The Dark Side of the Internet: Anonymity After All?

 KCRW had an interesting discussion of Internet security.  In light of NSA's spying, they discussed the small minority of web surfers who use anonymous surfing software like Tor which is triple encrypted.  One of the panel members suggested NSA only reads email of ordinary folks because the people with something to hide, use Tor.  Tor was created by the US government to help out journalists and dissidents in countries that persecute dissenters.  But it seems it is also what makes black market websites possible too.

Here's their description:

Are 'Dark Networks' a Threat or a Haven Online? (1:08PM)

Revelations about the government’s electronic surveillance have raised alarms about privacy. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that the National Security Agency’s capacity is even broader than has reported before—enabling it to reach " roughly 75% of all US Internet traffic."Is there any way to use the Internet secretly? Yes, there is. It's the Darknet, available through software that allows anonymous browsing—and, increasingly—provides opportunities for organized crime. On Silk Road, for example, customers can find LSD, cocaine and heroin as if they were shopping on Amazon — anonymously. Why hasn't the government cracked down? Are there legitimate reasons for Internet users to conceal their identities?

Guests:

• Joseph Menn: Reuters, @josephmenn
• Andy Greenberg: Forbes magazine, @a_greenberg
• Karen Reilly: Tor Project, @torproject
• Nate Anderson: Ars Technica, @natexanderson

You can listen to it here:

The Dark Side of the Internet: Anonymity After All? - To the Point on KCRW

Condom Law For Porn Films Doesn't Violate Free Speech, But . . .

I reported here last November that Los Angeles Country voters were voting on a law requiring condom use by actors in porn films.  The law was quickly challenged by some film makers.  And less than a year later a court has ruled.   The LA Daily News reports:

A federal court judge delivered a mixed ruling to the adult film industry late Friday, saying that while making actors wear condoms during porn shoots doesn’t violate the First Amendment, enforcing such a law raises constitutional questions.

So, it seems, the health benefits outweigh the First Amendment rights to make sex films without condoms.  However, there are apparently some problems with how the county will enforce the law.

“Given that adult filming could occur almost anywhere, Measure B would seem to authorize a health officer to enter and search any part of a private home in the middle of the night, because he suspects violations are occurring. This is unconstitutional because it is akin to a general warrant,” Pregerson wrote

Conflicts between different values, in this case freedom of speech and reasonable rights to privacy versus health, are what make life interesting, and why we regularly have to find ways to balance the tensions between different values.

My guess is that the film maker's real value is money, not free speech.  That's just the legal concept he needs to get this to court.  When it comes to balancing a business owner's right to make more money against the health of the employees, I'd tend to lean toward the health of the employees.  But even then, the judge is going to have to weigh the amount of money to be lost against the severity of the health risks. 

But apparently there will be appeals. 

Was Fairbanks Gerrymandered? Riley Challenge to Alaska Redistricting Board's 2013 Plan Part 2: Truncation

In Part 1, I looked at the parts of the Riley challenge that dealt with Fairbanks issues of compactness, contiguity, socio-economic integration, and deviation issues.  That post has an explanation of terms, maps, a population deviation table, and other information to help people understand the Riley challenge to the latest Redistricting Plan.

There was one more Fairbanks related issue, truncation, that wasn't as intertwined with the other issues which I left to a future post.  Now is the future.   Here, again, is what was in the Riley challenge concerning truncation:

25.  The Board's Truncation Plan for Senate Districts improperly considered improper factors (a) substantial changes from an unconstitutional Interim Plan as opposed to the prior Final Plan in effect for the 2010, b) incumbency protection relative to Senate District B; and (c) previously considered partisan voting patterns of persons within the Ester/Goldstream Area. 

[Let me note here that I started this about two weeks ago, but I've been interrupted for and by a lot of other things.  Plus this wasn't altogether clear.  I thought I should call Michael Walleri, Riley's attorney, to see if he could clarify things.  But when I called him about Part 1, he didn't return my call.  Part of me thinks there is value in just posting my take on things.  I've watched enough of this process to be relatively well informed, but in this part of the challenge I had real questions.  Tuesday afternoon I decided that before posting this I should give Walleri's office a try.  This time I got through.  I've decided to leave my original post as it was and then add what I learned in the phone conversation.  How will you know which is which?  If it's in blue, it's new.]? 


