UPDATE: Campbell Creek Bike Trail Under Seward Highway Almost Done

I checked on the Campbell Creek bike trail under the Seward Highway project last night (Thursday, Oct. 10).  My last post on this was Sept. 10.   On Sept. 6 I posted pictures of the unpaved trail and what it looked like in the past when you had to carry your bike under the low bridges. 

It's now paved and almost done.  This morning I called the project engineer Chong Kim who said he's hoping it will be done next week.  In this first photo - from the west side - you can see the fence like structure.  It's designed to deflect snow coming from a snow plow on the road above and keeping it off the trail and off people walking or riding on the trail.  Kim said five more are supposed to go up and they are the last major parts that need to be done. 

This shot is from the east looking west.  There are four new bridges - the east access road, which you see here; the north bound Seward Highway;  south bound Seward Highway; and the west access road. 










The reason you can't really use this part of the path yet is this fence on the bridge on the west side. Once the other

Looking at this fence, turn 180˚ and you see the picture below.

This is looking at the path and bridge from the west. 

Above I'm looking east from under one of the bridges.

Looking up I saw what I thought were lights, but they were strange looking and I couldn't see them quite as clearly as I can now looking at the photo. 

I asked Kim about them.  They are LED lights which use much less energy than regular lights would.  But they're pretty expensive and he expressed concern about vandalism or theft.  I asked if I should post about this.  He said yes and to let cyclists know that if they see anyone tampering with the lights to call the police (and maybe take a picture as well.)  I guess he figured not too many LED thieves read this blog, but cyclists might. 
 


Taking the trail further east - toward Lake Otis - I took this shot of the leaf carpeted trail.

Correcting A Faulkner Gap - The Sound And The Fury Appendix

Despite being an undergraduate English major, I've never read a William Faulkner book.  Looking around at my mom's house Tuesday I found The Sound and the Fury and thought it time I rectify this gap.  A five hour plane trip should give me time to get into the book. As it turned out, the person next to me on the plane had flown that day from Mississippi, the setting of The Sound And The Fury.

As I started reading, I could see why I haven't read Faulkner.  This book is not for the faint of heart.  This is not an easy walk, but a serious climb.  So much so that I wonder if I would have persevered (well, I still have a long way to go) if I didn't know this was considered a great book.  This passage - one single sentence - should give you a sense.

"One day in 1943, after a week of a distraction bordering on disintegration almost, during which those entering the library would find her always in the act of hurriedly closing her desk drawer and turning the key in it (so that the matrons, wives of the bankers and doctors and lawyers, some of whom had also been in that old highschool class, who came and went in the afternoons with the copies of the Forever Ambers and the volumes of Thorne Smith carefully wrapped from view in sheets of Memphis and Jackson newspapers, believed she was on the verge of illness or perhaps even loss of mind) she closed and locked the library in the middle of the afternoon and with her handbag clasped tightly under her arm and two feverish spots of determination in her ordinarily colorless cheeks, she entered the farmers' supply store where Jason IV had started as a clerk and where he now owned his own business as a buyer of and dealer in cotton, striding on through that gloomy cavern which only men ever entered - a cavern cluttered and walled and stalagmitehung with plows and discs and loops of racechain and singletrees and mulecollars and sidemeat and cheap shoes and horselinament and flour and molasses, gloomy because the goods it contained were not shown but hidden rather since those who supplied Mississippi farmers or at least Negro Mississippi farmers for a share of the crop did not wish, until that crop was made and its value approximately computable, to show them what they could learn to want but only to supply them on specific demand with what they could not help but need - and strode on back to Jason's particular domain in the rear:  a railed enclosure cluttered with shelves and pigeonholes bearing spiked dust-and-lintgathering gin receipts and ledgers and cottonsamples and rank with the blended smell of cheese and kerosene and harnessoil and the tremendous iron stove against which chewed tobacco had been spat for almost a hundred years, and up to the long high sloping counter behind which Jason stood and, not looking again at the overalled men who had quietly stopped talking and even chewing when she entered, with a kind of fainting desperation she opened on the counter and stood trembling and breathing rapidly while Jason looked down at it - a picture, a photograph in color clipped obviously from a slick magazine - a picture filled with luxury and money and sunlight  - a Cannebiére backdrop of mountains and palms and cypresses and the sea, an open powerful expensive chromiumtrimmed sports car, the woman's face hatless between a rich scarf and a seal coat, ageless and beautiful, cold serene and damned;  beside her a handsome lean man of middleage in the ribbons and tabs of a German staffgeneral - and the mousesized mousecolored spinster trembling and aghast at her own temerity, staring across it at the childless bachelor in whom ended that long line of men who had had something in them of decency and pride even after they had begun to fail at the integrity and the pride had become mostly vanity and selfpity:  from the expatriate who had to flee his native land with little else except his life yet who still refused to accept defeat, through the man who gambled his life and his good name twice and lost twice and declined to accept that either, and the one who with only a clever small quarterhorse for tool avenged his dispossessed father and grandfather and gained a principality, and the brilliant and gallant governor and the general who though he failed at leading in battle brave and gallant men at least risked his own life too in the failing, to the cultured dipsomaniac who sold the last of his patrimony not to buy drink but to give one of his descendants at least the best chance in life he could think of."  (pp. 11-13)

Reading it slowly enough to type it made this all make much more sense than it did the first time.  This is in a section of the book called "Appendix" which is in the front of the book and gives a history for some of the key characters.  Reading it out loud  as I tried to catch typos also helped to give it more meaning, made it make more sense as you play with where to pause so it sounds right to a listener. 

