The ospreys I mentioned in the previous post. (There are two)
Ferry deck going to Bainbridge.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Random Seattle Shots
Monday, August 20, 2012
Chillin
When the tide is out, three racoons wander out onto the mudflats looking, I assume, for shellfish. There's an osprey nest in a nearby tree. A kingfisher sits on the end of a pole. And there are blackberries everywhere. Visiting our daughter near Seattle. Not much internet access, but natural access.
Not sure what this is. The images I find for Western White and Pine white, don't have the black pattern on the lower parts of the wings. [Update Tuesday: There's a picture of a female Western White butterfly bentler.us that seems to have the same markings as this one and another one at green nature.]
 |
| Pretty sure it's a female Western White butterfly |
Not sure what this is. The images I find for Western White and Pine white, don't have the black pattern on the lower parts of the wings. [Update Tuesday: There's a picture of a female Western White butterfly bentler.us that seems to have the same markings as this one and another one at green nature.]
Sunday, August 19, 2012
History as Ammunition or History as Lesson? The Control of Nature
Using historical examples to support an argument you're making can be tricky. Many people echo this thought as this quote from Vital Remnant's blogger Martin Cothran shows us:
McPhee's Control of Nature
That said, I've been reading John McPhee's 1989 book The Control of Nature. It has three accounts of humans attempting to control nature - controlling the Mississippi, controlling lava flows in Iceland, and controlling the mud/rock slides in the mountains around Los Angeles. I've read the Mississippi case (it's actually titled Atchafalaya and is about preventing that river from stealing the Mississippi's flow and taking the river out to the Gulf of Mexico several hundred miles from New Orleans thus threatening that city and the huge industrial complex that has taken advantage of the fresh water and transportation of the Mississippi) and the LA part. I've just begun the Iceland story.
Each case is under 100 pages. Yet each offers so many new names and places and ideas that I found myself having to reread them in an attempt to understand how things fit together. Common themes in the Atchafalaya and LA cases include:
The cases are not perfectly symmetrical but the basic commonality is the attempt to control powerful natural forces.
The Mississippi is a huge dynamic system that reaches from Canada and down to the Gulf of Mexico. The engineers are depicted as almost like children building sand forts at the beach to stop the waves. McPhee even talks about the 15 acre ‘sandbox’ where the Army Corps of Engineers has a model of the Mississippi drainage to test their projects.
McPhee doesn’t really look deeply at the alternatives to control. He discusses how the Mississippi has natural flooding cycles and how it used to overflow its banks in many places spreading silt and building up the land as it did. He talks about how the natural cycles, over thousands of years, build up silt high enough in some places until the river shifts its flow through other channels until it builds up enough silt on that side and then moves its main channel again.
What, I kept thinking, would things be like if there was no work done to protect settlements along the Mississippi? Would it be a vast wilderness? Would the transportation channel from the Midwest simply become too difficult to navigate and cause economic disaster? Is the fuel consumption of transportation along the Mississippi a much better alternative to rail and roads and air? Would humans find ways to develop more portable and flexible settlements that could adjust more easily to the river’s cycles?
Are there ways to make fewer and smaller protections that would leave more of the natural cycle and also allow for some stable settlements?
While McPhee did mention Holland’s ability to keep out the sea with its dikes, there was no discussion of whether this was a case of man successfully controlling nature or that it had equally problematic side-effects. Or whether they just understood or accommodated nature better. Or whether the problem wasn’t as complex. Or whether they just spent, proportionately a lot more money and had better models. It would also be interesting to hear some cases of places that gave up their attempts to control nature and just moved away.
McPhee speculates, in passing, on the fate of New Orleans. It seems doomed by ever increasing water levels if current practices continue and doomed by lack of water if the river were allowed to take advantage of the faster path to the Gulf through the Atchafalaya. He doesn’t directly talk about the cost of saving New Orleans. (Remember the book was published in 1989, well before the recent flood of New Orleans.) But he makes it clear, that the danger to New Orleans is heightened by the protections given to all the cities and farmlands between New Orleans and the headwaters of the Mississippi and all the other rivers (such as the Missouri and Ohio) that flow into it. Do the people who get that benefit owe New Orleans? It would seem the answer is a strong yes.