 Here's how I explained truncation in the previous post on this:

Truncation:   Senate terms are for four years, while house terms are for only two.  Senate seats are also staggered.  Half (10) are voted on in one election and the other half (10) in the next election two years later.  If redistricting significantly changes the constituency of a senate seat, then a large number of the voters of the new district are represented by someone they didn't vote for.  Thus, senate seats with significant changes are subject to truncation.  This means that regardless of when the term is up for the sitting senator, the population should be able to participate in choosing their senator in the next election.

So, all the new districts whose terms expire in 2016 that have a significant change will be up for election in the next election (2014).  Those up for election in 2014 will be up again anyway so they don't need to be truncated.  But this messes up the staggered terms, so some have to be designated as two year terms and others as four year terms to get ten up for election one year and the other ten the next election. The 2012 election used a new redistricting plan in which all but one of the seats were truncated and then the Board assigned two or four year terms to them. And now they have to do that again. 

I think there is an extra 'improper' in their point number 25 (way above the truncation explanation), but I'm not sure.  I think they are saying . . . well, actually it's not all that clear to me so I won't guess. 

Here's what I know.

The first time this board made a plan, their standard for truncation was 90% or more of the district was the same.   Only one Senator's district was that high - Sen Egan of Juneau.  All the other Senate districts were truncated.  This time they changed the threshold for truncation to 75% and they they all but said that that was to exclude from truncation one incumbent - Sen. Coghill - who lives in the new Senate seat B.

Item 25 includes three itemized points.  Here's the first:

(a)  substantial changes from an unconstitutional Interim Plan as opposed to the prior Final Plan in effect for the 2010

I'm not sure what (a) means.  Perhaps they are saying that they should have compared the new plan with the 2010 plan instead of with the interim plan to determine how different it was.  If that's what they meant, then (a) is a good example of why it's important to write clearly, because that actually says the opposite to me; that there's a bigger difference between the new plan and the interim plan, than the new plan and the 2010 plan.

[Mr. Walleri told me Tuesday that in fact there is a greater difference between the most recent redistricting plan and the districts used in the 2010 election.  And that if Senate District B were compared to the 2010 districts there would be a greater than 50% change in constituency and the seat would have to be truncated.  But, I asked, so what?  I remember somewhere in my brain that this issue came up before Shelby County v. Holder determined that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was invalid and thus there were no standards for determining which states were required to undergo Section 5 pre-clearnace.  The Board's attorney, I believe, told the Board that for pre-clearance they would be using the Interim Plan in place for the 2012 election, not the 2010 election districts.  

But Walleri was arguing that that might have been the standard for VRA benchmarks, but not for the Alaska Supreme Court.   The Interim Plan was declared unconstitutional and was used only because there wasn't enough time to create a constitutional plan.   

I suspect that this might be unexplored legal territory in Alaska.  According to the Board's attorney (from a memo to the Board):

"There are no statutes, regulations or case law guidance on how to ascertain the seating process."

The only justification for truncation I recall was that voters shouldn't be represented by people they didn't have the chance to vote on.  Michael White's memo to the Board goes on to talk about how this evolved from a Supreme Court decision.  Thus if a district were substantially different, a substantial number of voters would not have had a chance to vote for the senator.  Therefore those voters should have a chance to vote on that senator in the very next election.  Thus the justification for truncation. 

Walleri claims that that 2012 plan was declared unconstitutional and thus it shouldn't be used.  But if the issue is disenfranchisement of voters, then it seems that the 2012 districts would be the most pertinent because those are the people who voted for the sitting senators.] 

(b)  incumbency protection relative to Senate District B

This could mean a couple of things.  It might refer to the Board lowering the percentage that would require truncation to 75% to let Coghill escape truncation.  At the July 7, 2013 meeting, Board chair John Torgerson said,

"MR. TORGERSON:· Thank you.· Again, that's 22· ·three-quarters of the district or more is the threshold 23· ·that we're establishing, and in this case, it only 24· ·affects the one district, Senate District B." [from the July 7, 2013 transcript, p. 114]

Two years ago, in a post on truncation, I quoted a memo from Michael White:

"Where there is substantial change to the population of a district, and the previous district is mid-term in 2012, Egan appears to require the incumbent's term be truncated and that an election be held.  What constitutes a substantial change is not defined by law or court decision.  In 2000, the three districts the board found substantially similar, all had less than 10% change in population between the previous plan and the new plan. The next highest percentage of maintained population was 66.2%.  The data does not indicate whether that seat was a mid-term truncation or not. " [See the 2000 truncation plan here.]

