowed money to support extravagant social programs and then could not pay off the loans. 

2.  But there also is validity to the Greek point of view. From this perspective, under financial pressure, the European Union was revealed as a mechanism for Germany to surge exports into developing EU countries via the union’s free trade system. Germany also used Brussels’ regulations and managed the euro such that Greece found itself in an impossible situation. Germany then called on Athens to impose austerity on the Greek people to save irresponsible financiers who, knowing perfectly well what Greece’s economic position was, were eager to lend money to the Greeks. 

Each version of events has some truth to it, but the debate ultimately was between the European and Greek elites. It was an internal dispute, and whether for Greece’s benefit or for the European financial system’s benefit, both sides were committed to finding a solution. [I reformatted this a bit to emphasize the two perspectives]

He goes on to explain that inside Greece, the elites will do fine when Greece repays the debts, but the average folks "would lose jobs, pensions, salaries and careers. . ."


The question lots of people have is whether this was all engineered to redistribute wealth from millions of people to a few people.  And it's all intangible and complicated enough that few people can know for sure.  But as the dust settles, a lot of just every day folks are beginning to think they were scammed big time.

And if you listen to any financial news you know they say "the economy needs more consumer spending" and then the next minute they say "Americans aren't saving enough."  What's wrong with a system that requires you  to spend the money that you're also required to save?  Do I hear the word "unsustainable"?


I heard someone on the radio the other day complaining about the inconveniences the Occupiers were causing near Wall Street.  Seems to me Wall Street caused a lot of inconvenience for a lot of Americans themselves.  Just as the European financiers are causing a lot of trouble for Greeks and Italians.  (I'll leave the Spaniards out of this for now, but in case Tomás is reading this, I better mention them.)

 My sense is that Occupy hasn't begun to flex its muscles.  This is a global movement that isn't unrelated to the Arab Spring, the Tea Party, and Wikileaks.  Those folks who still write this off as a bunch of unemployed bums who just need a job and a haircut don't have a clue.

Here's a video that shows both the imagination and technical skill of people involved.  There's certainly great irony in using the Verizon building to post this message.



Thanks JL for the Stratfor reference.  Thanks to Phil for the video.

Occupy the Cold - Anchorage Protesters

I stopped by the Occupy Anchorage site today.  It was a chilly 5˚F (-15˚C) or lower.  There's an open side tent and three other tents on the edge of Town Square at the end of F Street.  I got there a bit after 4pm and there were three people and two dogs.  More folks dropped by after a bit.

I didn't have enough room on my camera disk to get more than this 28 second video.  (Sorry, I'd backed the disk up on my external hard drive, but then I couldn't access those pictures and videos on my camera to delete them.  I better read the instruction manual better.  I can delete them using the computer.)

Next Friday, Black Friday, is the day they're expecting to have trouble with the Municipality.  They'll be lighting the official city Christmas Tree on Town Square and they don't want the protestors tents there.  The said they are being left alone even though they don't have a permit ($800, they said per week).  But the Muni has a permit for next Friday.  They are playing it by ear.


They said there were 14 sites in Alaska.

Here's part of a forum post from Nov. 11 by Dub - the guy in the black hat in the picture.

My name is John Westlund. I am 21 years old. I have been working since I was 11 trying to support my family and myself. Trying to have stability. Recently I quit my job, left my still paid for apartment, and joined the occupy wall street movement 24/7 for the past few weeks. I have never felt better about what I'm doing with my life. All I wanted was stability, and I found no way to truly accomplish this while relying on money. I realized it could and should be worth nothing tomorrow. The economy everywhere is unstable because of ecological practices worldwide. Money is truly worth nothing! Until we have a perfect system. Until that day I will stay a protester, an environmentalist and a part of Occupy. We have learned enough over the past 200 years to create this system, a unified peaceful system. One of stability. One that is permanent. Sustainable. For all. No more overpopulation problems from idiotic food manipulating meant only to make the most amount of money possible.

BTW, there are heaters in the tent, but they weren't getting any electricity when I was there.