The repeated quotes of scientists and engineers claiming to have solutions, plus the mocking of these claims by their critics, including Mark Twain, can’t help but make me think about the BP’s safety claims for the Deepwater Horizon and Shell’s present claims about the safety of drilling in the Chukchi.
McPhee is an outsider in each of these situations, though his reports imply that he's spent considerable time in each. An outsider loses some of the perspective of people who have live in the situation most of their lives, but an outsider also is able to see the situation fresh and without the emotional blinders of the insiders. My sense is that McPhee questions the hubris of those who want to control nature, but that if the story unraveled for him with a different conclusion, he'd report it that way. And, having only started the Iceland story, I'm really not sure where it will end up. At this point the people are attempting to stop the lava flows from blocking the nation's most lucrative fishing harbor. Will this be a successful example?
It won't please the Politically Correct, who will willing [sic] misread history to fit their narrative.Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying,
"History is written by the victors."Wikipedia has a post on "the politics of memory" and the abstract of a book The Politics of Memory and Democratization explores, in part:
. . . how new democracies face an authoritarian past and past human rights violations, and the way in which policies of truth and justice shape the process of democratization. Eighteen countries in Central and South America, Central, Eastern and South Europe and South Africa are analysed in detail. The main variables affecting the implementation of truth and justice policies (purges, truth commissions and trials, among other policies) are: the balance between old and new regime forces; the availability of institutional, human and financial resources, the nature of the ideological preferences and commitments of the elites in question; the mobilization of social groups pressing in favour of these policies; and the importance of human rights in the international arena. The duration and degree of institutionalization of dictatorship is also important.On the other hand, most are familiar with George Santana's warning:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"So the challenge for us is to find coverage of the past that is reasonably self-aware and aware of the pitfalls of reporting the past, and reasonably careful with its facts.
McPhee's Control of Nature
That said, I've been reading John McPhee's 1989 book The Control of Nature. It has three accounts of humans attempting to control nature - controlling the Mississippi, controlling lava flows in Iceland, and controlling the mud/rock slides in the mountains around Los Angeles. I've read the Mississippi case (it's actually titled Atchafalaya and is about preventing that river from stealing the Mississippi's flow and taking the river out to the Gulf of Mexico several hundred miles from New Orleans thus threatening that city and the huge industrial complex that has taken advantage of the fresh water and transportation of the Mississippi) and the LA part. I've just begun the Iceland story.
Each case is under 100 pages. Yet each offers so many new names and places and ideas that I found myself having to reread them in an attempt to understand how things fit together. Common themes in the Atchafalaya and LA cases include:
- Natural cycles that existed before humans arrived
- Human settlement that builds up enough economic investment to muster political support to protect it against natural cycles
- The settlement grows, nature strikes again, newer, bigger protections are required and built.
- There are regular proclamations of final victory with each project, though as time goes by there seems to be more recognition of the complications of the situation and the huge power of nature.
- The predominant metaphor is war.
- Early protections encourage more settlements, putting more people at risk, requiring greater and costlier new protections.
- The protections themselves cause other problems that ultimately make things worse
- The protecting institution (the Army Corps of Engineers in Atchafalaya and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District) soon has a vested interest in continuing the ‘battle against nature.’
- Attention is focused on protecting those in danger’s way, money gets appropriated to solve the immediate danger without looking at the ever increasing long term expenditures
The cases are not perfectly symmetrical but the basic commonality is the attempt to control powerful natural forces.
The Mississippi is a huge dynamic system that reaches from Canada and down to the Gulf of Mexico. The engineers are depicted as almost like children building sand forts at the beach to stop the waves. McPhee even talks about the 15 acre ‘sandbox’ where the Army Corps of Engineers has a model of the Mississippi drainage to test their projects.
