Inside Job - Academic Corruption and the Followup at Columbia

Friday night we saw a showing of "Inside Job" at UAA.  I'd heard it was good (it won the 2011 Best Documentary Oscar) and was glad to get the opportunity.  It's a look at the financial collapse in five parts (I've taken this list from Wikipedia):

• 1.1 Part I: How We Got Here
• 1.2 Part II: The Bubble (2001-2007)
• 1.3 Part III: The Crisis
• 1.4 Part IV: Accountability
• 1.5 Part V: Where We Are Now

For a two hour movie it does a pretty good job of identifying the players and explaining the dynamics of the economic crisis.  I still don't know enough about all this to be able to spot any obvious errors but I'm sure they were in there.  But any account of anything has to make editing decisions - whether it's the blatant bias of Fox News, the ardent mistakes of a serious filmmaker, or simply the need to cut things out to keep the movie within its time limits.  The viewers' job is to take it in and compare it to other accounts and weed out the errors as they come to their own understanding of the 'truth.'

Compared to what I've already heard and read about the financial crisis, this film captures a lot of what happened in a fairly straightforward way.  What was particularly telling for me were the confrontations with various players and the commentary of people who were close observers.

I was reminded in the Congressional grillings of bankers how contrived much of Congressional hearings are.  The Congress members ask questions that have the answers embedded in them - "Did you feel anything when you sold securities that you and your colleagues described as shit?"

As an emeritus professor myself, I was also struck by the damning evidence of academics who write reports funded (lavishly in these cases) by the institutions they were studying and the implications of how academic disciplines (specifically economics in the film) are corrupted by their close ties to business interests. 

Columbia Business School Professor Mishkin was asked about his study that found Iceland's banks to be in great financial shape before their collapse  brought down the Icelandic economy.   Filmmaker Ferguson reads from Mishkin's report

"Iceland is an advanced country with excellent institutions, low corruption, rule of law, the economy has already adjusted to financial liberalization, which was already completed a long time ago,  while prudential regulation and supervision is quite strong."

To his credit, Mishkin acknowledges, "That was a mistake.  It turns out the prudential regulation and supervision was not strong in Iceland."  Since Iceland went into economic collapse because the banks failed, I'm not sure what else he could say.   But Ferguson follows up.

Ferguson:  So what led you to think that it was?
Mishkin:  I think. . . you go with the information you have . . Generally the view was that Iceland had very good institutions, it was a very advanced company . . .
Ferguson:  Who told you that?  What kind of research did you do?
Mishkin:  You talk to people, you have faith in the Central Bank, which actually did fall down on the job, ah
Ferguson:  Why do you have faith in the Central Bank?
Mishkin:  Well [not?] faith, you, uh, because, you, uh, go with the information you have -
Ferguson:  How much were you paid to write it?  [This is a good question but I think he should have let him finish the previous answer first just to see where it would go.]
Mishkin:  I was paid, uh, I think the number's public, it was public information .

The screen goes black and then shows that Mishkin got paid $124,000 for his work on the report.

I did research on Chinese Civil Service Reform in the early 90s.  I met other American academics in Beijing who attended similar Chinese presentations I heard and I read their articles that pretty much followed the wording of the handouts the agencies distributed.  That's not my idea of research.  I went back home and studied Mandarin for a year, returned to Beijing, got a tutor for two weeks more intensive Chinese (barely enough to go through the initial introductions in Chinese and to be able to understand some of the words I was hearing) and did intensive interviews with the nine agencies that were doing experiments with Chinese civil service reform and discovered that the rosy picture being presented by the officials the year before was not exactly what was happening.  I paid my own way back to Beijing and for my student-interpreter and all my other expenses.  I got no fee, though my Hong Kong students and I did get feasted well on that first study trip.  It was in later research that I learned that hosting such meals was considered by some as a form of corruption.  And while the final article missed many things, it didn't rely on 'faith' in the official party line nor did I "go with the information you have."  That's why they call it research, you go beyond what everyone believes and you seek a basis for what people tell you.

So I'm not terribly tolerant of lazy academics who pick up hefty fees (his $124,000 fee - on top of his full time salary at Columbia at the time I presume - was well above my full time salary when I retired from UAA) - to lend academic approval to their clients' projects.

Then Ferguson asks about the title of the report.

Ferguson:  In your CV the title of the report has been changed from "Financial Stability in Iceland" to "Financial Instability in Iceland."
Mishkin:  Well I don't know. If, which, whatever it is, is, the uh, if it's a typo, there's a typo. [I transcribed this as best I could, you can hear it on the video below.]

Hmmmm.  Let's change the title, after the fact, and in contradiction to the contents, to reflect what actually happened and not what I wrote.  Sorry, that's simply fraud in my opinion.  Typo?  If it were a typo he should have been surprised by the question and asked to see it.  Rarely are my typos that convenient.

There's a cut to the Dean of the College, R. Glenn Hubbard.

Hubbard:  I think what should be publicly available is whenever anybody does research on topic they disclose if they have any financial conflict with that research.
Ferguson:  But if I recall, there is no policy to that effect.
Hubbard:  [Looking very sincere] I can't imagine anybody not doing that in terms of putting in a paper.  It would be significant professional sanctions for failure to do that.

 The film cuts back to Ferguson saying to Mishkin:

Ferguson:  I didn't see anyplace in the study where you said you'd been paid by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce to produce it . . .
Mishkin:  [shaking his head] No, I don't.

My sense is that Professor Mishkin agreed to the interview in good faith.  He believes that what he is doing is normal and ethical and, apparently, important.  And that he's important.  Overall, even though he has some trouble answering some of the questions, he doesn't seem to be personally offended in any way.  He doesn't seem to think that anyone would have any problem with the things he'd done.