"There aren’t any physical methods of diagnosing a mental illness: There’s no blood test. There’s no mri. So-called mental illnesses are diagnosed on the basis of behavior. The “chemical-imbalance” theory was invented by the marketing departments of drug companies to try to convince doctors to prescribe their products."

Humans probably know more about outer space than about the depths of the oceans or the depths of our brains. Mount Holyoke College professor, psychologist Gail Hornstein, challenges what little we think we know.  And if you've been here before, you know I like my ideas challenged.  (Of course, there has to be serious, fact based evidence to make it a real challenge and not ideologically based nonsense.)


The Sun Magazine continues to amaze me by having pieces that challenge what I know.  Here's a bit of an interview with psychologist Gail Hornstein from the July 2011 issue. 

"Frisch: Why do you feel so strongly about avoiding the phrase “mental illness”?
Hornstein: The term “mental illness” is heavily charged, politicized, and ambiguous. I prefer to talk about “anomalous experiences,” “extreme emotions,” and “emotional distress.” The main reason I don’t use medical language is that people who are suffering often don’t find it very helpful. No one experiences “schizophrenia” — that’s just a technical name for a lot of complicated feelings.
People who have been taught that “mental illnesses are brain diseases” see psychiatric patients as dangerous and unlikely to recover. And those in crisis are often understandably reluctant to consult mental-health professionals, because the stigma of mental illness is so severe: it’s possible to lose your job, your home, and your family as a consequence of being diagnosed with a mental illness. In cultures that take a social view of emotional distress, by contrast, people more readily seek help because they aren’t as likely to be ostracized and are assumed to be capable of full recovery."

She goes on to talk about studies of people diagnosed with schizophrenia in developed  and undeveloped countries.  "[O[utcomes were much better the developing countries."

You can read the whole Hornstein interview here.

 Here's a bit more:

"Hornstein: In psychiatry mental illness is a metaphor imposed on people’s behavior. There aren’t any physical methods of diagnosing a mental illness: There’s no blood test. There’s no mri. So-called mental illnesses are diagnosed on the basis of behavior. The “chemical-imbalance” theory was invented by the marketing departments of drug companies to try to convince doctors to prescribe their products. Some doctors say depression is just like diabetes: you have an imbalance of a neurotransmitter, the way a diabetic might need more or less insulin, and this drug will restore your balance. But with diabetes it’s possible to measure the amount of sugar and insulin in your blood. We know what a balanced level is. No doctor who has given anyone an antidepressant has ever measured the level of a neurotransmitter in the patient’s body. There is no independent means by which to tell if someone has a “chemical imbalance.”

Frisch: Do any mental illnesses have a known physiological basis?

Hornstein: The initial symptoms of Huntington’s disease resemble the symptoms of mental illness. When folk singer Woody Guthrie first manifested Huntington’s disease, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Similarly people in the early stages of brain cancer may behave in anomalous ways. If you don’t know they have cancer, you might think they’re having a psychiatric breakdown. But once they get a cat scan, you can see the brain tumor. You can’t see schizophrenia."

I don't know if all this is true.  I've come to believe that meds help with some symptoms, but also to know that they often have negative side-effects, and tend not to deal with the underlying causes.  This raises questions to pursue. 


Thanks Jim for plying me with all those Suns.  You hooked me.  

Interrupting Our Dysfunctional Society - The Interrupters and LeadON! Among Many

How does change happen?  At this point in the history of the US, change is not coming from the official political leaders.  But change is happening all around.  People are coming together and taking charge of their own lives.  Whether it's the people at Occupy events around the country, or businesses who are converting their structures and operations to be more energy efficient, or local food groups, or even people joining the Tea Party, people everywhere, mostly off of the media's radar, are coming together and speaking openly about how they feel and how to make life better.  Not only for themselves, but for everyone else.

In Anchorage this week, a group of kids from around the state got together to talk about how to make their lives better.  Although a group I volunteer with (ANDVSA) was the sponsor, I didn't get to the Lead On conference.  But the participants made their own videotape.




