West Coast Weather

These are the weather reports I have on my computer dashboard.  It's almost 11pm in Anchorage right now, but this is what the spread looked like (but a little warmer) all day. 

These locations are where my immediate family reside these days. 

Walk and Sleep, Autism on Campus, Left Brain Meet Right, Plus Sheryl Gordon McCloud

In the USC alumni magazine for this summer, there was a letter that caught my attention. 

"The latest issue proposed that there is a "Medical Mystery" (Trojan Beat, Spring 2013, p. 6*)as to why Americans die earlier than people from other high-income democracies.  I disagree with the perspective.  Without the benefit of knowing which 17 countries were examined in the research, two very likely reasons behind the earlier deaths are surely that Americans, on the whole, walk less and sleep less than the people living in the other countries studied.  Walking is not expensive.  Sleeping - generally speaking - is not expensive  Wealth and access to medical technology can't undo the negative effects of a sedenatry, sleep-deprived lifestyle." [emphasis added]

I don't know how much walking and sleeping would improve people's health, but it seems reasonable.  Many people tend to want shortcuts - cholesterol lowering drugs so they can eat high cholesterol food - or when they do exercise, they often drive to the gym to do it. 

But anyone who doesn't walk (or move some other way) at least 30 minutes a day and doesn't get at least seven hours of sleep a night, might set some goals.  Starting with two days a week and adding one more day each week until they're walking and sleeping well at least six days a week.  I bet it makes a difference in how you feel. 


I've found that alumni magazines from good universities can cover very interesting stories as they highlight what their students, faculty, and alumni are doing.  Here's a list of the feature articles:

• Dinosaur Depicter 

  A talented USC Roski alumna brings the prehistoric Mesozoic Era to life.
  

• Neurodiversity and the University 

  Students, alumni and faculty on the autism spectrum show they have a place in the university.
  

• Meeting of the Minds 

  Right Brain, this is Left Brain. Scott Fraser’s happy to make the introduction.
  

• Number Crunchers 

  Ninety percent of the world’s data was created in the last two years. What we do with it will change the future.
  

• Designs on Social Change 

  Creativity can combine with business principles to solve societal challenges—and turn a profit.
  

• Busy Signals 

  The National Medal of Science recognizes Solomon Golomb’s many contributions to communications technology.
  

• Fresh Air 

  Targeted therapies and other advances create new hope for lung cancer patients.

The Summer 2013 edition also has a profile of USC law school graduate Sheryl Gordon McCloud who was appointed to the Washington State Supreme Court in January.   She's of interest to Alaskans because she was in Anchorage in 2009 to representing former Rep. Pete Kott, not in the original trial, but later, trying to get him released from his convictions
because the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence.   She was very impressive in court and talking to the press afterward. Knew her stuff, no nonsense.

It seems ironic, reading her profile. I suspect as Republican Kott's constituent, her ideas probably would have been ignored (she fought for women's rights issues including protection for pregnant employees), but he paid good money for her to defend him.  (Actually, I don't know Kott's record on women's rights, I could be wrong on this.)


*The online version doesn't have page numbers but it appears that that section isn't in the online version.  Nor are the letters - this one is copied from the print version.

Daniel Ellsberg On Bradley Manning Verdict

From an interview with Scott Horton July 30, 2013.

Daniel Ellsberg: I’m doing okay. We’ll tell your listeners that you just informed me 30 seconds ago that Bradley Manning was found not guilty of aiding the enemy. That’s very, very important, and good news, because the alternative would have been extremely bad news. It would have been very close to being a death knell over time to investigative journalism in this country, which means a free press, which means ultimately democracy or any possibility of democratic control of our foreign policy, our defense policy, totally, if the prosecutor’s argument that his simply giving information to the internet and thereby making it available to the world, including whatever enemies we had, if that is enough to earn a death sentence or life in prison, without any attempt even to prove or indicate intent to harm the United States or to help an enemy – that’s the argument the prosecutor was making and the charges they’ve pursued ever since Bradley Manning pled guilty to 10 military offenses, which could still keep him in prison for 20 years, and I haven’t seen the full verdict here so it may well be that she has added some other offenses to that which may add up to a life sentence.

In my case, I didn’t face a single, one single count that carried a death sentence, such as the aiding the enemy charge in this case did, but I had 12 felony counts which added up to 115 years in prison, so the effect was much the same. That could still be the case here.

The truth is that he did not deserve a day in prison for informing the public here as he did. He certainly does not deserve an additional day after the abusive treatment he’s received here of three years awaiting trial, 10½ months in solitary confinement, part of that nude, a treatment which was described by the UN Rapporteur for Torture as, if not being torture – and he didn’t have all the facts there because he hadn’t been allowed to speak to Manning alone – but he said at the very least it was cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment, which is the definition of a crime under the Geneva Conventions we’ve signed and under domestic law. So he should have been released on the grounds of governmental misconduct, as was the case in my trial, but wasn’t. .  .