You can see these exchanges in this 2 minute video clip I got from YouTube:





In contrast, his Dean at Columbia's School of Business, and former Chair of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, R. Glenn Hubbard, does get upset. He too seems, at first, used to being given respect and apparently accepted this interview because he's an expert who is being consulted about the  financial crisis.  But (in the 2nd clip below, which begins with the assertion that the field of economics itself has been corrupted by its close ties with the financial industry) when the questions get closer to home Hubbard gets testy.

Deans have to be more accessible than business executives and high level government officials to the young and sometimes cheeky and it's almost as though he were indulging one of his grad students by accepting this interview.

Ferguson:  I'm looking at your resume now.  It looks to me as if the majority of your outside activities are uh consulting and directorship arrangements with the financial services industry. Is that, would you not agree with that characterization?
Hubbard:  To my knowledge, I don't think my consulting clients are even on my CV.*
Ferguson: Ah.  Who are your consulting clients?
Hubbard:  I don't believe I have to discuss that with you. . .
Ferguson:  OK [I bet he's kicking himself for not following up with "I'm sorry, can you explain why you would have a problem discussing your consulting clients?"]
Hubbard:  You've got a few more minutes and the interview's over.
Ferguson:  Do they include other financial services firms?
Hubbard:  [Shrugging his shoulders] Possible.
Ferguson:  You don't remember?
Hubbard:   This isn't a deposition, sir. [Clearly irritated now] I was polite enough to give you time, foolishly, I now see.  You have three more minutes.  Give it your best shot.

 *Actually, Hubbard's online CV does include consulting clients and directorships. [Were they always on there or are they on there because of the new Columbia policy (see below)?]

DIRECTORSHIPS

2007-present	Met Life
2006-2008	Capmark Financial Corporation; Information Services Group
2004-present	ADP, Inc.; KKR Financial Corporation; BlackRock Closed-End Funds
2004-2008	Duke Realty Corporation
2004-2006	Dex Media/R.H. Donnelley
2003-2005	ITU Ventures
2000-2001	Angel Society, LLC; Information Technology University, LLC

CONSULTING OR ADVISORY RELATIONSHIPS

2005-2009	Arcapita
2005-present	Nomura Holdings America
2003-present	Analysis Group (also 1995-2003)
2008	Laurus Funds
2005-2008	Chart Venture Partners
2003-2009	Ripplewood Holdings

The video cuts to a 2004 report co-authored by Hubbard (and Goldman, Sachs' chief economist) titled, "How Capital Markets Enhance Economic Performance and Facilitate Job Creation" and highlights sections that seemingly prematurely praise factors of the financial market such as: 

• ". . . and the derivatives market -  has improved the allocation of capital and of risks throughout."
• ". . . the enhanced stability of the US banking system"
• "The capital markets have acted to reduce volatility in the economy.  Recessions are less frequent and milder when they occur. 
• "Credit derivative obligations have become an important element that has helped protect bank lending portfolios against loss."

If you don't see the problem with those conclusions, you really should watch the movie. 

The movie then cuts to John Campbell, Dean of the Department of Economics, Harvard who is asked whether he would be bothered if medical researchers didn't disclose that their income came mainly from pharmaceutical companies.

Campbell:  It's certainly important to disclose the um, the um [looks down, long pause] well, I think that's also a little different from cases we're talking about around here because um [pause - screen goes black]  um . . .

Then on the black screen it says,

"The Presidents of Harvard University and Columbia University refused to comment on academic conflicts of interest."

[Note, the clip here cuts to a black screen, but with references to the film itself.  You can see a different clip with just John Campbell here  with the references to the Harvard and Columbia presidents]

I don't know what got edited out and whether the exchanges were fairly - even if dramatically - close to what we actually see.  From the Columbia Spectator:

Hubbard added that he told Ferguson in their on-camera interview about his public disclosures, although this portion of the interview did not appear in the film.

“I did say it to him, but he has editorial authority and I don’t,” Hubbard said.

Below is the clip with Hubbard and Campbell.






I couldn't help but wonder how this interview affected the faculty and students at Columbia's School of Business.  It was just so damning about the Dean and Mishkin.  I've found two Columbia Spectator articles about the reaction on campus.  A long April 13, 2011 article says the movie was shown on campus and filmmaker Ferguson was there for discussion.  One professor said every student should see the film and there were calls for an examination of the conflict of interest policy.  It also explains Hubbard's reluctance to talk about his directorships.

"Hubbard did not want to talk about the fact that he is paid $250,000 per year to serve on the board of Metropolitan Life, one of the largest global insurance providers, and that he sat on the board of Capmark, a major commercial mortgage lender, until shortly before its bankruptcy in 2009."

[It's not clear to me whether this came out in the film or not.  I don't remember it from Friday night and it's not in the clips I looked at on YouTube.] 

The May 14 Columbia Spectator article (updated May 19) says a faculty committee have rewritten the ethics codes and requirements.

Under the new policy, Business School professors will be required to publicly disclose all outside activities—including consulting—that create or appear to create conflicts of interest.

“If there is even a potential for a conflict of interest, it should be disclosed,” Business School professor Michael Johannes said in an email. “To me, that is what the policy prescribes. That part is easy.”

The policy passed with “overwhelming” faculty support at a Tuesday faculty meeting, according to Business School Vice Dean Christopher Mayer, who chaired the committee that crafted the policy.