[Actually the data do tell us.  I looked at the 2001 Board's Proclamation Plan, but I'm going to save that for another post.  This gets really wonky and I still need to analyze how the current Board did the truncation and the setting of two and four year terms to put the previous Board's work into context.]

So he said there is no specific law or court decision defining substantial change.  However, he also tells us that in the previous redistricting - 2000 - three districts that were NOT truncated all had less than 10% change.  It wasn't clear, he tells us, whether the next highest - 66.2% same population- was a mid-term truncation.  [Note:  the follow up post will raise questions about these figures.]

Then the current Board decided that 75% should be the cut off point (15% lower than their previous standard and the 2002 standard and less than 9% higher than the 66.2% mentioned above for the 2002 Board.)  They set it at this point because they knew - and talked about it at the meeting - that Coghill's new district was 77% the same.  This level would save Coghill from truncation.  I could argue persuasively both for and against the proposition that 75% of the population makes the district substantially the same.  But public bodies don't usually set such standards AFTER one knows how they will affect the outcome.  Usually you determine these abstract standards before you know who will be affected. 

But that isn't really what I think of when it comes to incumbent protection.  To me that means making a district safe for an incumbent.  Senate district B is made up of districts 3 and 4.  Coghill lives in the new HD 3.  The new HD 4 tends to be a liberal district as I understand it.  But is HD 4 liberal enough to defeat Coghill?  I'm not from Fairbanks, but my encounter with Coghill in Juneau tells me he's a very likeable guy and will be hard to beat.   I'm not sure this is making B safe for Coghill.  Rather, by splitting what seems a natural pairing of HD 3 and HD 5, they've prevented, probably, a likely Democratic Senator.

[What I understood Walleri to say was something like this:  the Board discussed protecting incumbents by making sure that not only was the Senate staggered statewide as required by the Constitution, but also that it should be staggered by communities, and thus Coghill was saved from truncation by lowering the percentage from from 90% used in 2001 and 2012 to 75%.  It's true that Board member PeggyAnn McConnachie made this local staggering seem like it was a Constitutional requirement at that meeting, but I don't think that was related to truncation percentages directly.  The discussion on staggering districts came after truncation was settled.   I think the percentage needed to be substantially the same is probably an issue the judges will be interested in. That plus the pairing of HD 3 and 4 into SD B and HD 4 and 5 into SD C, combined with de facto non-contiguity of HB 5, and the lowering of the percentage to 75% all combined in the Fairbanks area, drawn up by former Rep. Jim Holm who lost his seat in 2006 to Scott Kawasaki, one of the Democratic incumbents (whose sister's house* he gouged out of the district) do all add up to something worth paying attention to.  
*A house listed as S. Kawasaki in the phone book was drawn out of Rep. Kawasaki's district in the first maps of Fairbanks Board member Holm offered the Board.  It turned out to belong to Scott's sister Sonia. Redistricting insiders call this protuberance on the map the Kawasaki finger.]

(c) previously considered partisan voting patterns of persons within the Ester/Goldstream Area.

Again, I'm not really sure where this is going.  I do know that the Ester/Goldstream areas in the new HD 4 were identified as high voter turnout Democratic precincts the first times around.  They were paired with Bering Strait villages on the grounds that this would meet the Voting Rights Act (VRA) criteria.  This gets a bit complicated, but they were trying to make a 'Native District' which, for the VRA, would mean a district where the Native choice candidate was likely to be elected. Since Alaska Natives tend to vote Democratic, if they added Democrats to the district, it required a lower percentage of Natives to qualify than if they added population less likely to vote the same as the Native vote. 

The Board very clearly discussed the partisan voting patterns of the Ester/Goldstream area, but I don't know what the implications are here concerning truncation.

[When I asked about this, Walleri started talking about packing districts.  Yes, he was referring to the fact that the Board had pointed out the liberal nature of these two communities as justification for putting them into Native House District 38 last time round.  He also acknowledged that there was some self-packing involved simply by the fact that these folks all lived near each other.  Time was limited at this point and so we didn't discuss this too much.  He did say that he'd submitted an amended challenge that was edited, which I haven't read yet, but which you can find here.  He also mentioned that White is arguing that these challenges should only be about the law, not about the facts.  But since the facts are so changed, I don't see how you could exclude them.  I guess that should be the Board's position, but the Court, so far, hasn't been that friendly to some of the Board's positions that seemed to be contrary to the public good.

