What City Has More Than A Dozen Bagpipe Factories?

People are constantly saying they'd like to hear some positive news instead of the constant din of negative stories.  But it also seems most people really read the appalling and shocking stories more than the feel good stories.

Here's a bit of news that came via email from a friend.  It's a bit unexpected.  The city of Sialkot, Pakistan is one of the world's biggest exporters of bagpipes.  From CNN:

Sialkot is located in north-east Pakistan, some 125 kilometers from the capital Lahore. Legend has it that the city started making bagpipes during the British Raj, when a Scottish businessman came to town and set up a factory.
More than a century later Sialkot is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of bagpipes, with more than a dozen bagpipe factories, both big and small. 

The video shows a different side of Pakistan than we normally see.




It seems they also make vintage footballs and basketballs, new soccer balls, musical instruments, and  and even replica US Civil War uniforms. 

William Lynch Acquitted of Beating Priest Who Abused Him

Last week I asked readers if they would convict an abuse victim who years later beat up the priest who had raped him and his brother (ages then 7 and 4).  The abuse wasn't disputed by the prosecutor (though the priest denied it), nor was the attack, years later, at a retirement home for priests (yes, he was still a priest).

It just seemed to me that the jury wasn't going to punish the man who had been abused for attacking the priest who still denied it happened.

And the jury just acquitted him.  From the Daily Mail.

A jury acquitted a man Thursday of assaulting a priest he says molested him more than three decades ago during a camping trip and left him with tormented memories that led to alcohol abuse, depression and suicide attempts.
The verdict came after defendant William Lynch took the witness stand during the two-week trial and acknowledged punching Jerold Lindner several times on May 10, 2010.
While previously pleading not guilty, Lynch said he hoped to use the case to publicly shame Lindner and bring further attention to the Catholic Church clergy abuse scandal. . .

Lynch refused to discuss a plea bargain with prosecutors, even when he was promised he could avoid prison and would serve no more than a year in exchange for a guilty plea.

Prosecutors said they were left with little choice but to take the case to trial and ask the jury to find Lynch guilty of felony assault and felony elder abuse. Lindner was 65 at the time of the beating.

You can read the whole article including photos at the Daily Mail.

Despite my strong belief in the rule of law, this decision makes sense to me.  Of course, that conclusion includes the details of the case in which the abuser had never been reported to the police, and was still a priest living in a retirement home for priests.  And still denied he'd done anything wrong. 

I hope this public affirmation helps Mr. Lynch get on with his life and leave this terrible part of it behind now. 

[I reworded the original title which I thought too clunky.]

The ADN's Press-Release Journalism - Kulis Airport Story

[Update, July 7: Followup post here]

Yesterday I got an email from the Department of Transportation.   Somehow I got on their email list and I decided to keep it to see how many of their press releases get picked up and published and how  various media handle them. Do the reporters identify the stories as a press release or publish it as 'news.'

Today we get a good example of Press Release Journalism.  Today on page A-4 the Anchorage Daily News has essentially published the press release with just minor cosmetic changes.

The by-line is Anchorage Daily News/ adn.com.

It starts off like a story written by a reporter.  It's not until the third paragraph (of five) that it says, 'according to the Department of Transportation.'  It's not until the fourth paragraph that it mentions a Department of Transportation statement.  As though everything before that had been gathered and written by a reporter.  Not all the press release is there. A few words have been changed or omitted, but it's basically the DOT's press release almost verbatim.

Here's an example.  I've copied the original sentence from the press release and then used strikeout and brackets to show the ADN changes.

Northern Aviation Services, a division of NAC, has reconfigured the building that once served as the mess hall and kitchen, transforming it into a first class charter terminal for the use of their client, Shell Alaska Exploration [by Shell's employees and contractors.]" 

Essentially, the whole piece is from the DOT press release with most of the language intact.   The byline should read "Department of Transportation" not "Anchorage Daily News."  Although they take paragraphs (actually almost everything) verbatim, there are no quotation marks.  You can see the ADN piece here and the original press release here.

If the ADN wants to publish a press release, that's their business.  But they owe it to their readers to identify it as such.  They shouldn't disguise it as news. 