The new policy mandates that faculty members publish up-to-date curricula vitae, including a section on outside activities, on their Columbia webpages. In this section, they will be required to list outside organizations to which they have provided paid or unpaid services during the past five years, and which they think creates the appearance of a conflict of interest.
This section must include, but is not limited to, consulting work, research, membership on a company’s board, and expert witness testimony.
“We’re talking about five years of work,” Mayer said. “And it’s not like activities of $10,000 or more…I give a talk for $1,500 to some group four years ago, and I’m listing that on my vitae.”

Although the article says,

The film ignited a debate about conflict of interest policies at Columbia, prompting the administration to reexamine the issue and influencing a scheduled University Senate policy review. 

Dean Hubbard maintained a different view.

Hubbard, though, said that the terms of the new policy do not reflect the allegations made in the film, noting that the Business School was involved in discussing a new conflict of interest policy that the University Senate passed in 2009.

“I don’t think they’re related at all,” Hubbard said, referring to the movie and the new policy. “In our case, our faculty started in 2009, and in my own case, the question about my board service was clearly on my CV, and the amount was on the FEC website.”

Ego is such a strange thing. In the movie Hubbard said he didn't think his consulting was on his CV.  And what exactly does "involved in discussing a new . . . policy" mean?  Clearly Hubbard does not want to acknowledge the film caused the change.  And even if they were working on a new policy already, to say the film had no affect at all, looks ridiculous in the context of the article.  But it's possible he is correct, because the Columbia Business School's new Conflict of Interest policy (dated July 1, 2011) has a section dated July 1, 2009.

Conflict of Interest

University Policy on Financial Conflicts of Interest and Research (published July 1, 2009) “… requires individuals to disclose outside financial interests that relate to any of their research, including unfunded research, to peers and members of the public. These disclosures must be made in publications, reports, talks, or other presentations of research.” Columbia University faculty members are expected to follow this disclosure not only in academic publications but in consulting reports, presentations, and other work product that will be publicly available.

This leaves the question about whether there ever were any sanctions for Professor Mishkin. (The report was done well before the 2009 policy, though in the film the Dean said anyone doing what he did would be severely sanctioned.) I'd note that the new policy also says faculty may not do outside consulting that takes more than one day per week.  We don't know how long Mishkin spent on his Icelandic report, but how do you do a $100,000 job one day a week? 

A comment at Poets and Quants on this, suggests the new regs don't go nearly far enough:

Seems to me that if you want a practice to end you prohibit it, and impose penalties for violations, you don't require people to disclose the problematic behavior. (If the IRS was operated by Columbia faculty nobody would ever go to jail for tax fraud...as long as they disclosed it.) If you ask me, the faculty approved changes that don't really solve the problem.

Louis Lavelle
Associate Editor
Bloomberg Businessweek

 I would say that in my academic career I ran across a variety of faculty.  Most were sincere and decent, though I suspect that Professor Mishkin appeared in class as a decent person too.  Many faculty I knew were aware of the ethical standards and scrupulous about keeping their research free of any appearance of conflicts of interest.  A small number saw the research as a means to an end (promotion, travel to conferences, prestige, pay), not an end in itself.

For interested Alaskans, here's what University of Alaska employees (everyone, not just faculty) must report annually (from a University of Alaska HR webpage):

"Employees also must disclose any work they perform outside of their University employment. Examples of outside activities that must be disclosed are self-employment, independent contracting, or consulting. In addition, any volunteer or uncompensated work performed outside of the University must be disclosed if there is any possibility that the work might involve the same issues or people as your University duties. All employee and employee family member interests in contracts with the University must be disclosed and pre-approved using the Interest In Contracts form, not the Outside Employment form. In case of doubt, be on the safe side and disclose. If you have no outside activities, you are not required to submit a form. . .

Outside employment must be disclosed prior to beginning the employment, when changes occur, and every July 1, even if a form was previously submitted (or within 30 days of beginning or resuming University employment). The attached form titled, “Disclosure of Employment or Services Outside of the University of Alaska” must be completed in full, signed by the employee, and reviewed by the employee’s supervisor. The supervisor makes an initial determination about possible adverse affect on employment, and forwards the form to the designated MAU ethics representative for review.

Other ethics disclosure forms (interest in grants/contracts/leases/loans, notification of receipt of gift in excess of $150, notification of receipt of gift from another government, notification of potential violation, disclosure of employment of immediate family members) may be obtained from the Office of the General Counsel. Additional information regarding the Ethics Act is also available at http://www.alaska.edu/hr/forms/hr_ethicsforms/ or http://www.law.state.ak.us/doclibrary/ethics.html Please note that the disclosure form on the reverse side of this memo was revised June 2010; any blank forms with an earlier date should be destroyed.

You may be required to submit other disclosures if you engage in sponsored research. Please contact your MAU research compliance officer for further information. Thank you for your cooperation. Feel free to contact me if you have questions."

Money is America's most certain motivator.  Whoever is paying is going to have influence on what is done.  And knowing you might get another contract or speaking engagement causes many, even if they aren't conscious of it, to censor what they write so as not to offend the source of the money. 

When Does 32 million = 9? Can You Pass REAP's Pop Energy Quiz

 REAP has the following quiz up on their website. (Answers below.)

 

 

 

 

1)  What uses more total energy in the U.S. – buildings or transportation?
 

 

 

2)  What is the biggest source of renewable energy in use today in Alaska?

3)  32 million barrels of oil is enough to supply world demand for how long?

4)  Which two towns on the Iditarod Sled Dog Race trail are powered with wind power?

5)  What is the average yearly energy savings of homes that have participated in the Alaska Home Energy Rebate Program?

6)  Up to how much of their income do rural Alaskans spend on energy?

 7)  What does REAP stand for?