I thought that once I talked to Walleri I'd be able to finish off this post.  And I am bringing it to a close.  But in double checking some things after we talked, I've discovered issues  I need to post, but I need a little more time to put them all together.  Stay tuned, this should get good, in a very technical way.]

Santa Monica Sunset

I've been busy doing things for my mom - making calls, arranging repairs, checking bills, etc.  I've also had a sore heal [heel] for the last two days.  This has happened before and I need to stop wearing the shoes I was walking in the other night and see if that stops this.

So I was eager to get some exercise and finally got some time just before 7 pm to ride the bike down to Venice Beach.  I decided to head north, into Santa Monica, this time. As the sun was getting low on the horizon.  It drops much faster than it does in Anchorage.

There's Santa Monica pier in the background.

Here's a guy slack lining as the sun sets.  Slackline.com says this sport began among the rock climbers camped for months at a time in Yosemite Valley.

"After the long days of jugging, hammering, scoping, bolting, cleaning, smearing, crimping, jamming, bleeding, taping, sending and summiting, people would flock back to camp 4 for the evening. Just as new routes were being created on a daily basis, so were new ways to spend down-time. The inhabitants of camp 4 could be found walking parking lot chains, hand railings, and even ropes strung up between the trees. In the mid to late 70’s this type of hobby became increasingly popular, as local hotshots and visitors alike were seen balancing on the rope. It appeared to have positive effects in honing balance for climbing, and strengthening the legs and core."

 And riding along the beach in the cooling evening air definitely had positive effects on my state of mind and body.

Poll: Alaska Worst Food And Most Underrated State

A Business Insider poll asked people about the various states.  I normally wouldn't put something like this up, but it was interesting to see that Alaska is on other people's minds.   It was rated top in Worst Food and Most Underrated.  But while many states were white  (no reaction) on a lot of the maps, Alaska showed some color (the darker the most votes) on 19 of the 22 questions.  (Some it was hard to tell.  And some it was good to be white.)  OK, this is silly and I'm being parochial, but here it is.

Which state has the (is your)(is)

1.  Weirdest accent?  Massachusetts 16%
2.  Best Food?  New York 20%
3.  Worst food?  AK with 5%, followed by Alabama. 
4.  Favorite?  California 12%, AK shows some color here.
5.  Least Favorite?  Texas wins hands down 11% AK shows faintly here too.
6.  Craziest? California 25%
7.  Hottest residents?  California again 51%
8.  Ugliest resident?   While Alabama got the highest with 11%, Alaska shows some color.
9   Most beautiful scenery?  Colorado got 11% but Alaska shows some color.
10.  Worst scenery?  Kansas. 12%
11.   Drunkest?  Louisiana 11%, Alaska shows color.
12.  Best vacation spot?  Hawaii 32%  Alaska is one of only nine states in this one.
13.  Most arrogant?  New York (39%) beats out Texas and California
14.  Rudest?  Again New York (44%)
15.  Nicest?  Georgia 7% Most states got some color on this one. 
16.  Smartest?  Went to Massachusetts. 24%
17.  Dumbest?  Alabama (16%) beats out Mississippi.
18.  Best sports fans?  New York 13%
19.  Worst sports fans?  New York 11%, but lots of color on the map including Alaska.
20.  Would you like to kick out of America?  Texas wins hands down.  21%  Then CA.
21.  Most overrated?  California 28%
22.  Most underrated?  Alaska 5%

See the maps here.

Gov Cited Jobs in Oil Tax Relief, Now Cuts Job Preference For Alaskans

From the Anchorage Daily News:

The Parnell administration, in an unprecedented move, has ruled that Alaska hire requirements for state and local public works contracts won't apply to the entire state but only to limited, mainly rural areas.
No longer covered as of Friday: Anchorage, Fairbanks, the Mat-Su, Juneau and the Kenai Peninsula.

The Juneau Empire reported a Parnell speech in June where he defended HB 21 which cut oil taxes drastically:

“If we can garner more investment from the tax changes we made with the More Alaska Production Act,” Parnell said, “Alaskans will benefit immensely from the jobs and opportunities that are created.”