You can read (or hear) the whole interview here.  

Videotaping US Police versus Videotaping Swedish Police [Updated]

From a June 2012 post I wrote:

[Following up Anon's comment,   I found where it moved to and changed the link.]

- Photography is Not a Crime - which is full of stories about people having problems when they photograph or video tape cops in action or just in public places.  Here are links to some of his recent posts:

[I took out the links, but if you go to the main site, you'll find lots of similar posts.]

• NYPD Publishes Poster of "Professional Agitators," aka Citizens who Record Cops

• LAPD Tell Photog Not to Listen in on Their Private Conversation on a Public Sidewalk

• Introducing TapIn, an iPhone App Essential for Citizen Journalists

• Albuquerque Police Officer Chases Away News Videographer From Investigation 

• Austin Man Facing 10 Years in Prison After Photographing Cops Making Arrest 

It doesn't have to be this way.  Wimp.com describes this video as:


This is what happens when you attempt to take video of police in Sweden.

I couldn't find a way to embed the video, so you can click the link above or on the screenshot from the video to the right.


Of course, this is just one unverified example.  Take it as a piece of evidence, not a conclusion. 

What's 97 X 96? Quick. In Your Head.

For when the electricity goes out and you have to know. 

This is the most cerebral of 100 lifehacker tricks presented in poster form.  Like putting a rubber band across the top of an open paint can to wipe your brush on or using frozen grapes to chill wine.  The whole 100 tips list is here.

Garden Tour, Lavatera, Spenard, and Corn

Sunday was the Anchorage Garden Club's Annual City Garden Tour.  This is always a delightful affair, a chance to discover hidden neighborhoods, and  wander through people's gardens, ask questions, and dream about the possibilities of your own garden. 


[NOTE:  Click to enlarge and sharpen any photo.]



The first garden we saw was in the heart of Spenard.  I have to give the Garden Club credit.  Snootier clubs would have never chosen this garden.  But it was the quintessential Spenard garden - flowers and junk.  A plastic flamingo and a bald eagle on top of a metal flag pole.   Of course, junk is a subjective term.  But how many garden clubs do you think would include a garden that had this next to the driveway?

But this is so Spenard.















Since four of the five gardens (seemed a low number this year) were close to Turnagain Road, we biked over there in the beautiful, warm sunshine.

This was the back yard of one of the Turnagain gardens.  They had bright pink flowers that looked something like hibiscus and I learned they were lavatera.

Here's more detail from malvaceae.info:

"Lavatera is a genus within the family Malvaceae, which also includes, inter alia, Althaea, Abutilon, Gossypium, Hibiscus, Malva and Sidalcea, and is particularly close to Malva. The 20-25 species of Lavatera have a broadly Mediterranean distribution, stretching to southwest Britain, the Canary Is., Abyssinia, Central Asia and Kashmir, with outlying species in Australia (Lavatera plebeia), California (Lavatera assurgentiflora, Lavatera insularis, Lavatera lindsayi, Lavatera occidentalis and Lavatera venosa), and eastern Siberia.

Lavateras are annual, biennial or short-lived perennial herbs and sub-shrubs. The flowers are pink to purple, or white, or yellow in some forms of Lavatera triloba. The stems and foliage are typically downy or hairy. The fruits consist of a divided capsule containing a ring of nutlets."

 

This window box of flowers nearby was probably my favorite spot on the tour.  It just worked beautifully.  

The last house was near the Coastal trail, which we got off at Arctic to find some dinner.  

 



These corn plants were growing in the two inch crack between the asphalt and the building.  Corn is usually iffy in Anchorage, but this is an exceptionally warm summer and this south facing wall is probably five or ten degrees warmer yet.  There were a few big ears getting close to ripe.   This wasn't part of the garden tour, but it should have been.

There was one more garden on the tour, but it was in South Anchorage and we started late. 

Into Anchorage With New Camera - Chugach Peaks and Fire Island Windmills

There was a strange mix of clouds and sun as we neared home, but Anchorage was in the sun that set about 11pm.

Foraker and Denali in the background

Fire Island windmills

WW II Shipbuilders Put Out Ships In A Week, Why Nine Months Plus For Tustumena Repairs?

The Department of Transportation put out a press release with the following headline:

Tustumena Return to Service Delayed Indefinitely,
Schedule to be Reconfigured to Meet Community Needs

The Tustumena has been in repair since November 2012.  We're four months shy of a year now.  

All this brought to mind our visit to the Rosie The Riveter National Park in Richmond, California earlier this year.  It's a Historical Park in honor of the World War II ship builders  who put together whole ships in a week or less sometimes!
 