If they treat it as news, they need to clearly identify what came from the press release and what value the reporter has added. They should relate the story to other stories.  They should raise questions about how this fits into the bigger picture of Anchorage development. 

Essentially DOT announced that Northern Aviation Services (a division of Norther Air Cargo) has remodeled the old mess hall at  Kulis Air National Guard Base (127 acres total) into

"a first class charter terminal for the use of their client, Shell Alaska Exploration. The facility will be supporting transportation of Shell’s employees and contractors during the summer offshore exploration season. NAC has also chartered a Boeing 737-400 passenger aircraft from Miami Air which will be based at Kulis as well."

They also mention that there is still space to lease:

Approximately 230,000 square feet of building space remains available for lease. This includes three C130 hangars, four office buildings, and a large warehouse. Existing improvements also include approximately 15 acres of aircraft parking apron and three acres of vehicle parking lots. 

I couldn't help wondering about the link between the proposed land swap the ADN reported in June where the airport wanted to take land from one of Anchorage's most loved parks - the coastal trail - and swap it for other land.  The move caused widespread protests.

To some people, natural, untouched land that isn't generating income, is wasted land.  The value of the land as watershed, wildlife habitat, noise buffer, aid to mental health, or recreation space,  isn't factored.  For more depth on this idea see an older post on E.O. Wilson's The Future of Life.  or this one on "What makes an Empty Lot?"

The press release says they have 18 acres in the old Kulis land for parking - 15 for planes, three for cars.  The June ADN article doesn't say how many acres would be in the swap.  An Anchorage Press article on the swap doesn't either. (At least searching for 'acre' didn't locate the information.)  But the City Planning Department's West Anchorage District Plan 2011 Chapter 4.3 gives us some numbers:

Ultimately, the Assembly developed and approved a compromise land exchange in 1994 similar to the ballot initiative. Under the exchange, the school district received 40 acres of state land at the southwest corner of Caravelle Drive and Raspberry Road, the airport received 130 acres of HLB land west of its then existing boundary and 191 acres of HLB land were transferred to the Parks and Recreation Department. The land transaction received final approval in 1995, which formally dedicated Point Woronzof Park.

I don't understand how this all fits together.  But I couldn't help but wonder how this relates to the recently reported airport land swap proposal.   I'm not sure, but I think it is worth raising the question. Let's talk about it.  Maybe others do know.  At the very least we need to find out.  The obligation isn't for the journalist to know everything before writing, but to raise questions, and be clear about what is known and what isn't.

I do know that there is a lot of pressure on the city by developers to make as much land available to them with as little regulation as possible. See the current fight over the Municipality's planning document Title 21.   There is also concerted effort by the State Department of Transportation - despite overwhelming community opposition - to push what was Bragaw Road and is now Elmore Road through the greenbelt on the land of the University.  

Some might say that newspapers have been publishing press releases as news items forever.  I don't know if that's true.  It's only when you see the original press release that you see how blatant it is.  Perhaps the generic ADN by-line gives it away.  There is no reporter's name.

I realize the newspaper industry is suffering hard times and they need easy stories.  But give the byline to the source - in this case the Department of Transportation, the department that owns the airport and has a vested interest in its development.  While a state entity should have the public interest in mind, often they are staffed by people whose values are shared with only some of the public.  The readers shouldn't be tricked into thinking this was a news story.

Why I Prefer Fourth of July Over Independence Day

When I was a kid, some of our holidays were celebrated on different dates.  And one has been eliminated.  For example, Memorial Day used to be on May 30.  And then was moved to the last Monday of May.  While I can't find any particular meaning of the May 30 date, there are some who feel moving it to Monday to make a long weekend has diluted the significance of the holiday.

A US Memorial Day website says:

Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."