McPhee doesn’t really look deeply at the alternatives to control. He discusses how the Mississippi has natural flooding cycles and how it used to overflow its banks in many places spreading silt and building up the land as it did. He talks about how the natural cycles, over thousands of years, build up silt high enough in some places until the river shifts its flow through other channels until it builds up enough silt on that side and then moves its main channel again.
What, I kept thinking, would things be like if there was no work done to protect settlements along the Mississippi? Would it be a vast wilderness? Would the transportation channel from the Midwest simply become too difficult to navigate and cause economic disaster? Is the fuel consumption of transportation along the Mississippi a much better alternative to rail and roads and air? Would humans find ways to develop more portable and flexible settlements that could adjust more easily to the river’s cycles?
Are there ways to make fewer and smaller protections that would leave more of the natural cycle and also allow for some stable settlements?
While McPhee did mention Holland’s ability to keep out the sea with its dikes, there was no discussion of whether this was a case of man successfully controlling nature or that it had equally problematic side-effects. Or whether they just understood or accommodated nature better. Or whether the problem wasn’t as complex. Or whether they just spent, proportionately a lot more money and had better models. It would also be interesting to hear some cases of places that gave up their attempts to control nature and just moved away.
McPhee speculates, in passing, on the fate of New Orleans. It seems doomed by ever increasing water levels if current practices continue and doomed by lack of water if the river were allowed to take advantage of the faster path to the Gulf through the Atchafalaya. He doesn’t directly talk about the cost of saving New Orleans. (Remember the book was published in 1989, well before the recent flood of New Orleans.) But he makes it clear, that the danger to New Orleans is heightened by the protections given to all the cities and farmlands between New Orleans and the headwaters of the Mississippi and all the other rivers (such as the Missouri and Ohio) that flow into it. Do the people who get that benefit owe New Orleans? It would seem the answer is a strong yes.
The repeated quotes of scientists and engineers claiming to have solutions, plus the mocking of these claims by their critics, including Mark Twain, can’t help but make me think about the BP’s safety claims for the Deepwater Horizon and Shell’s present claims about the safety of drilling in the Chukchi.
McPhee is an outsider in each of these situations, though his reports imply that he's spent considerable time in each. An outsider loses some of the perspective of people who have live in the situation most of their lives, but an outsider also is able to see the situation fresh and without the emotional blinders of the insiders. My sense is that McPhee questions the hubris of those who want to control nature, but that if the story unraveled for him with a different conclusion, he'd report it that way. And, having only started the Iceland story, I'm really not sure where it will end up. At this point the people are attempting to stop the lava flows from blocking the nation's most lucrative fishing harbor. Will this be a successful example?
Friday, August 17, 2012
Airline Ticketing - Making Lemonade
You've heard, probably experienced, this story already.
I tried to get two tickets from Anchorage to Seattle. $337 each, one way. The closest stop from Anchorage is one of the most expensive. So, out of frustration I checked Anchorage to LA. $197. With a stop in Seattle! So, the Seattle price isn't that expensive because of lack of seats. After all, we had to use two of those seats to Seattle on the way to LA. It's just because Alaska has most of the Anchorage-Seattle flights.
After working through the Alaska Airlines website we ended up with a trip to Seattle with a two day stop in LA. The whole thing comes out cheaper than if we had just flown to Seattle.
And the Seattle-LA-Seattle flights we took were full. So if they had had reasonable prices to Seattle and we hadn't gone to LA too, they could have sold our Seattle-LA-Seattle seats and ultimately made more money.
But we got to see my mom, got more miles, and spent more time going to and from and waiting in airports.
I tried to get two tickets from Anchorage to Seattle. $337 each, one way. The closest stop from Anchorage is one of the most expensive. So, out of frustration I checked Anchorage to LA. $197. With a stop in Seattle! So, the Seattle price isn't that expensive because of lack of seats. After all, we had to use two of those seats to Seattle on the way to LA. It's just because Alaska has most of the Anchorage-Seattle flights.