But with this new policy change it's clear that the Governor doesn't care all that much if those jobs go to Alaskans.  And anyone who has flown to Anchorage regularly notices the planes have a lot of folks flying in from Outside for their shift on the North Slope.

Parnell talks about jobs and benefits to Alaskans, but the record seems to indicate that his true purpose is benefit to large corporations such as the oil company he lobbied for before becoming Lt. Governor and then Governor when Palin resigned. 

While his administration argues that DC doesn't understand Alaska's problems and thus shouldn't have power over the state, they see no reason why local governments and communities or the general Alaska public should have any say over what the State does.  They overturned the guts of the people's initiative to regulate the cruise industry and they destroyed the state's Coastal Zone Management structure making Alaska the only coastal state in the country without a Coastal Zone Management program.  Despite the fact that our coast is larger than all the others.

The purpose of all this?  The pattern we see would appear to give large corporations (as well as smaller businesses) free run in the state of Alaska with little or no interference from the Federal government, from the State government, from local governments, or from Alaskan people in general.  People's rights to protect their own communities have been cut drastically by Parnell's administration in moves like the gutting of the Coastal Zone Management program. 

Federal Overreach is a buzz ward in the Parnell Administration.  But not State Overreach. 

The language may be about "Alaska's economy" and "jobs"  but behind the facade is the real purpose:  making life easier for large corporations and business in general.  No one should hold up their projects for any reason, whether it destroys local neighborhoods and communities, pollutes, or threatens endangered species, or salmon streams.  Business gets an automatic green light at all intersections between their interests and the people's interests. 

I'm sure people like the governor and his supporters also believe that making life easier for large corporations makes life better for everyone.  Fundamentalist capitalism is just as blind and intolerant as fundamentalism in any other religion.  They forget that the reasons they dislike government - its potential power over others - is the same reason that many people dislike multinational corporations.  And as those corporations have gained increased power over government through election contributions and lobbyists, they have gotten larger and larger.  In most industries - media, airlines, food,  mining, oil, defense,  fishing, cruise lines, etc. -  consolidation has decreased the number of competing companies, giving fewer companies more control over people's lives.  Many corporations have larger budgets than many countries.  Government is the only viable counterbalance to their power. 

Of course the governor's new policy raises the question about whether local hire is even legal in the first place.  Back in the late 70s or early 80s Alaska local hire laws were ruled unconstitutional, so I did some checking to see if things had changed.  There are localities - like San Francisco - that have local hire laws.  For now, I'm just raising the point, and saying it appears that there are circumstances when local hire appears to be legal.  Here's a place to start reading about the law on this.

Self Made Myth

There are ideas that individuals and groups have so embedded in their minds that they never question them.  But often, these conceits do not hold up to close scrutiny.  Here's the start of an article that looks at the myth of the self-made man - a myth that underlies many conservatives, and certainly those Ayn Rand libertarians.  It's useful to review a thoughtful take on it so you're prepared when the opportunity arises to raise someone's consciousness. 

From the Hedgehog Review where you can read the whole article.

Problems and Promises of the Self-Made Myth

Jim Cullen

Reprinted from The Hedgehog Review 15.2 (Summer 2013). This essay may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission. Please contact The Hedgehog Review for further details.

The Hedgehog Review: Summer 2013

(Volume 15 | Issue 2)

• Issue TOC >>

A self-made man means one who has rendered himself accomplished, eminent, rich, or great by his own unaided efforts.

—John Frost, Self-Made Men of America (1848)

These have not been good days for the self-made man. The very phraseology offends: in an age when even corporate titans ritualistically affirm the value of teamwork, “self-made” sounds unseemly. “What’s wrong with the ‘self-made’ theory? Everything,” says Mike Myatt, a prominent CEO consultant, in a 2011 article in Forbes, a publication where one might expect to see such a figure affirmed. “If your pride, ego, arrogance, insecurity, or ignorance keeps you from recognizing the contributions of others, then it’s time for a wake-up call,” he admonishes.1 In the 2012 book The Self-Made Myth, authors Brian Miller and Mike Lapham define the phrase as “the false assertion that individual and business success are entirely the result of the hard work, creativity, and sacrifice of the individual with little outside assistance.”2
Such objections do not even begin to broach the difficulties of a phrase like “self-made man” in a postfeminist era, when any generic citation of “man” is at best a faux pas. Given the institutional, much less biological, realities that govern our lives, the very idea of the self-made man sounds like a contradiction in terms. No man is “unaided” because every man is some mother’s son.