Veterans' Day was observed on November 11, a day with historical significance.  It was the day of the armistice in World War I.  But it too was moved to Monday.  (And then changed back.)  From the US State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs:

• Veterans Day (November 11)
The Veterans Day holiday is derived from Armistice Day, commemorating the end of the First World War on November 11, 1918. Congress proclaimed a federal holiday in 1938, and in 1954 changed the holiday’s name to Veterans Day in recognition of those who served during the Second World War and the Korean conflict. Today it recognizes all members of the armed forces, living and dead, who served during times of peace or war. (Memorial Day, by contrast, honors those who gave their lives.) While Veterans Day was among the holidays moved to Mondays beginning in 1971, Congress in 1978 restored the holiday to its original November 11 date. Among the annual ceremonies is one at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington.

We used to have a holiday on February 12 to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday and another one on February 22 to celebrate George Washington's birthday.  But a three day weekend, again is better.  I had thought they were combined to make Presidents' Day, but it turns out the official national holiday is Washington's Birthday celebrated on the third Monday of February. (It can never actually be on his birthday as some point out because the latest the third Monday in February can be is February 21.) 

I'm sorry, but for me, a birthday should be on the actual birthday.
 
It turns out that Lincoln's Birthday was never a national holiday.  It was, though, an official holiday in many states.  The LA Times has a 2012 story which discusses this and the 1968 law (it went into effect in 1971) which moved many holidays to Mondays.

The legislation did not please all. According to a United Press International report from 1968, Rep. James A. Haley (D-Fla.) called it “one of the most ridiculous bills ever brought before Congress.”

In an editorial, the Washington Post harrumphed: “Probably there is something to be said for the addition of a Monday holiday occasionally to the Saturday-Sunday weekend. But why should history be distorted in the process?”

A search of Los Angeles Times archives turned up a story from January 1968 by pollster Louis Harris, who wrote that the Harris Survey found that Americans opposed the three-day holiday bill 64% to 31%. (The brief story did not say how many people were polled.)

Harris said the survey showed that federal holidays, including Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Washington’s Birthday, “all have special meaning in their own right and are not looked upon as merely ‘another day off.’”

Harris predicted that with all the other issues roiling the country in the turbulent '60s — the Vietnam War, racial strife, cultural change — Congress would not risk messing with the holidays. Well, Congress risked it.

These days some observers of American culture say that the law did indeed transform days packed with meaning into days to shop, barbecue or watch "Twilight Zone" marathons on cable.   [emphasis added]

 I  too worry about the special meaning of holidays and the dates they are on.  That's why I think it is important that we think of today's holiday as the Fourth of July rather than Independence Day.  It's the day the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress. 

It just seems to me it would be much harder to move the 'Fourth of July' to the sixth or third or fifth of July than it would be to change 'Independence Day' to make it fall on a Monday.  But today's Congress just might not see any problem celebrating the fourth on the fifth.

Borderland Hack and Clutter Followup

Doug at Borderlands has  been cleaning up his blog.  I got there without a warning today, but he's not sure it's all clean yet.  Turns out he found out about the hostile takeover of his blog from my post. He's done a new post about it - Hacked and Back - and set up a new blog:

"I started a new blog at WordPress.com, where I won’t have to think about server-level security issues. I plan to blog there until further notice. Just a “Hello World” post up there now. I’m going to take a little more eclectic approach to the subject matter there than I have with Borderland, and see how it goes. Might be fun."

Meanwhile, I continued with the garage decluttering with a skype session with my daughter going through a box of her old clothes.  She said "give away" to more than half.  Thanks to all those who commented on that post. 

Ptolemy Grey's Apartment Motivates Me To Renew Clutter War Efforts

In The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Walter Mosley writes about a 91 year old man whose grand nephew comes by his apartment twice a week to take him shopping for cans of tuna.  I'll skip ahead to where Reggie is out of the picture and 17 year old Robyn is now over to look out for Ptolemy.

Ptolemy's mind is not always in the present and his apartment is a mess.  No, that doesn't describe it.  In fact, reading this made my mom's garage seem eligible for a spread in Better Homes and Gardens.  Let me give you the picture.