Here's what Meryl of Tenakee Springs wrote about it:

For the past two years I have been lucky enough to attend the LeadON! conference, and I’ve learned an awesome amount about my peers, my community, my state, my world, and myself. Despite the impact it has had on my life, I have a real difficulty describing what LeadON! is exactly. A leadership conference? (Yawn…another one?) A mini-summit? (Summit? To what? Everest?) A youth gathering? (Are we starting a cult?). Nothing really seems to do it justice, or make any sense. I find myself always tripping on my words when I try to explain it to people.
For me, LeadON! has been this incredible opportunity to actually gain the confidence I need to make positive changes. I’ve met people and made connections that have broadened my mind and pushed my life forward. I participated in workshops during the conference that were very, very far out of my comfort zone, and found myself actually enjoying being out of my “box”. I got to listen to speakers who were so powerful their messages still stick with me. I heard my peers tell stories about the rough parts of their own life, which made me brave enough to do the same.  Yes, it’s a lot for only a few days!
The most empowering part of LeadON! was the way everyone, the speakers, the adults, and the youth, spoke openly about a wide range of topics. I believe that positive change begins within ourselves and grows outward, and talking honestly about what we want to change is the first step. LeadON! gave me the chance to do that. While I may not always have the words to describe how LeadON! has influenced me, maybe that is actually what has given me the power to show the world what leadership is, instead of simply trying to slap a definition on it. We define it in our actions, every day. That’s what LeadON! has really shown me.
-          Meryl, Tenakee Springs

This year's conference is over.  But if you are (or know) an Alaskan Youth between the ages of 13 and 18 you can look at this year's application form and think about applying for next year. 


The Alaskan Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse (ANDVSA), which sponsors LeadON!, is focused on PREVENTION.  That means working to prevent problems before they happen and opening opportunities to people who might not have otherwise known they had healthy and positive options. 

From the ANDVSA site:

What Do Youth Leaders and Community Partners Do at the Mini-summit?

• Youth-led workshops, nationally recognized speakers, and major fun!
• See what youth and community partners are doing across the state.
• Use theatre, art, and media to improve their leadership skills
• Share information and projects from your community.
• Have fun with musicians, actors, activists, business leaders, and Alaska youth
• Develop ideas to promote peace and equality in your community
• Learn more about youth and adult project partnerships.
• Hiking, outdoor activities, networking, and much more!

This week, we also saw the movie The Interrupters.  It follows a group of ex-gang members and ex-cons as they go through their dysfunctional neighborhood, interrupting violence, through the force of their personalities, experience, and fearlessness.  They too, offer people alternatives to killing, as a way to resolve differences.  Another example of people speaking openly.



This is a powerful film that takes you on an intimate trip into a dysfunctional neighborhood in Chicago, where violence is the learned behavior for dealing with violence.  Into this neighborhood a doctor joins locals who want to change things.  The doctor views this epidemiologically - as a disease that needs to be tracked down and stopped as you would any other disease.  It's not about bad people, but about people who are infected by things in their environment that cause them to behave in self-destructive ways.

And once you've been through the neighborhoods with different interrupters and seen how they gain the trust of those infected with violence and slowly offer them alternatives, after you see the humanity behind the stereoptypes we have of 'those people', it's easy to understand that ignorance that leads one legislator to call the National Guard to come pacify the neighborhood.  And if your brain is good at making connections from one situation to another, you realize the enormous foolishness of the National Guard and the US military trying to make force peace on Iraq and Afghanistan.  This is using violence to teach people peace.  The target already knows violence.  It's the interrupters, working slowly and tirelessly, with love and respect and intimate knowledge of their patients, who are using peace to teach peace.

It's people from the neighborhood interrupting dysfunction to solve their problems. 


This interrupting business is going on all over.  It's what Anchorage Healing Racism does by bringing people like Brent Scarpo to Anchorage. And what Penny Arcade does in an entirely different way with her show that's at OutNorth again Friday and Saturday night at 8pm, with an extra show added Sunday afternoon at 5pm.

Look around your community.  It's happening all around you.  You just need to pay attention, reach out, and connect to it.

Each Culture is Like a Volume in the Encyclopedia of Human Knowledge

The alternative title is:  What Do Wampanoag and Eyak Have In Common?

Alaskans passed an English Only initiative in 1998 which, in part, said:

"The English language is the language to be used by all public agencies in all government functions and actions."