After working through the Alaska Airlines website we ended up with a trip to Seattle with a two day stop in LA. The whole thing comes out cheaper than if we had just flown to Seattle.
And the Seattle-LA-Seattle flights we took were full. So if they had had reasonable prices to Seattle and we hadn't gone to LA too, they could have sold our Seattle-LA-Seattle seats and ultimately made more money.
But we got to see my mom, got more miles, and spent more time going to and from and waiting in airports.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Alaska's Prop 2 - Why Have Alaska Miners Association and Shell Each Spent As Much To Defeat Prop 2 As The Yes Side Raised Altogether?
Overview
Here are the basic parts of this post:
Alaska's governor opposes most federal regulation of Alaska on the grounds that we know best what we need. But when local Alaska communities make the same argument about the feds and the state, he dismisses them. He doesn't really seem to be as much concerned about local needs and power as corporate needs and power. The real issue, it seems, is that the former Conoco-Phillips lobbyist in our Governor's mansion, is against anyone having the power to raise questions, slow down, or, even worse, stop any development. We should all, the opponents seem to be saying, trust the developers to do the right thing.
The Context of US Coastal Zone Management Programs
The Coastal Management Program was set up in 1976 by Gov. Hammond, the governor who fought to establish the Alaska Permanent Fund. Hammond was a governor that most people agree had Alaskan people as his top priority.
Local powers were reduced by new legislation introduced by Gov. Murkowski in 2003.
In 2011 the program expired when the legislature and Gov. Parnell could not agree on specific legislation to renew it. [This history comes from the Alaska Sea Party website which supports Prop 2.]
Coastal Management programs exist under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act established in 1972 (under Republican president Richard Nixon) and all the states and territories with coast lines - Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes - have programs affiliated with the Act. Except Alaska which is supposed to have more coast line than all the others combined. From NOAA's website, here is the list of states and territories with links to their programs. (I checked them all. Only Alaska has withdrawn.)
Supporters and Opponents
You can learn a lot by who supports and who opposes something.
Prop 2 Supporters
The Alaska Sea Party which set up and backs the initiative is led by Juneau's mayor Bruce Botelho. Its list of supporters include local mayors from around the state and other citizens who tend to stand up for the benefit of Alaskans. People like Alaska Constitutional convention member Vic Fischer and former state senator Arliss Sturgulewski. You can see a list of Prop 2 supporters here. These are people who tend to represent the needs of their local communities.
Prop 2 Opponents
The Alaska State Chamber of Commerce President Rachael Petro signed the Statement in Opposition in the State Ballot Guide. The list of Prop 2 opponents from a No on Prop 2 website is a list of developers, chambers of commerce, and industries supported by strong Outside interests (Cruise industry, Mining, Oil and Gas).
Comparing the websites of the Yes and No sides offers an interesting contrast. I have only fact-checked a few points so I can't vouch for everything, but the style of the two sides is so enormously different that it tells you a lot.
There are lots of complaints about the language and reach of Prop 2, but little or no acknowledgment of the need for the program at all or the kind of changes that would make it more reasonable.
The Sea Party website (pro Prop 2) is long and detailed with factual statements that can be easily tested. Conclusions are in generally neutral direct language supported by facts.
The No on Prop 2 website appears to be put together by the same sort of lucrative PR firm. (The expenditure reports shows they've paid Porcaro Communications over half a million dollars.) It's light on facts and heavy on slick visuals and unsupported and inflamatory generalities like this header on all their pages:
Money Raised
This information comes from the July 31, 2012 APOC reports for No on Prop 2 and The Alaska Sea Party
No on Prop 2 - Total raised $767,995.31.