"What is that smell?"  Robyn asked him.
"I don't know.  There's parts'a the house I cain't get into anymore.  The bathroom, half the kitchen.  I ain't been deep in the bedroom since before what's-his-name, uh, Reggie, would come."
"You got a bedroom an' you sleepin' under a table?"
. . .
"Don't go in there," Ptolemy said when Robyn opened the door to the bathroom.
"I got to, Mr. Grey,"  she said.  "If I'ma be comin' here an' looking' aftah you I got to have a toilet to go to."
While Ptolemy tried to think of some other way he could have Robyin's company and keep her out of the bathroom, she opened the door and went in.
"Oh my God,"  she said.  "What is this?"
A large wad of blackened towels flew out from the doorway and landed with a thump on the small bare area of the crowded floor.
Ptolemy covered his face with his hands.
"You got suitcases in the bathtub,"  Robyn called out.  "An' there's black stuff growin' in the commode.  There's, oh my God, oh no. . ."

The kitchen and the bedroom have similar problems.  But soon Robyn takes Mr. Grey to the hardware store and buys a bunch of cleaning equipment and garbage bags.  And some bug bombs.  They go to a motel for two nights while the bug bombs are killing the cockroaches and other vermin in the house and then she spends five days cleaning the apartment.

Five days.  That's all.  I was embarrassed.  I've been fighting the clutter wars at a downright leisurely pace.   I've even got a clutter war tag on the blog.

Five days.  I need to set some deadlines for making room in this house.  Mind you, our commodes have no evil black gunk nor are there suitcases in the bathtubs.  There's just one room downstairs which has been a staging area for things moving out of the house.  The garage is the next way station for outgoing junk.

Five days.   OK, now I'm getting serious.  And while most of you probably don't care about any of this, posting it, I hope, will force me to speed up the pace and really get the garage and downstairs storage room into much more aesthetic and usable space.





An hour tonight in the garage.  It's not a lot, but it's a start.  I find taking pictures of big jobs before I start, helps remind me when I'm done for the day, that I actually have accomplished something.  (I hope you can tell which is the before and which is the after picture.)



I still have to figure out where to get rid of a couple of old computer printers.  OK, thanks for indulging me here.

By the way, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey isn't a great book, but it's good, and it did get inside the mind  of a 91 year old who is having troubles staying in the present.  As a youngster myself, I can't judge the accuracy, but it did make me think about what the world might look like when my brain isn't always functioning right.  

Hensley Report on Election Now Available - Form Over Substance

The Municipal Attorney's office has released Judge Dan Hensley’s review of the April 3, 2012 Election.   It's structured nicely and touches on many of the issues, but doesn't tell us anything new and doesn't take any kind of serious stand on anything.  He does say there is an additional addendum still to come on the Data Processing Review Board that used to monitor the voting machines but was eliminated. 

I've got the whole report posted (thanks Scribd) below.  And then a few thoughts of my own at the end.

From the summary:

1.    Nothing intentional was done
2.    The Deputy Clerk in charge made mistakes
3.    The Clerk should have supervised more carefully
4.    They should make changes in the rules.

In the body it does discuss the Minnery email (but doesn't mention names) and the broken seals on the ballot boxes, but just says, they happened.  For the seals, it says to tell election workers to follow the rules next time.

While he says he did some interviews, "The information I learned in my interviews did not differ in any significant respect from that contained in the Commission's summaries.  For this reason, in addition to my own interviews I relied on the Commission's summaries." But we don't know how many interviews, who, or what he asked and what they said.  And we know the Commission told the Assembly no seals were broken.  (Hensley does recognize that there were broken seals.)

Hensley Report on Anchorage Municipal Election July 2012


When the citizens group that originally called for (and ponied up $1500 to have 15 precincts recounted) met with the Assembly's Attorney and turned in a very detailed report of problems, I suggested in that post that it would be interesting to compare what they presented to the Assembly for free to the $30,000 report this retired judge presents.

The Assembly eventually voted to refund the $1500.

The contrast between the two reports raises serious questions about how money is spent for 'experts' rather than for good quality products.  This new report doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know and has none of the details that the Citizen group provided.   It would be interesting to know exactly how much time Hensley actually spent on this and who he interviewed.   As an outsider he seems to have gone over all the information that was already known and summarized it.  This is a great example of form over substance.

Clutter Wars: Old Photos - Checkpoint Charlie 1964-2010, Loussac Opening

My new strategy in the Clutter War is to get rid of things in the garage to make room for boxes from the house.  But I'm being distracted by what I'm finding - like old photos.