 

ANSWERS:

1A - Buildings! Buildings accounted for 39.9% of total energy use in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Energy statistics. Transportation used only 28%.

2A - Hydropower is the largest supplier of energy currently. It provides 21% of Alaska’s electrical power.

 3A -  About 9 hours. In 2010, global demand for oil averaged 87.8 million barrels/day, according to the International Energy Agency

 4A -  Nome and Unalakleet. Unalakleet has 6 Northwind100 turbines, which since November 2009 have kept the town from having to burn more than 100,000 gallons of diesel. Nome has 18 Entegrity EW-50 turbines installed on Banner Peak in 2008.  Learn more…

 5A -  Just over $1,500 (This figure from 2010 is based on a survey of 6,998 homes that had participated in the program).

 6A -  In Alaska, nearly 80% of rural communities are dependent on diesel fuel for their primary energy needs. The poorest Alaskan households spend up to 47% of their income on energy, more than five times their urban neighbors.

7A -REAP = Renewable Energy Alaska Project and they're having their

 "The Business of Clean Energy in Alaska"  Conference April 19 and 20 at the Dena'ina Center

Only the truly delusional* and/or those with a vested interest in fossil fuel use still deny that climate change is serious and we need to find ways to use less.  This is most clear when we see business folks spending money to cut the costs of their business' energy use.  At this conference they come together to find more ways to save.

Monday the registration prices increase so if you plan to go, now's the time to sign up.  I've gone to two of these as a blogger.  (Yes, they give me a free press pass. And they said it was ok to post their quiz.)  There's a lot to learn and interesting people to meet. 

Here's a link to their agenda.   You can get to their registration from there.

*I know.  I'm usually more moderate, but there comes a time when you can't keep pretending that some people have reasonable arguments.  On climate change we're past that point.  And some of the deniers acknowledge that by now talking about adaptation.  We can still use all the fossil fuels we want, we just have to adapt to the changes they are causing.  

Here's someone else who can't help but speak up on climate change who understands things better than I.  James Hansen, a climate change scientist and grandfather, speaks up at TED:

Hitler Visits Paris 1940 - Decides Not To Destroy It

Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt:  The Home Front in World War II is my book club's April reading.  And since it's 636 pages (plus another 100 of notes), it seemed a good idea to get a head start. (I still have to get and read the March book.)

I imagine that I might post a few more tidbits from this history of WW II in the coming weeks.  This part on Hitler's first trip to Paris (I don't know if he made a second trip) particularly struck me.

We learn that Hitler had been 'enchanted' by Paris since he'd been an art student and once the German army had taken France, he thought it would be a good time to visit.  We're told he had studied and fantasized about Paris so much that "he was certain he could find his way anywhere solely from his knowledge of the buildings and the monuments."  (You can see I'm trying to balance the idea of 'fair use' and copyright protection for Goodwin by trying to limit blanket quoting as much as possible.)

They arrived before dawn and went straight to the opera, "his favorite building."

"A white-haired French attendant led Hitler's party through the sumptuous foyer and in front of the curtain.  Hitler, looking puzzled, told the attendant that in his mind's eye he was certain a salon was supposed to be to the right.  The attendant confirmed Hitler's memory;  the salon had been eliminated in a recent renovation.  "There, you see how well I know my way about, "  Hitler remarked in triumph to his entourage.

Hitler, Speer (l)  from Eyewitness to History

From the Opéra, Hitler was driven down the Champs-Elysées and taken to the Eiffel tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and Napoleon's tomb.  In the tomb, he trembled with excitement and ordered that the remains of Napoleon's son, which rested in Vienna, be transferred to Paris and placed beside those of his father.  Minutes later, his mood having shifted, he ordered the destruction of two World War I monuments:  the statue of General Charles Mangin, leader of the colonial troops, whose memorial included an honor guard of four Negro soldiers, and the monument to Edith Cavell, the English nurse who became a popular heroine and was executed in 1915 for aiding over two hundred Allied soldiers to escape from a Red Cross hospital in German-occupied Belgium."

It would be interesting to hear the story from the attendant who showed him around.  What must that have been like for him?  Any short story writers out there?  [Trying to find out, just before hitting the publish button, if there was ever another trip to Paris for Hitler, I found a link to Speer's full account of this trip.  It's only a few paragraphs.  There I learned that the attendant turned down a 50 Mark tip that was offered him.  The photo is also from this link.]

While trying to find out if a new Cavell memorial was built in Paris,  I came across this news clip of the dedication of the monument that Hitler had destroyed.  It's tiny.  There's a larger clip of the dedication of the monument to Cavell in London.  It looks a lot like a blogger's video of such an event today.  Wikipedia doesn't include a Paris memorial on their Cavell page.

And Wikipedia's tale of Mangin's statue is different from Goodwin's:

The statue of Mangin was destroyed in 1940 after the armistice. During his tour of Paris, Adolf Hitler visited Napoleon's tomb and the statue, being a reminder of Mangin's machinations in the Rhineland, was one of two he ordered dynamited. (The other was of Edith Cavell.) In 1957 a new statue was erected on the avenue de Breteuil.

Goodwin cites Robert Payne's Life and Death of Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich.  Wikipedia references Louis-Eugène Mangin's Le Général Mangin, (Privately Published, 1990).   Wikipedia's picture of the new statue in Paris doesn't show the four honor guards.