Here's the whole article.

Visiting A Well-To-Do Thai Home - 1919

No, I didn't take this movie, I'm not THAT old. Even my mom hadn't been born yet. This was posted at Thai-Visa [not sure if you need an id to get in there, probably just to comment] and I thought it worth sharing. When I was in Thailand in the 60s some of this was still going on. I don't remember women wearing this sort of sarong except for classical Thai dancing. Eating betel nut was still popular, but only by the older men and women - these women would have been in their 60s or 70s by then. I'm guessing the hostess must have been someone pretty high on the social scale (maybe royalty?) based on how low these women prostrate themselves when they 'wai'. Though when you are already sitting on the floor, the others have to get down pretty low to show proper respect. While I often was in situations where we were all on the floor like that, I wasn't with people that elegant.









Writing this post made me remember a short video of a breakfast on the floor with farmers in Chiang Mai in 2008.  That would have been 89 years later.  And a much less elegant, but more comfortable setting.  You can see that video here  just for a comparison.  They're speaking Northern Thai dialect.   I'm not sure why the photos have vanished.  

Monetizing Outlaw Art And Killing The Artists

Consider the graffiti artist who puts something up in the dead of night on some wall.

A year later, it's auctioned off for $1.1 million.

Irony twisted in irony.  Banksy's graffiti is both clever and well executed.  More succinctly, it's often brilliant.

If he were doing these in a studio on canvas, they would be good.  But the power of these drawings is greatly multiplied by the fact that they are (mostly) done secretly, without permission, in public places, and their placement is part of the comment they make about the world.  Some examples:

• A pole vaulter painted on a wall high above a chain-link face next to the wall.  
• A rat painted into the barred red circle on a no-stopping sign.  
• "Sorry, the life style you ordered is currently out of stock" on a billboard painted on the side of a building.  
• A suited man with a briefcase and a sandwich board over his chest reading "0% interest - in people."  Is this a bank wall I wonder?  
• A hand coming out of a painted barred window reaching down to pick the lock on a painted doorknob on the side of a Bail Bond shop.  

You get the idea.  But the art work itself speaks much more strongly than my descriptions.  You can see all these and many more on Banksy's website. 


This all came up because of a recent LA Times story about a  Banksy drawn on a gas station wall that was cut out of the wall and is going up for auction. The flower girl is faced with a plant that has a surveillance camera where the flower should be.  (For the record, the article says that in this case the owner of the wall gave permission.)

So, a huge part of the appeal of these pieces is the social/political comment at a location that amplifies the point. 

So what does it mean when the owner of a painted wall cuts out the work and sells it for hundreds of thousands of dollars or more?  What does this tell us about how the market works, about fairness, profit, free speech, decency?   Is there an obligation to share some of the profit with the artist?  Often the artist is not known.  In fact has been forced to hide his identity.  Is there an obligation to share the work and/or the profit with the community?  Not under our current private property laws.  The artist is technically a and outlaw, a vandal who has defaced someone else's property and could be charged and tried.  The property owner who may be the object of the artists political humor, turns around and profits from the 'crime' against him. 

This becomes all the more poignant when we consider the graffiti artist who was recently killed by police who tasered him.

[Israel] Hernández, 18, was an artist and photographer who had some of his work exhibited locally. On the morning of Aug. 6, he was spray-painting his graffiti tag “Reefa” on an abandoned McDonald’s when the Miami Beach cops began to chase him. After being cornered a couple blocks away Officer Jorge Mercado shot Hernández with a Taser in the chest. He was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly thereafter.  [from the Militant]

My heart breaks for Hernández' family and friends at this illustration of how police thinking causes so much tragedy.  I don't mean to belittle this by not going into it more fully.  This is worthy of further posts.  Perhaps the fallout will lead to better police training and recognition of kids' needs to express themselves and finding ways to help them do that legally.  

I'm still trying to untwist my brain over all this.

Graffiti, it seems to me, basically comes from an imbalance in society.  Those who feel they have no legitimate means of control over their lives, make their mark by defacing other people's (public or private) property.   It's anger at their own lack of power and at those who have more power. Their spray paint is a visual tantrum.   For others it's putting their brand out to the world.  They may not have $1 million to get a stadium or building named after them, but they do have spray paint.  Others are using spray paint and stencils to present their art or to make a statement about the world. 