Here are some pictures from the year I was a student in Göttingen, Germany.  I'm in the window the day I painted my room in the Forum student housing building on Brüder Grimm Allee, on my scooter (I think it's a Lambretta, but I don't remember for sure and can't find pictures on line that match this model.  But I did find a history of the Lambretta here, beginning before it made scooters, including a 1939 declaration that the factory was  a "model of fascist establishment.") There's a picture of me at the Fasching Party and one with Claudia in Berlin at Schloss Charlottenbe[u]rg.  These are all 1964 and 1965,

In 2010 we visited Berlin and I took and posted this picture of Checkpoint Charlie which is now just a tourist attraction with a guy in a soldier suit in the middle of bustling Berlin.  But I couldn't find my old pictures until today.  The back of the 1964 picture says, "Checkpoint Charlie from ramp on Western Side looking over the wall.  Barbed wire on bottom of picture is on top of the wall."  That's me looking at the sign.   In those days the space between East and West Berlin was no-man's land and today it's just a historical footnote in the middle of Berlin at a point where you otherwise would have no idea this had been the border.

In the last set, you can see Loussac library at what I think was the official opening in 1986.  Then there are two kids preparing for Halloween (this picture is here for their spouses to enjoy).  And finally a picture my son took of his father during the red beard period.  I don't have exact dates but these are mid 1980s.  

OK, back to the garage.  I don't think I've made much room today.

Scam or Real Problem? Living With Parasites [Updated]

I got this email today from a blogger friend:

Hi Steve,

A few minutes ago, while I was visiting your blog, the warning that I attach appears in my screen. It says:

Warning: something is wrong here

"whatdoino.steve.blogspot.com.es has contain from  borderland.northernattitude.org a well-knowed site  malware distributor. Your computer can be infected by avirus if you access to this site (...)"

Maybe you should check your computer with an antivirus...

Regards,

Here's the original message that he received:

Click to enlarge and focus

Since my blog is not on my computer, but somewhere on Blogspot's stuff, if there is a problem it would have to be there. And borderland.northernattitude.org is a blog run by a Fairbanks school teacher that I have linked. It's hardly a malware distributor. My guess is that my friend got some scam message trying to get him to buy some anti-malware software.

Anything good, just attracts parasites. I'm talking about the internet in general, not my blog. But this goes for any institution that gains any kind of crowd or good reputation. The pickpockets quickly show up to take advantage. And the scam artists impersonate the officials  of the respected institution hoping to gain credibility from its good reputation. Look at all the sleazeballs who have joined various churches and use them to work out their own personal dysfunctions.

But if anyone who knows more than I do about the inner workings of this system thinks I'm actually spreading malware, could you please let me know and what I need to do about it.

[UPDATE July 2:  I got some thoughtful email from Mike who checked out my source code and Doug's source code at Borderland - where I got a warning message when I tried to go there.  Doug's emailed me to say his site was hacked and he's redoing it.  While I imagine there will always be people who mess up other people's lives, I also suspect that the less disparity in income and the more people who have loving, balanced parents, the fewer people who would do stuff like this. I know this could be happening to my site and I don't have the skills that Doug seems to have to fix it.  But I'd learn.  And it's good to know there are folks like Mike who jumped in to offer help.  Thanks.]

June Ends, July Begins - Cottonwood, Construction, Contentment

 A breeze blew the cottonwood seeds from our big tree in the afternoon.  Fortunately, we don't have cottonwood allergies.  (For a lot more on cottonwood, here's an old post on this untapped Alaska resource.)

Later we went got onto the Seward Highway at Tudor.  The highway is being widened and the four bridges over Campbell Creek are going to be raised and a real bike trail constructed under the roads (including the frontage roads on each side.)
This is the on-ramp merging into the highway.

We had dinner with old friends who moved to New Zealand but are back in town visiting.  They are staying above Potter Marsh and the time flew as we talked about many things.  It was after midnight as we went home and I stopped for this view of Turnagain Arm, Potter Marsh, and Mt. Susitna.