From a long essay at a National Park Service site on WWII ship building practices, we learn: 

"During World War I, steel shipbuilding followed tradition, calling for riveted hulls with each vessel custom built on site, a labor intensive, relatively slow process. In 1917, for example, a typical steel vessel took 12 to 14 months from keel-laying to delivery. At the peak of production in World War II, the work could be accomplished in four to six days." (emphasis added)

 From another Park Service page: 

The Liberty Ship Robert E. Perry was assembled in less than five days as a part of a special competition among shipyards; but by 1944 it was only taking the astonishingly brief time of a little over two weeks to assemble a Liberty ship by standard methods. Henry Kaiser and his workers applied mass assembly line techniques to building the ships. This production line technique, bringing pre-made parts together, moving them into place with huge cranes and having them welded together by "Rosies" (actually "Wendy the Welders" here in the shipyards), allowed unskilled laborers to do repetitive jobs requiring relatively little training to accomplish. This not only increased the speed of construction, but also the size of the mobilization effort, and in doing so, opened up jobs to women and minorities.

I understand that regulations for the ships and for the workers were a lot less stringent in those days, but if they could build a whole ship in five days, they ought to be able to repair one in less than a year.  

Is it because this administration is lax in oversight of its contractors?  Is Seward Ship’s Drydock just not competent for a job like this?  Or that ferry service is a low priority?  Or perhaps maintenance was delayed so long that there were lots of unexpected problems as the Fairbanks News Miner reported earlier this year:

"The 50-year-old ship went in for maintenance in November, and it turned out to be in worse shape than thought. It will now be in the shipyard until June, the Kodiak Daily Mirror reported. "

I'm sure there are other possibilities and probably more than just one applies.

I'm using the WW II shipbuilding times just to give this situation some perspective.  If the right people really cared, this could have been done a long time ago.  Meanwhile the people out on the Aleutian Chain are still waiting for their ferry service. 

Took New Camera To Mariners Game - They Won, But Modern Cameras Can Be Creepy

Went to the Mariners game with Minnesota Thursday night.  It was balmy and shirt sleeves were comfortable even on the ferry ride back.  I also brought my new camera on this trip - my daughter's request - and I'm figuring out more things I can do with it.

But I've also concluded it can be a lot more clinical, almost forensic.  We were in the upper bleachers. Though this photo of the strike was a little closer.  R wanted to see what things looked like from the top of the bleachers in right field. I took this on the way back.

Strike

Safe at first

This was the beginning of the game.  I haven't been to a major league ball game in probably 15 years or more.  I remember when ball fields were named after the ball team - like Dodger stadium.  Nowadays companies buy the right to put their name on the stadium so every time you refer to it, it's a mini-advertisement for the comapny.   I don't do advertising here - though sometimes I'll tell people about something I thought was really good - so I won't mention the name of the field.  I'll just call it Mariners Field.

Seattle started scoring early.  They got six runs in the second inning.  This one is the first or second run. 

I took these pictures from up in the bleachers.  This camera takes really sharp pictures.  I have to learn how to make this less about sharp and more about beautiful.

When R and I went to check out right field, I saw how intrusive this camera can be.  Look at this:

 

The people in the bubble - upper right - were blown up from the little circle in the stands.  You can take pictures with cameras anyone can buy and get sharp enough pictures to id people from about a quarter of a mile away.  The right field was 326 feet from home plate and we were in the upper upper bleachers. It's a little creepy.  

It was knitting night at the game and we were sitting in the middle of the knitting section.  My son had his knitting with him.  More on that in another post.

R made sure he got some blue cotton candy before we got back to our seats.

And I made sure I got this picture of Mt. Ranier in the evening sun before we got back to our seats.

We left in the 6th inning.  It was 8-0 Mariners and we'd promised to try to get the 10:05 ferry back to Bainbridge so R could get to bed by 11pm.  Here was the view as the ferry was pulling out of downtown Seattle.  The Ferris wheel was more like the blue in the water, but I couldn't figure an easy way to get the right color.

And as we got into Bainbridge, they announced over the loudspeaker that the moon had just risen over Seattle.  So I went out and got this picture.  Other than using a telephoto lens and boosting the exposure - after the fact - of the city lights, this is pretty much undcotored and what it looked like.

Thanks J, it was a fun night out. 

Are All These Films Real? Are Film Makers Finally Avoiding Alaska International Film Awards?

Once again, the dubious Alaska International Film Awards has their list of winners on their website.  I first ran into this organization when they were the Alaska International Film Festival - a name so close to the real Anchorage International Film Festival that even I, a blogger who covers the Anchorage Festival, was confused.

This is an organization that has no connection to Alaska I can find other than a rented mail box with a forwarding service in Spenard.  They have no festival.  There's no public showing of films. People send them films and money and in July they put up a list of winners.  Then they ask the winners to buy their awards.