The last paragraph of this passage from Goodwin (page 72) is the most noteworthy in my opinion:

As the three-hour tour came to an end, an exhilarated Hitler told Speer:  "It was the dream of my life to be permitted to see Paris.  I cannot say how happy I am to have that dream fulfilled."  That evening Hitler ordered Speer to resume at once his architectural renovations of Berlin.  However beautiful Paris was, Berlin must, in the end, be made far more beautiful.  "In the past I often considered whether we would not have to destroy Paris,"  he confided to Speer.  "But when we are finished in Berlin, Paris will only be a shadow.  So why should we destroy it?" [emphasis added]

Let's take all this with a grain of salt.  Speer was there, but there probably weren't too many others who were there to challenge his 1970 account.  He was close to Hitler and held various positions including the architect who was to build this great Berlin, Hitler's vision of which seems to have saved Paris from destruction, and he became the Minister of Armaments and Wartime Production.  But the Jewish Virtual History also tells us:

Speer's relations with Hitler deteriorated when Speer disobeyed Hitler's order to destroy Nazi industrial installations in areas close to the advancing Allies. [It seems he didn't want to destroy his own creations.]

He later claimed that he independently conspired to assassinate Hitler, though historians doubt whether he ever meant to execute this plan.

Speer was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal in 1946. He had been charged with employing forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners in the German armaments industry. His testimony was notable because he was the lone defendant to accept responsibility for the practices of the Nazi regime — both for his actions and for those not under his control. He was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment in Spandau prison, after which he published his best-selling memoir, Inside the Third Reich (1970). He described himself in this account as a technician unconcerned with politics, but he still took responsibility for his role in aiding the Nazis, and expressed his regret at having done so. Again, he assumed responsibility for those actions beyond his immediate control, and expressed regret for his inaction during the slaughter of the Jews.

Speer died in London in 1981.

Reading history, especially when delving deeply Goodwin as does, gives us perspective on today's events.  Passages like this one remind us that famous leaders are just human beings and what they do has roots in their life experiences.  Hitler's desire to see Paris and his decision to let it stand are an example.  We might wonder, say, what is affecting President Assad's thinking these days?


Knowing history, if we make the wrong comparisons, can lead us astray. The lessons  from World War II that US leaders applied to Vietnam were the wrong lessons.   But careful reading of history and awareness of today can help us avoid past mistakes and can give us insight into current world affairs.

By the way,  No Ordinary Time, won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2005.


[U[DATE October 12, 2015: Apparently Hitler did order Paris destroyed in 1944.  See discussion of that in review of the film Dipolomacy about the Swedish diplomat who negotiated with the German General who was governor of Paris in 1944, General Choltitz.]


[UPDATE May 14, 2017: I got an email from British visitor, John Hussey of Liverpool, to the blog asking if would like to add a link to his post on Hitler's visit to Paris.  His is based on a book, Paris, Hitler, and Me, he found in Paris by German sculptor,  Arno Breker (1900 - 1991), who according to the book, was 'invited' to be Hitler's guide in Paris.   Breker is the man on the right in the picture above.  John Hussey's post is well worth reading to complement this post.  You can see it at Paris In Depth - An Unwelcome Visitor.

Sun and Snow - And Great Alaskan Light

As nice as the warmth and sun of LA was, Anchorage welcomed us with spectacular snow and light.

Although it had snowed while we were traveling home, by mid day the clouds were dissipating and the mountains came into view.

But first I had a driveway to shovel.  Two different neighbors came by with their snowblowers and helped out a bit in front. 




After I shoveled and the March sun did it's thing, the driveway was looking much better, though it still had a lot of packed down snow that I'll be chipping at for a few more days.

And we saw evidence of all the snow that puts this year into the top 3 or 4 in total snowfall (with March and April still to go.)


At the post office, there was a pile of snow behind a fence.

And here's the snow that Costco's been clearing from its parking lot.

Earlier in the day I'd biked over to the Thai Kitchen and here's one of the empty side streets I rode home on.  A real contrast from the crowded LA streets I'd been negotiating.

We've never had this much snow at our house before.  The mailbox is almost buried in the snow.  People are beginning to worry about breakup with all this snow.  Good years give us dry, sunny, windy weather that evaporates the water from the snow.  We'll see.

4% of Voting Eligible Tennesseans Vote for Santorum - Some Context of a Primary

From the State of Tennessee's website tonight: 

President - Republican
Michele Bachmann - R	1,790
Newt Gingrich - R	126,251
Jon Huntsman - R	1,143
Gary Johnson - R	542
Ron Paul - R	47,794
Rick Perry - R	1,829
Charles "Buddy" Roemer - R	830
Mitt Romney - R	144,237
Rick Santorum - R	192,765

President - Democratic
Barack Obama - D	68,221

Adding those all up we come up with 585,402 voters in both the Republican and Democratic primaries.


From the United States Election Project website at George Mason University, we learn that Tennessee's voting eligible population  4,621,705.

That means that about 12.6% of Tennessee's voting eligible population voted in Tuesday's primary.

That means about 4.1% of Tennessee's voting eligible population voted for Santorum.  



Tennessee's voter id law took effect January this year requiring voters to have photo id.  Here's the state of Tennessee's website list of acceptable voter id:

Any of the following IDs may be used, even if expired:

• Tennessee drivers license with your photo
• United States Passport
• Photo ID issued by the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security
• Photo ID issued by the federal or any state government
• United States Military photo ID
• State-issued handgun carry permit with your photo

And what id is NOT acceptable?

College student IDs and photo IDs not issued by the federal or a state government are NOT acceptable.

And who is exempt from the photo id requirement?

• Voters who vote absentee by mail (view requirements here)
• Voters who are residents of a licensed nursing home or assisted living center and who vote at the facility         
• Voters who are hospitalized
• Voters with a religious objection to being photographed*
• Voters who are indigent and unable to obtain a photo ID without paying a fee

 You might want to go through that list and ask yourself which of the id's that are acceptable are more likely to vote conservative or liberal (say, people with military id's or student id's;  older folks - nursing homes, hospitalized - or younger folks?)