That particular language was struck down by the Alaska Supreme Court in 2007.

I have to work hard to bite my tongue and not make snarky comments about people who come up with ideas like this and voters who don't speak other languages and simply have no understanding of the value of other languages and other cultures to humankind.

Each culture, in my mind, is like a volume in the Encyclopedia of Human Knowledge.  Each language, and the culture to which it gives life, represents one way that a set of humans found to survive in their part of the earth. 

It contains a view of the world and an understanding of aspects of the world that allowed them to live in their particular niche. It has knowledge that no other language or culture has captured.  And we never know when that knowledge may be of value to the rest of us.  Most of us have no idea of the rich diversity of knowledge that has been collected over millennia and preserved in the blend of each culture and language.

To lose a language is to lose a volume of that encyclopedia. 

There were two movies shown at Out North on Tuesday night.  We Still Live Here told the story of the Wampanoag people, 2/3 of whom were wiped out by yellow fever after early contact with Europeans arriving in their land in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.  The movie follows Jessie Little Doe who still has remnants of the Wampanoag language in her head, even though the last fluent speaker had died 100 years before.

She ends up on a Fellowship at MIT working to resurrect Wompanoag.  Not only does the language regain life, so do the remnants of the Wompanoag people who rediscover their heritage.

I know those who favor things like English Only are thinking, "It was better off dead.  If these people call themselves Americans, then they should speak English."  Well, first, they do speak English.  Second, the movie traces how the Wompanoag language and culture was essentially destroyed through policies such as taking away their children and raising them in white families.  And third, as I said above, each language contains a unique knowledge of the world.

The last native speaker of Eyak, Chief Marie Smith Jones, died in 2007 at age 90.  But University of Alaska Fairbanks Professor Michael Krauss, has been studying Eyak for almost 50 years and has a rich collection of tapes and documentation of the language.  And a young Frenchman, Guillaume Leduey, discovered Eyak as a child and began studying it from tapes and other materials.  He arrived in Cordova, the area where Eyak are from, in the summer of  and continues to work with Eyak people via the internet and Skype.

Thus the second - short - movie is called Parlez Vous Eyak?

The film maker was at the Out North Tuesday as were six or seven Eyaks who are part of the Eyak Language Project who, like the Wompanoag, are working to resurrect their language.

In the photo, you see UAA Linguistic Anthropologist Roy Mitchell, film maker Laura Bliss Spaan, and four Anchorage Eyaks.  I apologize that didn't write down their names.  It was a powerful discussion after the movie as they discussed the delights and difficulties of learning Eyak.  They also talked a bit about We Still Live Here  and the similarities and differences between the two experiences of reviving their languages. 

You can watch Parlez Vous Eyak below.





I know that English Only folks are passionate in what they believe.  But it was people like them who have destroyed languages all over the world.  These people work to make it harder for non-English (and you can substitute  other dominant culture languages around the world) languages to survive.  It's no different from people who kill off endangered species because some part of them is thought be a powerful aphrodisiac.  It represents self-centeredness and ignorance.  But despite their efforts, people recover lost languages.  It's not impossible.  The most successful example I know of is the revival of Hebrew to become a robust modern language. 

Alaskans can see:

We Still Live Here 

Thursday (tonight) on 

PBS (Channel 7 in Anchorage) 

at 9 pm

It's part of the show Independent Lens.

Sullivan's Reelection Campaign Starts With Snow Plows

There's an old adage in local politics - mayors win or lose on how well the fill potholes and deal with stray animals.  In colder climates, add clearing snow to the list.

We've had four or five snow falls in rapid succession since the end of October and I have never seen the snow plows out on our street as often and as quickly as these last two weeks.  Is this just good government or does this have something to do with Municipal elections coming up next April?  Summer street sweeping has also been much faster than in previous years.  While I disagree with our mayor on most important issues, I have to give him credit for clearing the streets quickly after it snows.

Here's a map as of 7:33am this morning of what's been cleared.  The Muni has Plan A and Plan B for clearing snow.  The city neighborhoods are divided into three different groups.  In Plan A, Group 1 gets plowed on Day 1, 2 on Day 2, and 3 on Day 3.  In Plan B it is reversed.  In the past, the website didn't tell you which plan was currently in effect.  Now it does.  They even have a map posted for clearing sidewalks and trails now!  It shows which are Muni routes and which State DOT routes.