Artists like Banksy,  Jean-Michel Basquait, and Kevin [Keith] Haring, whose graffiti has moved from the streets to museums and private collections, illustrate the ironies of capitalism.  One can argue that at first they simply had no legitimate venues, and like street musicians, gave their art away for free until they gained access to legitimate venues.  But a big part of the appeal of graffiti art, unlike street music, comes from the fact that they are making political statements elegantly but illegally.  It's outlaw art, as the police response to Hernández reminds us.

Should graffiti artists share in the profits when their work is auctioned off to the wealthy? 

There are moves to give artists a share in the market appreciation of their work.  From a 2011 NY Times article

"When the taxi baron Robert Scull sold part of his art collection in a 1973 auction that helped inaugurate today’s money-soused contemporary-art market, several artists watched the proceedings from a standing-room-only section in the back. There, Robert Rauschenberg saw his 1958 painting “Thaw,” originally sold to Scull for $900, bring down the gavel at $85,000. At the end of the Sotheby Parke Bernet sale in New York, Rauschenberg shoved Scull and yelled that he didn’t work so hard “just for you to make that profit.”

The uproar that followed in part inspired the California Resale Royalties Act, requiring anyone reselling a piece of fine art who lives in the state, or who sells the art there for $1,000 or more, to pay the artist 5 percent of the resale price."

So, perhaps, if Banksy's Flower Girl sells for $300,000, there would be $15,000 in it for him.  But this is a reminder that there is little that is 'natural' in the market.  It's all about who had the power to get laws written and whom the laws favor or dismiss.  

I've also posted about the film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, which features Banksy and is a good way to get a sense of some of the graffiti artists and their motivation.  And about his painting - Taking a Break. 

Caregiver Payroll Taxes - Issues For Adult Children With Aging Parents

When we got a caregiver for my mom, we talked to her accountant about what we'd have to do.  He offered to take care of the quarterly and year end reports.  We just had to send in what we paid for the quarter.  When he got our first quarterly report information, he contacted me to say that we had paid our caregiver gross and not net pay.  I guess that is something obvious to people regularly involved in this, but he hadn't explained that to me and I certainly wouldn't have known how to calculate the various taxes that needed to be deducted and he hadn't directed me to any way to do that.

If you tell someone to boil an egg, you probably assume they know they need a pot, some water, some heat, etc.  I guess the accountant thought he was telling me to boil an egg.

In any case, he did then suggest a company and an online payroll tax calculator.  I tried the online calculator, but it didn't have options I needed.  Like a daily, rather than an hourly wage rate.  I talked to a company representative, but they were really set up for doing a lot more than one or two employees and were much too expensive and suggested we look for a company that specializes in stuff more like we needed.

The accountant sent me another name.  I talked to him yesterday and he came by today.  I still need to get my mom's tax id number.  The accountant applied for it but he didn't get it in his office and thinks maybe it got sent to my mom.  But my mom and I have gone through most of the paper work that came to the house in the mail in the last month, and I haven't seen it.

I'm sure this isn't too difficult and if I could find a program for this I could do it myself, but being split between LA and Anchorage and my mom wanting some control over this, I just gave in and said ok, we'll do this.  Perhaps over time I'll be able to take it over myself, but for now I've had too many other new things to handle and having someone who will do it for me feels like a great relief.

I mention all this because when I've looked on websites for handling issues relating to taking care of seniors, I haven't found anything that got into the details of things like payroll taxes for caregivers.  I'm playing with the idea of another blog that goes into the experiences I'm having with my mom.  My family has said they don't want google to find out info about them on this blog, so I'm generally circumspect with names and photos and details about what they are doing.  And I don't really want to talk about my mom quite as publicly as this blog.  Another blog that's anonymous would work better. And the blog would just be dedicated to the aging and caring issues.

Before I do that though, I need to do more internet searching to see what all is already out there that I've missed. I need to use different search terms too.

Before posting this today, for example, I searched more specifically for "payroll taxes for caregiver for elderly"  and found information from Caregiver I needed four months ago, when I didn't know that I needed it or what I should be looking for.