Contributors giving $10,000 or more (all these were June and July 2012) You can see the No on Prop 2 APOC report here:
Alaska Sea Party (Yes on Prop 2) - Total raised $150,122.07
[Contributions below were between April 1, 2012 and July 31, 2012, Income of $63,688.86 was reported for this period. I can't find information on the source of the $86,433.21 income received before this period. All but one $100 contribution have Alaskan addresses.] You can see the Alaska Sea Party APOC report here.
Contributors giving $10,000 or more:
North Slope Borough - $15,137.97
Bristol Bay Native Corp - $10,000
Note that the Alaska Miners Association and Shell have each contributed as much as the Alaska Sea Party raised altogether. While I haven't found a list of members of the Alaska Miners Association, if the other mining contributions is an indication, their membership includes many huge multi-national mining corporations.
The numbers here are from the APOC reports. I have only double checked them, so there may be some minor errors but nothing, I think, that make a significant difference to the overall impact.
My Take On What's Going On
This is about large corporations, many if not most headquartered outside of Alaska, opposed to regulation. After 25 years in existence, Alaska's Coastal Zone Management program was weakened by the Murkowski administration in 2003. The Parnell administration was able to end it by fighting with the legislature over the wording of legislation to renew the program. Alaska is now the only coastal state without a program affiliated with the national Coastal Zone Management Act. A group of coastal communities have come together to reestablish the program that gave them some meaningful input in decisions by larger corporations that would affect their way of life.
We have a governor who is fighting the feds on all fronts because, he argues, we have the right to make the decisions that affect our state without the federal government interfering.
But when it comes to local government, our governor thinks the state knows best and local governments should have no say on what happens to their communities.
The real issue, it seems to me, is that this former oil company lobbyist (Gov. Parnell) doesn't want anyone, whether it's the feds or local people doing anything to interfere with corporations and businesses making money in Alaska.
Finding Out More
I had been getting hits for Alaska Prop 2, which were going to the 2010 post on the Prop 2 that year which was about parental notification before a minor could have an abortion or the 2008 post on Prop 2 for that year which was on aerial wolf hunting. Thus I decided I should do a post for this year's Prop 2. I haven't had the time I'd like to do a better job on this, but the primary election (when this is voted on) is in less than two weeks (August 28) and people can vote early already. So I need to get this up.
Here are the basic parts of this post:
- The Context of US Coastal Zone Management Programs
- Supporters and Opponents
- Money Raised
- My Take On What's Going On
- Finding Out More
Alaska's governor opposes most federal regulation of Alaska on the grounds that we know best what we need. But when local Alaska communities make the same argument about the feds and the state, he dismisses them. He doesn't really seem to be as much concerned about local needs and power as corporate needs and power. The real issue, it seems, is that the former Conoco-Phillips lobbyist in our Governor's mansion, is against anyone having the power to raise questions, slow down, or, even worse, stop any development. We should all, the opponents seem to be saying, trust the developers to do the right thing.
The Context of US Coastal Zone Management Programs
The Coastal Management Program was set up in 1976 by Gov. Hammond, the governor who fought to establish the Alaska Permanent Fund. Hammond was a governor that most people agree had Alaskan people as his top priority.
Local powers were reduced by new legislation introduced by Gov. Murkowski in 2003.
In 2011 the program expired when the legislature and Gov. Parnell could not agree on specific legislation to renew it. [This history comes from the Alaska Sea Party website which supports Prop 2.]
Coastal Management programs exist under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act established in 1972 (under Republican president Richard Nixon) and all the states and territories with coast lines - Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes - have programs affiliated with the Act. Except Alaska which is supposed to have more coast line than all the others combined. From NOAA's website, here is the list of states and territories with links to their programs. (I checked them all. Only Alaska has withdrawn.)
Supporters and Opponents
You can learn a lot by who supports and who opposes something.
Prop 2 Supporters
The Alaska Sea Party which set up and backs the initiative is led by Juneau's mayor Bruce Botelho. Its list of supporters include local mayors from around the state and other citizens who tend to stand up for the benefit of Alaskans. People like Alaska Constitutional convention member Vic Fischer and former state senator Arliss Sturgulewski. You can see a list of Prop 2 supporters here. These are people who tend to represent the needs of their local communities.