And consider how someone might prove they are indigent.  Or even how an indigent person might.

By the way, the two PSA announcements - first  and second -  don't tell you much more than you need a photo id.  There's nothing about the exceptions.  Or that student ids aren't acceptable. 

Bradblog has a story about a former US Marine who is challenging the law by showing his Tennessee voter registration card, but refusing to show a photo id.  I'm assuming this is an action intended to lead to a court challenge of the law.  I think the challenge is important, but I'm not too impressed with this particular person's video taped protest in his polling place. 

I'm not sure what this all means, but I'm wondering why the media have been making such a big deal out of the primaries and giving them so much coverage without pointing out the pitifully low voter turnout and questioning people's claims about the importance of democracy. 

*I'm not doing well looking on Google  for religions that ban photography.  I found a story about an Amish Canadian claiming his religion forbids personal photos and an Islamic woman claiming her religion forbids a photo (for a drivers license) without her veil. 

80s to Teens - LA to Anchorage

Sunday was in the 80s, even at Venice beach.  In this picture it was almost 5pm and was still warm with a lot of people on the beach - some even going into the chilly (55˚F -14˚C) ocean.

People were paying $9 to park their cars at 5pm to see the sunset.  The traffic was backed up for blocks.  The sort of situation when those of us on bikes feel a little smug.  The picture is from the Venice Beach parking lot at the end of Rose right at the Venice Boardwalk.  You can see the shadows are getting long as the sun is getting low.

In addition to the traffic, the gas prices were high.  (We saw $4.09 as we drove home from the airport in Anchorage.) I took this picture from the bus stop Monday (still warm but with clouds) as we waited for the afternoon bus to the airport.  (Yes, you can take the bus, but apparently you can't walk into the LA airport.)

And while there is free wifi in the Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco airports, I couldn't find it in LAX.

Lincoln and Rose

When we got to the airport, the good news was that we had been bumped up into first class.  I mentioned when we went down to LA that we had flown so much last year that we got MVP cards.  This MVP card has more benefits than I realized.  I didn't do anything, they just changed our seats. It also gets us on the plane earlier and gets us into a shorter security line. I'm not a hierarchical person - I don't like it when people are given status that suggests some people are better than others - because most such divisions tend to be superficial or even bogus.  And I don't see why people who have more money or fly more should get to cut in the security line.  Security is required by the US government and money shouldn't give you privilege for required government functions.  But that's a post of its own one day, maybe. 

On the connecting flight to Anchorage they put us in the exit row so we had lots of leg room.  And we checked in some baggage which we don't normally do.   But our 10:20 pm flight left about 40 minutes late and when you're due in at 1am, that gets to be a long day.  Then when we arrived we had to wait for a plane to be de-iced before we could get to the terminal.  Here we are sitting, waiting for 10 minutes, with a bit of snow still coming down. 

One reason we've checked in baggage - other than we were gone 5 weeks and had 2 bags each free check in with the MVP (and as others mentioned last time with the Alaska Club that any Alaskan can join free), is Alaska's 20 minute baggage guarantee. In the past we've waited for an hour for our luggage. Well, it was clearly more than 20 minutes this morning - and it was now 2:30am Anchorage time, 3:30am Pacific time - so I asked the baggage folks and they gave me the coupon for $20 off our next flight (or 2000 miles) that they offer if your baggage is over 20 minutes in coming.  While they apologized over the loudspeakers about the slow luggage, they didn't tell people to come get their coupons.  It does pay to read. 

Then there were no taxis outside.  Another 10 minutes until enough showed up to handle everyone.  And we were home at 3am or so. 

I've got a lunch meeting today, the garage door wasn't working when we got home, and the internet wasn't either. (The Internet I've obviously solved.)  So we have lots of catch up to do after our long absence.  Now I've got to shovel the driveway.  But yes, it's good to be home.

I Didn't Connect to Ruskin's Lonesome West

I couldn't relate to any of the characters in Lonesome West.  It was well acted, the set was great, the tiny theater puts everyone almost on the stage, and I could hear it all well, though the Irish accents were so thick, I had trouble understanding at times, mainly the priest's words got lost.

That was my reaction as we left the Ruskin Group Theater Saturday night and I pretty much decided not even to post about it.  It just wasn't my world at all.

But it seems my brain has been working on this without my knowing and this morning my reaction was clearer.  We like some art because it reflects what we feel.  But really good art should help us understand things and people we don't know.  That's what was missing.

Lonesome West takes place in Ireland - I think they mentioned Galway in the play, and Wikipedia confirms that.   There's lots of alcohol and two adult brothers who do their best to piss the other off.  (It's a lot grimmer than that, but that's enough.)

I couldn't relate to these characters and nothing happened in the play to bridge the gap.  They were strangers at the beginning and not much more at the end.  There was some allusion to past wrongs that could justify the brothers' hostility to each other, but I never felt I got into any of the character's hearts.  I was watching these dysfunctional siblings and their equally troubled friends, and I always was an outsider.  I never saw the world from their view.  I never felt their pain.  Mostly I was irritated at their constant fighting.  For me, a really good play would have made me understand - emotionally as well as rationally - why they had so much trouble breaking the cycle.   We never got a glimpse of their humanity, only their self-destructive behaviors.

It's a pity.  This could be a universal play.  Certainly many rural Alaskan villages (not to mention some urban Alaskan settings) see the same kinds of alcoholism and violence that's portrayed in this production.  Is there a commonality that we could learn from?  I didn't get it watching this play.