This is very different from the Anchorage International Film Festival which has  nine exciting days and nights of film in early December.  Their motto is "Films Worth Freezing For."

I've written a number of posts about this starting when I first discovered them and asked
Film Festival Scam?  AIFF is NOT AIFF.

Several months later an attorney sent me a letter threatening to sue me.

My attorney called his bluff.  

When I contacted winners that first year, I learned that all of them were told they could get nice awards if they wanted to pay for them - not something that legitimate festivals do.  That's when I did a three part post:

• What's a Scam?
• What's a Film Festival?
• Comparing the Anchorage and Alaska International Film Festivals

In 2011 I did a post on the Winners of the now "Alaska International Film Awards."

This year I thought I should check again.

2013 finds far fewer winners than there have been in the past.  Last year (2012), based on the list on the AIFA website, there were 21 Main Awards (Best This and Best That) plus 30 Special Awards - Kodiak Award, Denali Award, and Northern Lights Emerging Talent Awards each had ten winners.  Then there were 21 more Screenwriting Awards.

This year (2013) there are still 21 Main Awards, but only 3 Special Awards and 3 Screenwriting Awards.  When I searched for ways to contact the winners, there were only a few that showed up on google anywhere except at the Alaska International Film Awards website.  I've sometimes had to work to track down film makers (from the previous AIFA winner lists, or the submissions to the Anchorage International Film Festival), but eventually, I've found some mention if not an actual website for nearly every film.  This time is was blank after blank after blank.  

What does this mean?  Obviously I can only guess.  Some possibilities that come to mind:

• They are getting fewer submissions so they couldn't give out as many awards.
• The quality of the films submitted has dropped sharply.
• They are making up film names and directors so that they have a winner for each category.  (I find this one hard to write because for me it seems so outrageous.  But since I can't find so many of their winners online, it's possible.)

The last option seems so outrageous that  I was hesitant to put it up.  But in the past, when I looked up the films and contacted some of the film makers, there clearly were high quality films, films that had won awards in other festivals.  This time I found only a few films that had been in other festivals. And, as I said, I couldn't find anything about most of the films or the film makers.  Most film makers usually have at least a Facebook page if not their own website.  But not most of those listed as winners. 

Two of the 'winners' responded to my emails and confirmed that they were offered the opportunity to buy their awards again this year.


Below are some examples of my failed google searches.  Perhaps readers can do better than I.

• The Best Alaska Film is Darkness Under the Sun by Ousman Jarju.  Using the name of the film and director, the only hits I got were two from the Film Festival website.  Just looking up the name - Ousman Jargu - I got seven Gambians on LinkedN, one of whom is the Director of Water Resources in Gambia and seems to have a connection to the United Nations.  I realize that there are Gambians living in Alaska, but it does seem odd that I can't find anything about this film and why it's the Best  of Alaska
  
• Best Comedy - Ian Schmidt, Happy House.  Again, the only thing I can find Googling is the Film Festival announcement.  I can't find a film website or FB page for this.  There's an Ian Schmidt who does F/A 18 films on YouTube.  Looks like a military guy video taping his flying. 
  
• Best Director:   Verme,  Simon Abizmal  - Same problem.  The only hits are the AIFA website.  Google asks me if I want Simon Abysmal?
• 
  
• Best Documentary:  The Lonely Life by Julia Preston.  Same problem.  Nothing shows up.
  
• Drama: Enough of Love directed by Zach Jones  - same.
  
• Educational Film: Fighting for Rights directed Joey Bryan - same.  Well, this actually took me to other pages.  I got something on Fight Club and lots of others that had nothing to do with the film or film maker. 
  
• Experimental Film: Kumme directed by Amanda Lipariti - Same
  
• Family Film: Beautiful Underneath directed Dan Calano - same, though there is a Dan Calano or two.
  
• Best Foreign Film: Cercando di Amare directed by Andrea Gallo
  Closest I got besides the Awards website was this:

  Mozzarella Stories
  Edoardo de Angelis
  2011, Comedy
  Luisa Ranieri, Massimiliano Gallo, Andrea Renzi, Giovanni Esposito

• Independent Film: Carry On Song directed by Carrie Sande - nothing
  
•  Best Romance:  Ser Valiente directed by Graziele Ferriera
  
• The only Graziele Ferriera was spelled Graziele Ferreira

Here's the trailer from the Grand Jury Award:
Lure trailer from bethmoves on Vimeo.

This is only the trailer, so maybe there is something more about the film that the trailer doesn't capture to explain why this won the big prize.

I hope this all means that people are being more careful about where they submit their films and read the rules and the websites.  When they don't even show the films, one should already be pushing the delete button.