They came by last night.  This morning I was greeted by another surprise.  You could see pavement!  I don't remember the last time our street was cleared down to pavement.  There have been times toward the spring when they'd scrape the ice off as much as possible, but this early in the season?  I don't remember it happening.  (My memory and what actually happened don't necessarily coincide.)

Now, if there is a break in the snow for a week or more, maybe they'll come can clear out the snow berms that are growing.

To Do List Already Gone Astray

I don't make to do lists much any more. Part of being retired is the ability to ride time more naturally and not keep trying to box it up into task units. But now and then a list helps get things done a little faster. So I made a list today.

I'm actually not too far off.  The real distraction has been this post.  In a comment to a recent post, Jacob wrote that if you don't keep practicing you forget Photoshop quickly.  And I got hung up on these curvy lines.  A quick google should solve that, but the instructions I picked were way more complicated than necessary and I had all sorts of trouble doing what is essentially pretty easy.  I found a video by xPsychoxStevex that made it much better, but it's still seems like it should much simpler. 

So, nothing can be checked off.

Shovel the deck - I've got the driveway cleared.  But I haven't touched the deck.  But that's my "powerglide" stuck in the snow there - a low tech exercise tool for back and shoulders and some leg work.


Download Ecamm - Ecamm is the software I found online for recording skype calls (including video) for Mac.  The Anchorage Apple User Group checked with the distributer to see if I could get a copy to review and I can.  So I have to download it, try it out, and review it.  I'm hoping it will allow me to do more skype interviews with better video quality.

Blog - Three items.  I want to do a final review of the book Fate of Nature.  Two of my distractions this morning related to the Veto post.  One was an email from the executive director of the National League of Cities confirming he was not aware of any local governments where a mayor can veto an amendment before the ordinance it's amending is approved.  That doesn't mean it doesn't exist somewhere, just that he's not aware.  He also gave me a name of a professor in Arizona to check with.  (Turns out it's a new one for him too.)  Anyway, I can count this time as working on that post.  I also got a return phone call from Fred Boness who wrote the memo the mayor used to justify the veto which raise new questions for me to pursue.  Some things take forever. 
And we saw "The Interrupters" last night at the Bear Tooth and there were some interesting points in there I want to explore.  It's about ex-gang members and prisoners who now go back into their community to interrupt violence by talking from their positions of experience to current folks to show them they have choices other than violence.

Drawers on Craigslist - we sold a chair last week via Craigslist and now I want to see if I can get rid of the drawers.  The chair was in great condition.  The drawers aren't.  One side bulges out a bit so two or three of the drawers on the right slip off the track.  I suspect someone could fix that.  I don't even want money for it.  I just hate to waste the good drawers and fixtures and was hoping someone with more incentive and skill than I, would take it and recycle it.

Wedding Card - I'm embarrassed here.  This couple got married a year ago.  We had the present, but it took a long time to wrap it.  And there were issues of where to send it since they live in Pakistan.  I have a US address of a relative now who will make sure it gets there.  But I forgot to put a card in when I packed it.  This is an easy one, but I've been doing other things.  So it's on the to do list in hopes I just do it and get it sent.  An anniversary present now.

The Downstairs Room - This is one of those never ending tasks.  As bad as it looks, it's much better than it was.  The bookshelves mean that boxes of books are now gone from the closet and the garage.  But this has been our storage room for years now.  It's the staging point before the garage for stuff on the way out of the house.  It gets cleared up and then cluttered, but it's different stuff.  Here's a post from last year of this room (picture from the other side though.)



This post is NOT on the list, but a good distraction.  Maybe posting my todo list for everyone to see, will spur me on to get through it.  The only hard items are the posts and I won't get them all done today.  Working on the room downstairs is never ending, but an hour is doable.  And if anyone can use the drawers, let me know.

How do the Seven Story Plots and Plot Elements Affect the News?

[Think of this as an exploration piece that raises questions about how news is packaged and the affect that has on our understanding of the world.]