Prop 2 Opponents
The Alaska State Chamber of Commerce President Rachael Petro signed the Statement in Opposition in the State Ballot Guide. The list of Prop 2 opponents from a No on Prop 2 website is a list of developers, chambers of commerce, and industries supported by strong Outside interests (Cruise industry, Mining, Oil and Gas).
Comparing the websites of the Yes and No sides offers an interesting contrast. I have only fact-checked a few points so I can't vouch for everything, but the style of the two sides is so enormously different that it tells you a lot.
There are lots of complaints about the language and reach of Prop 2, but little or no acknowledgment of the need for the program at all or the kind of changes that would make it more reasonable.
The Sea Party website (pro Prop 2) is long and detailed with factual statements that can be easily tested. Conclusions are in generally neutral direct language supported by facts.
The No on Prop 2 website appears to be put together by the same sort of lucrative PR firm. (The expenditure reports shows they've paid Porcaro Communications over half a million dollars.) It's light on facts and heavy on slick visuals and unsupported and inflamatory generalities like this header on all their pages:
Ballot Measure 2 is a defective, deceptive measure that would create confusion and legal uncertainty, establish a new government bureaucracy and hamstring the state’s economy and job creation.
Money Raised
This information comes from the July 31, 2012 APOC reports for No on Prop 2 and The Alaska Sea Party
No on Prop 2 - Total raised $767,995.31.
Contributors giving $10,000 or more (all these were June and July 2012) You can see the No on Prop 2 APOC report here:
- Alaska Miners Association $150,000
Plus in-kind staff time - $468
Plus in-kind travel - $7,000
(note additional mining interests also contributing below
- Shell - $150,000
- Fairbanks Gold Mining Inc. (wholly owned by Kinross Gold Corp) - $75,000
- Alaska Oil and Gas Association - $80,000
Plus in-kind staff time - - $22,000 - Resource Development Council for Alaska $50,000.00
Plus in-kind staff time - $8350 - Donlin Gold - $50,000
- Council of Alaska Producers (Mining trade group)- $25,000
Plus in-kind staff time - $753.22 - Pioneers Natural Resources USA - $20,000.00
- Cook Inlet Regional, Inc. - $10,000
- Tower Hill Mines, Inc. - $10,000
- Alaska Cruise Association - $10,000
Alaska Sea Party (Yes on Prop 2) - Total raised $150,122.07
[Contributions below were between April 1, 2012 and July 31, 2012, Income of $63,688.86 was reported for this period. I can't find information on the source of the $86,433.21 income received before this period. All but one $100 contribution have Alaskan addresses.] You can see the Alaska Sea Party APOC report here.
Contributors giving $10,000 or more:
North Slope Borough - $15,137.97
Bristol Bay Native Corp - $10,000
Note that the Alaska Miners Association and Shell have each contributed as much as the Alaska Sea Party raised altogether. While I haven't found a list of members of the Alaska Miners Association, if the other mining contributions is an indication, their membership includes many huge multi-national mining corporations.
The numbers here are from the APOC reports. I have only double checked them, so there may be some minor errors but nothing, I think, that make a significant difference to the overall impact.
My Take On What's Going On
This is about large corporations, many if not most headquartered outside of Alaska, opposed to regulation. After 25 years in existence, Alaska's Coastal Zone Management program was weakened by the Murkowski administration in 2003. The Parnell administration was able to end it by fighting with the legislature over the wording of legislation to renew the program. Alaska is now the only coastal state without a program affiliated with the national Coastal Zone Management Act. A group of coastal communities have come together to reestablish the program that gave them some meaningful input in decisions by larger corporations that would affect their way of life.
We have a governor who is fighting the feds on all fronts because, he argues, we have the right to make the decisions that affect our state without the federal government interfering.
But when it comes to local government, our governor thinks the state knows best and local governments should have no say on what happens to their communities.