I do like this little theater in the Santa Monica Airport which holds maybe 70 spectators (the photo of the set was from my seat before the play began) and is easy walking distance from my mom's.  And we'll see what they're doing next time we're here.  And I am still thinking about what I saw. 

Transistions - California's Evolving Marijuana Law

The beauty and craziness of decentralized government means that experiments can happen in some places, but this can make for contradictions.  Right now California is experimenting with medical marijuana dispensaries, trying to figure out how to make it work. 
 While people have advocated for legal marijuana for decades, the big breaktrhough was a voter approved initiative:

Proposition 215, or the Compassionate Use Act of 1996,^[1] is a California law concerning the use of medical cannabis. It was enacted, on November 5, 1996, by means of the initiative process, and passed with 5,382,915 (55.6%) votes in favor and 4,301,960 (44.4%) against.  [Wikipedia]

Now there are medical dispensaries all over the state.  But some local governments have used zoning laws to ban the dispensaries.

And this past week, the LA Times reports on a court case making local bans illegal:

The Santa Ana-based state Court of Appeal, citing the language of a state medical marijuana law, ruled unanimously Wednesday that a zoning law in Lake Forest amounted to an illegal ban on dispensaries. More than 100 local governments in California currently ban medical marijuana operations.

 There are four other appeal court cases that are expected to go to the state Supreme Court to eliminate some of the contradictions. 

Here's what a state health department website says:

The Medical Marijuana Program (MMP) was established to provide a voluntary medical marijuana identification card issuance and registry program for qualified patients and their caregivers.  The web-based registry system allows law enforcement and the public to verify the validity of qualified patient or caregiver's card as authorization to possess, grow, transport and/or use Medical Marijuana in California.  To facilitate the verification of authorized cardholders, the verification database is available on the internet at www.calmmp.ca.gov.
In 2003, Senate Bill (SB) 420 (Chapter 875, Statutes of 2003) was passed as an extension and clarification of Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996.  The Medical Marijuana Program, within CDPH, is administered through a patient's county of residence.  Upon obtaining a recommendation from their physician for use of medicinal marijuana, patients and their primary caregivers may apply for and be issued, a Medical Marijuana Identification Card.  Senate Bill 420 also required that the MMP be fully supported through the card application processing fees.  Both the state and the counties have authority to cover their costs for the program through these application fees.

The top picture is very clearly a medical marijuana dispensary that operates on the Venice Boardwalk.

When I went by Dr. Schultz's botantical pharmacy I assumed it was a fancier version of a medical marijuana dispensary.  But after checking the website, I don't think that is the case.  
Dr. Schulze's pharmacy was established in 1979 according to its website and I had to look hard to find any mention of marijuana and it is NOT listed among the products.  The only place I could find it mentioned is on a pdf file I can no longer find, titled "Dr. Richard Schultz's Natural Healing Crusade."  There's a long list of herbal medicines and marijuana is mentioned on page 29.   


Meanwhile,  tomorrow we head back for Anchorage.  It's been a long time.  We've had great weather and it's been good to be with my mom all this time and to see our kids and friends.  Our heads are already transitioning.  As much as I've traveled in my life, it is still hard to reconcile the warm sunny weather we're having in LA with the cold and snow that is in Anchorage.  But it is March and the solstice [equinox] is coming soon and after that Anchorage will have more light than every place to the south.  (most places)

The good news is that it will be cooling down in LA the next few days and warming up in Anchorage.  And I'm looking forward to getting on my cross country skis and gliding through the white woods.

Some Acacia Seeds Germinate Only After Passing Through A Giraffe's Digestive System

So said the sign at "The Living Desert" in Palm Desert.   I'm a reluctant zoo visitor.  I love seeing the animals, I'm not happy about seeing them in cages.  We went to the Living Desert because an old friend who lives in the area is a member an invited us.

(I could put up my giraffe picture, but it would be an example of what not to do when taking a picture.  The light was bright and I couldn't see the screen and got a plant right in front of the giraffe.)

It turns out to be a new form of zoo.  Their history page says:

Badger

The Living Desert was established in 1970 by several trustees of the Palm Springs Desert Museum who foresaw the impact that resort development would have on their local desert ecosystem. This foresight led to an interpretive nature trail and preserve in Palm Desert. Among the trustees was Philip L. Boyd who also founded the Riverside campus of the University of California and the Deep Canyon Research Station in Palm Desert. Among his first tasks was to hire a resident naturalist. This person turned out to be a young woman with energy, intelligence and ambition, as well as experience as a zoo keeper and park ranger, plus graduate work in wildlife biology. Karen Sausman was President and CEO of The Living Desert for forty years and has recently retired. The vision that built The Living Desert and the love of the desert shared by Phillip Boyd, Karen Sausman, our members, volunteers, staff, trustees, and friends, will be carried forward by our new President and CEO, Stacey Johnson.

For almost four decades The Living Desert has been engaged in the important work of preserving, conserving and interpreting the desert and all its varied plant and animal life.

They have 1800 acres, they say, of which 1000 are in their natural state.  They have a tram and what I'd call adult strollers which made it easy for my mom to get around with us.

Cougar

Most of their animals are local - including Endangered species like the Mexican wolf and Peninsula Bighorn sheep, which we saw, but I didn't take pictures of.  But I did get pictures of a cougar and a badger.








And then they have the non-local animals like the giraffes and the cheetah.

The Mexican Wolf display had this useful sign for people who have trouble reading the body language of wolves (and dogs.)

Click to enlarge

Thanks Tim for a great time.

MisoFishy and TVs in Restaurants

We were having dinner with my mom at MisoFishy on Lincoln. 