Digsalot-ga responded at Google questions to the query, "The Seven Main Plots in All of Literature = ???:

1 - [wo]man vs. nature 

2 - [wo]man vs. man [I suspect this should be [wo]man v [wo]man]

3 - [wo]man vs. the environment 

4 - [wo]man vs. machines/technology 

5 - [wo]man vs. the supernatural 

6 - [wo]man vs. self 

7 - [wo]man vs. god/religion 

Presumably literature mirrors life and so I thought it would be interesting to see how many of those plots showed up in today's newspaper.  Today's Monday so there's not much news in the Anchorage Daily News.  When I was picking stories, I did have these seven plots in mind and decided not to keep adding the rest of the short AP pieces that had the same plots. I wasn't thinking at all of Cecil Adams' three topics (see below) or the story-line needs (also below.)

I've put the stories and the plots on this table and checked the plot I thought the story told.  I would assume that there could be more than one such plot in a story, but that didn't appear to be the case today.  Perhaps reporters are focused on one plot per story, unless it's a really long one.

(Some links are to the same story from other sources because the Anchorage Daily News doesn't post AP stories in their online version.  Also I've used the hard copy headlines, which are not always the same as the online headlines.)

I don't claim to be correct here, but this is what it seems like to me.

Stories	Seven Plots "Man v. ______"
	Nature	Man	Envir	Tech	SN	Self	God
Redistricting could lead to GOP majority in legislature		✔
Aging populations mean millions more diabetics	✔
Syria calls for Arab summit after suspension		✔
Wind energy project faulted		✔*
Foreign policy trips candidates						✔
Rocket to space station launches flawlessly	✔
Missing man found dead in rubble of home				✔
Supercommittee at cross purposes			✔
Police drive protesters from park		✔
Kotzebue teen leads the charge to prevent suicide		✔				✔
✔* this could be v. nature or tech but the story was focused on human mistakes

HTML Tables

I think I'd add another plot line, particularly with the Supercommittee story - man v. ignorance - but I guess that is covered in 'self'.

This is a pretty small sample size.  I suspect the emphasis on man v. man would continue in a larger study.  It's also clear that the same story could be written with a different plot.

Are there only seven plots?  Cecil Adams, at The Straight Dope, thinks not:

My point is, never mind the 36, 20, 7, or whatever basic plots--take out sex, violence, and death and you lose 90 percent of literature right there. 

Sex is absent from this selection (No sexual harassment or Penn State stories today), but five of the ten include death and three touch on violence.  I'd add money to the mix.  Three of the stories touch on money (either $ amounts or 'banking.')

The forum writer also supplies 'seven basic needs for a story line.'

1. A hero – the person through whose eyes we see the story unfold, set
against a larger background.

2. The hero’s character flaw – a weakness or defense mechanism that
hinders the hero in such a way as to render him/her incomplete.

3. Enabling circumstances – the surroundings the hero is in at the
beginning of the story, which allow the hero to maintain his/her
character flaw.

4. An opponent – someone who opposes the hero in getting or doing what he/she wants. Not always a villain. For example, in a romantic comedy, the opponent could be the man or woman whom the hero seeks romance with. The opponent is the person who instigates the life-changing event.

5. The hero’s ally – the person who spends the most time with the hero and who helps the hero overcome his/her character flaw.

6. The life-changing event – a challenge, threat or opportunity usually instigated by the opponent, which forces the hero to respond in some way that’s related to the hero’s flaw.

7. Jeopardy – the high stakes that the hero must risk to overcome his/her flaw. These are the dramatic events that lend excitement and challenge to the quest.

All the stories but the Rocket story have clear opponents (though the hero and the opponent are not usually clearly identified).  All  have a life changing events, and all have some jeopardy.

And clearly, who is chosen by the reporter as the hero or the opponent will affect our perception of events, especially events we know little about.  

Do we want to read/hear news stories that don't have these plot lines?  It could be boring. How does that affect the accuracy of our understanding of what is happening in the world?

I'm reminded of the recent report that most types of crime in the US were down significantly, but that people don't feel that because the news still highlights the crimes  (jeopardy, the deaths, the opponents.)