The real issue, it seems to me, is that this former oil company lobbyist (Gov. Parnell) doesn't want anyone, whether it's the feds or local people doing anything to interfere with corporations and businesses making money in Alaska.
Finding Out More
- Check out the Alaska Sea Party Website and the No On Prop 2 website.
- Check out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAH) website that maps out the Coastal Management Act and the programs around the country.
- Check out the Alaska Voting Guide. The online link is packaged differently from the hard copy that was mailed to Alaska households. In either case, this is hard to read. Here's an overview of the pamphlet that came in the mail.
- Pages 20-21 - Ballot Language - this is the summary that appears on the ballot
- Pages 21-22 - Legislative Affairs Summary - Legislative Affairs tends to give non-partisan analysis
- Pages 22-27 - Statement of Costs - this was prepared by the Governor's Office of Management and Budget. I can't vouch for their estimates. The Governor strongly opposes this measure.
- Pages 27-37 - Full Text of the Law - you can check both sides' claims against the actual wording of the law, though you can't always understand the implications from the wording
- Page 38 - Statement of Support
- Page 39 - Statement of Opposition
I had been getting hits for Alaska Prop 2, which were going to the 2010 post on the Prop 2 that year which was about parental notification before a minor could have an abortion or the 2008 post on Prop 2 for that year which was on aerial wolf hunting. Thus I decided I should do a post for this year's Prop 2. I haven't had the time I'd like to do a better job on this, but the primary election (when this is voted on) is in less than two weeks (August 28) and people can vote early already. So I need to get this up.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Rude Miners
These guys we saw at the airport leaving Anchorage are sure to win Pebble Mine supporters.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
More Superb Alaska Native Art at Anchorage Airport
This is part of a Jack Abraham mask.
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| Joe Senungetuk mask |
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| Elena Charles Yup'ik men's dance fans |
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| Floyd Kingeekuk's four seals - spotted, beaded, ribbon, and ringed |
Kingeekuk, I was told long ago, is the best of the best of the seal carvers.
They have a large book on a platform that lists the Alaska Native art throughout the airport including at this display.
Here's a link to a post about this great little airport gallery I did in 2011.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Now That Olympics Are Over, What Do Romney's Olympic Predictions Tell Us?
On the eve of the Olympics in London, as everyone knows, Mitt Romney, when asked his thoughts, told the Prime Minister that he had concerns about London's readiness. Now that the Olympics are over, and were very successful if the press can be believed, it seems appropriate to consider what this might reveal about the candidate.
1. Social Graces
Romney clearly has trouble with his sense of appropriateness in interpersonal relationships. He appears to be much more task oriented (thinking about the games) and lacking in his people orientation (not understanding this was like asking "how are you? or that as a guest you should say positive things when you first meet, not criticize.)
Asked a ritualistic question about the Olympics, which any guest should know is supposed to be answered politely and positively - "Oh, it looks to be a great Olympics!" he took the question literally, and gave an negative assessment.
This insensitivity to non-verbal communication, to social customs, is a serious problem for a president. Much of the job is to ceremonially represent the United States. Much of the job requires the ability to assess the character, sincerity, and capacity of people advising you as well as inspiring their confidence in you. This is hard to do when you are tone deaf to social signals.
2. Assessment Skills
The lack of social skills is problematic. For some people, this is made up in other skills. But Romney, someone who has worked on a previous Olympics, was wrong in his assessment of the London Olympics. The Olympics went well and there was no security breach, something he specifically noted as a concern. So his assessment on a topic he is a reputed expert on, was wrong. I must acknowledge that we don't know if there were no terrorist issues because of how good the security was or simply because no one attempted to disrupt the Olympics. But ultimately, his assessment - inappropriate as it was to share at that moment - was wrong.