It's unpretentious, but more than a hole in the wall.  It felt like a neighborhood restaurant with a larger appeal.


But it had three big video screens.  One, appropriately, was an animated fish tank, but the other two had on a basketball game.  

A young couple (anyone under 40 fits that) was sitting near us.  I apologize for this picture, but I felt uncomfortable intruding on the privacy of the couple with my camera.  I didn't realize until I got home that I had the woman's face in it.  I've smudged her face in Photoshop.  She was attractive and so was the man sitting across the table from her.  They both had wedding rings on and I assumed they were married.  They talked a lot.  But every few minutes or so, while she was looking at him and talking to him, his head angled up and his eyes locked onto the screen for five to fifteen seconds.  He was so clearly NOT paying complete attention to his companion. 

My eyes wandered up to the screen now and then too.  And I've noticed the seductiveness of tv monitors in other restaurants.  How is this affecting relationships?  This couple was having real conversation that kept being interrupted by the screen.  I could see him break eye contact to check the television from behind him.  Surely she must have been irked when his eyes left hers for the ballgame.

Perhaps I paid more attention this time after the Chris Hedges video I posted last week in which he talked about his book Empire of Illusion and how we're moving from literacy to images and how we are being distracted by all the moving images.  We're being distracted from what we're doing, just by the movement, as in this case at the restaurant.  And we're being distracted by the content, distracted both from our real lives by this artificial life and from the realities of power in society. 

But I don't think individual restaurant owners are part of a conspiracy to distract us  paying more attention to lobbyists and who pays them.  They must think that customers want televisions.  But do we?


Do restaurants without tv monitors do less well than those with?  [As soon as I wrote that I had to start googling, below is a sampling of what I found on televisions in restaurants.]

Most online comments are negative with exceptions for sports bars, possibly lobbies where people are waiting, and airports.  (I'm ok with sports bars having tvs.)

Back in October 2008, when he was about to turn 33, James Norton reflected my concerns above:

Now insert a television, even with the volume turned down. It catches your attention, and your brain does what brains do: It tries to understand the image, the context, and the story, deciphering the action and suddenly and illogically becoming invested in it. Doesn't matter if it's a presidential debate with subtitles or a newly rebroadcast rerun of ALF. We're hooked. And we're disengaged from the people with whom we're supposed to be connecting.

A similar sentiment from Riverfront Times:

​Gut Check has begrudgingly accepted the sad fact that there will often be an illuminated screen of one type or another shoved in our faces when we eat. Sometimes it's a date that won't put his damn iPhone away, and sometimes there's a blaring flatscreen in every nook and cranny of a restaurant. No, we don't simply dine at sports bars and wing joints, either. We're talking about decent places with nice decor that really should not have a television, much less eight of them.
But, what can you do? It's an ugly, tacky sign of the times.
So, we deal with it when we, mid-sentence, catch our friends staring past us and at a Jersey Shore rerun. Because, rude as it may seem, it's nearly impossible to ignore the screaming flash of the screen (and orange tans), especially when the set is situated just behind/right next to your dining partner's face.

She does draw the line though on content:

And for the love of God, don't let Dr. Oz come on while people are trying to eat.

And I saw other posts complaining about inappropriate surgery and police shows showing while they were eating.


Isolda also realized in a restaurant that had a tv playing a Downton Abbey rerun that it wasn't tv she objected to, but what they had on:

So it occurred to me that what I really hate isn't the TVs so much as sports on TV. If more bars/restaurants were willing to dedicate one of their TVs to chick-friendly fare (with closed captioning), I might not object!

There's also a legal aspect to all this.  From restaurant.org:

Exemption
Restaurants under 3,750 gross square feet (not counting the parking lot) will be exempt from paying royalties on radio and television music only.
Restaurants over 3,750 gross square feet (not counting the parking lot) may also be exempt: 1. if they play no more than four televisions, each measuring up to 55” diagonally (no more than one per room), with no more than six speakers total, and with no more than four speakers per room, or 2. if they play radios that have no more than six speakers total, with no more than four speakers per room.
For restaurants to be eligible for the exemption, they must not charge a cover fee to see the television or listen to the radio.

The Washington Post had an article last September on Best Bars Without Televisions.

Restaurant Management has an article "TVs or No TVs?" which has one restaurant with tv and one without and asks them why. (Each owner likes his policy and says it helps business. But there's no data to prove one is better than the other.)


I started this internet search because I wanted to know if revenue goes up in restaurants with televisions.  So far, I haven't found any studies answering that question.  Probably they are important in sports bars, but what about decent restaurants?

There's a site for waiters and waitresses (make better tips) which says the televisions are not good for revenue:

Also try to avoid restaurants that have television sets in the dining areas. TVs distract diners and can cause people to sit at tables too long. Slow turnover cuts into your profit potential.

Really, that's all I can find on the relationship between televisions in restaurants and revenue.  It's quite possible that everyone just assumes they have to add a tv because their competitors have one (more like five.)  Or tv salespeople are pushing them.

But here's one option from a blogger on Shareable in San Francisco with a long post on this topic:

 “When I go in a bar or restaurant with a TV,” says Josh Mulholland, another friend and a Bay Area writer and teacher. “I only stay long enough to tell them why they aren’t getting my money.”

I think that's the way to go. 


My key objection is expressed well by this Vancouver blogger:

What if I don't want to watch TV? Even if you are not technically watching, it's still intrusive; trying not to watch becomes as irritating as watching. Requests to shut the box off have taught me that the best I can hope for is a channel change or a dip in the volume, with a change of seats sometimes reluctantly granted if the screen is looming over your head like an interrogation lamp.