"The Caregiver as Employer

By Jude Roberts, Staff Writer

(Page 1 of 2)

When hiring a professional in-home caregiver, there are a couple of ways in which they can be selected, either from an agency which specializes in screening and placing professional caregivers, or by doing the research, interviewing, screening, and hiring all on your own. Keep in mind that if you hire a professional caregiver on your own, you will be entirely responsible for paying certain types of taxes that may be new to you, as well as having to know which taxes your new employee should be paying as well. Although you’ve hired a professional caregiver, who is much more than just a “domestic housekeeper”, the IRS will recognize you as the employer of a domestic.

If you pay your professional caregiver more than $1400 in cash wages per calendar year (note: the IRS may change this amount annually), you will be expected to file payroll taxes on such things as: Social Security & Medicare taxes (7.65% of gross wages); Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) (0.8% of gross wages or less in most circumstances); state unemployment and disability insurance taxes levied on the employer; and advance payment of the earned income credit for eligible employees."

This was helpful in explaining to the caregiver why we had to do it this way (as advised by the accountant) instead of paying her as an independent contractor.

But I haven't found any really good general websites on aging parents that give good, comprehensive advice on things like this. That alerted me to issues I hadn't thought about but needed.  I'm sure they must be out there. 


For an example of how hit and miss this is, here are the top ten hits I got googling "elderly parents adult children" today:   [All these are brief excerpts, click links to get more.]

1.  Aging Parent offers a way for children caring for their parents to connect.  It offered

The Caregivers' Survival Guide:
Family Caring for Family

FREE when you sign-up for the Caregivers' Newsletter.

 It has a lot of options for different kinds of care for a parent - you can fill in your zip code and check off what you need and they come up with a list of providers in your area.  But I can't find the taxes information.  

2.  Time magazine story:

Caring for Aging Parents: Should There Be a Law?

By Francine Russo July 22, 2013

China’s government thinks so, and as the population of elderly in nearly every society starts to swell, such eldercare laws are becoming more common. But are they effective?

2.  CBS Philly article:

"Survey Shows Adult Children None Too Anxious To Take Care Of Aging Parents 

June 4, 2013 11:49 AM

By Chelsea Karnash
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Think your kids will take care of you in your Golden Years? They might, but they won’t be happy about it. . . "

4.  Elder Law Answers

"Requiring Adult Children to Pay for Aging Parents

Did you know you could be responsible for your parents' unpaid bills? Twenty-nine states currently have laws making adult children responsible for their parents if their parents can't afford to take care of themselves. While these laws are rarely enforced, there has been speculation that states may begin dusting them off as a way to save on Medicaid expenses."

5.   Prairie River Home Care

Caregivers in St. Cloud, MN: Adult Children as Caregivers for Aging Parents

July 24, 2013 by Lori Seemann · Leave a Comment

Of all individuals providing care to older adults, 42% of them are adult children. Most child caregivers are the daughters or daughters-in-law of the person receiving care. Throughout the passage of a person’s life, the care, comfort and assistance received are often given by one generation to other family members in a different generation. For example young children are cared for by parents and grandparents. When these children grow into middle adulthood, they may be taking care of their elderly parents.

6.  New York Daily News

Health

China to require children to visit aging parents as elderly care poses problem for nation 

Rates of elderly will skyrocket, make up 35% of population by 2053. New law would require children to visit and care for their aging parents.

7.  The Family Firm offers:

Financial Tips for Adult Children of Elderly Parents

As our parents get older, family roles can shift in big ways.
Older parents can suddenly seem distressed by financial management, and taking it on can be overwhelming for adult children. Siblings need to cooperate, parents need to be willing to relinquish control, and everyone needs to communicate clearly — none of this is easy. . .

8.  A New York Times story:

"Adult Children, Aging Parents and the Law

By JANE GROSS

Are children legally responsible for their parents’ care? (Susan Farley for The New York Times)

At the end of my mother’s life, for six months, a year at most, Medicaid paid for her care in a nursing home. She was broke by then, after living on a pittance since she was widowed at 58, using the proceeds from her house to pay for six years of assisted living and part of her nursing home stay and never seeing a penny from a long-term care insurance policy that cost a bundle but covered none of what she needed. She had given my brother and me no up-front money to hasten her eligibility for Medicaid and died with $26 to her name and nothing to leave to her children. The good news was we didn’t even have to put her will in probate."

9.   The International Business Times also has a story about the Chinese law requiring kids to care for their elderly parents.


10.  And finally, the University of Pennsylvania has an article

5-13-2013

Bridging the Gap Between Adult Children and Their Aging Parents: Developing and Assessing a Life Review Education Program