Some might argue shouldn't jump to conclusions here. Was this something he had studied or was he just reflecting the media accounts? But what we do know is that his inability to read the human aspect of the situation, led him to think that his opinion was being seriously sought. And, again, due to his lack of sensitivity to basic etiquette, instead of praising his host's efforts, he criticized them, implying that there were likely to be problems - a prediction of sorts. A prediction he never had to make. One that now turns out to be wrong.
If he was wrong about the odds of a successful Olympics, what does that tell us about his assessments of things like the economic crisis, health care, tax policy, etc.?
In terms of the social problems, this is just one more in a long series of such incidents. In terms of his assessment of the Olympics this doesn't tell us too much, but we learn about people by adding up bits of information over time. So I'm just taking notes that can be compared to his other pronouncements. (We could, say, add this to what we know about someone who set up a health care plan as a governor that is remarkably similar to Obama's national plan that Romney tells us is terrible.)
But I think this episode tells us, at least, this much:
1. Social Graces
Romney clearly has trouble with his sense of appropriateness in interpersonal relationships. He appears to be much more task oriented (thinking about the games) and lacking in his people orientation (not understanding this was like asking "how are you? or that as a guest you should say positive things when you first meet, not criticize.)
Asked a ritualistic question about the Olympics, which any guest should know is supposed to be answered politely and positively - "Oh, it looks to be a great Olympics!" he took the question literally, and gave an negative assessment.
This insensitivity to non-verbal communication, to social customs, is a serious problem for a president. Much of the job is to ceremonially represent the United States. Much of the job requires the ability to assess the character, sincerity, and capacity of people advising you as well as inspiring their confidence in you. This is hard to do when you are tone deaf to social signals.
2. Assessment Skills
The lack of social skills is problematic. For some people, this is made up in other skills. But Romney, someone who has worked on a previous Olympics, was wrong in his assessment of the London Olympics. The Olympics went well and there was no security breach, something he specifically noted as a concern. So his assessment on a topic he is a reputed expert on, was wrong. I must acknowledge that we don't know if there were no terrorist issues because of how good the security was or simply because no one attempted to disrupt the Olympics. But ultimately, his assessment - inappropriate as it was to share at that moment - was wrong.
Some might argue shouldn't jump to conclusions here. Was this something he had studied or was he just reflecting the media accounts? But what we do know is that his inability to read the human aspect of the situation, led him to think that his opinion was being seriously sought. And, again, due to his lack of sensitivity to basic etiquette, instead of praising his host's efforts, he criticized them, implying that there were likely to be problems - a prediction of sorts. A prediction he never had to make. One that now turns out to be wrong.
If he was wrong about the odds of a successful Olympics, what does that tell us about his assessments of things like the economic crisis, health care, tax policy, etc.?
In terms of the social problems, this is just one more in a long series of such incidents. In terms of his assessment of the Olympics this doesn't tell us too much, but we learn about people by adding up bits of information over time. So I'm just taking notes that can be compared to his other pronouncements. (We could, say, add this to what we know about someone who set up a health care plan as a governor that is remarkably similar to Obama's national plan that Romney tells us is terrible.)
But I think this episode tells us, at least, this much:
- His sense of appropriate behavior and etiquette are out of synch with most folks
- He takes things literally, missing the social meaning
- His first response was to point out the potential negatives
- He was wrong
Sunday, August 12, 2012
A Year Eating Local in Anchorage
Last year a group of people scattered around Anchorage took on the challenge of eating local food for a year. There were different levels of purity. I don't think anyone thought they could be completely free of non-local food for a year.Friday I stopped by the Williams Street Farmhouse which is several blocks from my home and talked to Matt Oster and Saskia Esslinger. They've transformed a very urban city lot into a cornucopia. They share what they've learned in classes they offer and also do consulting on home energy work (Matt does state energy audits} and on other home and garden projects (Saskia is certified in permaculture design).
They have two websites, one for the design and energy work and one for the farmhouse.
In the video you can see a bit of the garden including the chickens and hear about how they managed to live a year on local food and a couple of the exceptions to the local rule. Can you guess?
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