Violating all the rules that experts give to writing students, Faulkner offers a writer's version of a long single-shot scene in a film.  But the rules are for mere mortals, true writers know when they can play fast and loose with the rules and get away with it. 

It also reminds me of the writing in James Joyce's Ulysses.  

After writing that I felt compelled to check whether I was being simplistic and  seeing a similarity because there were looooong sentences in both, but apparently this connection has long been observed.   But the link says the copyright is 1929 - seven years after Ulysses was published as a book, yet the passage above refers to 1943.  What gives? 

It turns out the Appendix, according to my 1956 Vintage Books copy of The Sound And The Fury,  "was written for the Portable Faulkner, edited by Malcolm Cowley. . ."  For those interested, there's a paper that discusses the writing of the Appendix.

The paper includes this explanation of the purpose of the Appendix:

Written by Faulkner, this note would tell "why and when . . . and how a 17 year old girl [Miss Quentin] robbed a bureau drawer of hoarded money and climbed down a drain pipe and ran off with a carnival pitchman" (SL 202). 

In the passage above, the city librarian takes a photo she has cut out of a magazine that has a picture of the now much older, but apparently still beautiful,  17 year old and shows it to the girl's uncle whose hoarded money she stole.  

Spectacular Views Flying Into Anchorage

Double Click to See the Real Picture

It's been sunny in LA for the almost two weeks I'd been there.  Warm to hot - a few days were in the 90s, even high 80s near the beach.  This morning it was overcast and a little cooler.  But It was a surprise when I got into my seat and looked out the window and saw it was raining.

Here's the overcast LA as we took off over the beaches.  That's Marina del Rey and then Venice Beach above it.  You can compare this to the sun over Venice Beach yesterday.  (Last picture in that post.)







And the clouds filled in most of the trip.

Here it's particularly heavy.













And here there's a break in the clouds.









But as we moved into Alaskan airspace, the clouds began disappear and it was amazing.  To the point where I put my little pocket camera away and pulled out my big new one for some real pictures.  (All of the ones below are significantly and dramatically better if you double click them.  On here it's like without the 3-D glasses.)

That's a pretty good sized glacier coming out from the right across the front.   You really need to double click these to see the real picture that Blogspot doesn't do justice to.  If you're only going to do one, do the top one.  Trust me!

 

I'm pretty sure this is Cordova.

Now we're into Prince William Sound.

We came in a bit north of Anchorage - over Eklutna Lake I believe - and then we did some flight seeing over Mat-su before heading into the Anchorage airport.

 

The mudflats on the Mat-su side of the Inlet with the silhouette of Fire Island.  

This was a non-stop flight out of LA.  Five hours and 45 minutes. 

LA - Parting Shots - Swamp to Golf, Eggplants, Car Door Art; and the Beach

Headed back to Anchorage today (Wednesday).  Got some things done around the house - most significantly got the electric panel for the house updated;  went through her mail;  paid bills; and filed what needed to be kept.  And we spent some good time together.  I'm getting more patient and trying to imagine what the world is like from her perspective.  I ask her and she tries to tell me.  Sometimes she completely there and on top of things, other times she drifts off. 

Here are a few pictures I didn't get to post yet of LA.

 

Penmar Golf course on my bike route to the beach.  As a kid I played in the swampy, hilly wasteland that was here before the public golf course was put in.

[UPDATE Oct. 25, 2014:  The editor of GolfCalifornia asked if they could use this picture on a piece about Penmar (and The Lakes of El Segundo) golf courses.  You can learn a lot more about the golf course itself there.]







Some of the eggplants available at the Saturday Market at Virginia Park in Santa Monica.

The good thing about cell phones is that when you have a long conversation, you don't have to just sit there.  You can go for a walk.  So I was in the middle of a heavy conversation as I approached this house.  My head was mostly in the phone, but my eyes were trying to figure out how this car was parked here in front of this house.  It was only when I got close that I realized this was not simply a car door, it was a "piece of art."

I biked down to the beach one last time this afternoon.  (My heel's been giving me problems so I'm biking instead of running.)  I went north instead of my usual south until I got to the Santa Monica pier.

And my parting shot of Venice Beach at Rose. 

Battling My Way Through The Forest of Redistricting Motions Before The Court

The Redistricting Board website has a page called Pleadings which lists the motions filed with the Superior Court since mid-August.   I counted 51 separate documents since September 13, 2013.  I finally decided I had to copy and paste the list and then go through the documents and note what they are about.  Some are just procedural and won't matter in the big picture, such as the documents arguing for or against the Alaska Democratic Party being allowed to file some motions late.  (The judge accepted them so the motions to accept or not accept them late really don't seem like they could have much future impact on the case itself.)

Basically, what I understand them to be doing is asking the judge to make a 'summary judgment' on this or that.  Wikipedia explains 'summary judgment' this way:

"In law, a summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case. Today, summary judgment is governed by Federal Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, derived primarily from the three seminal cases concerning summary judgment out of the 1980s. .  .

"A party moving (applying) for summary judgment is attempting to avoid the time and expense of a trial when the outcome is obvious. A party may also move for summary judgement in order to eliminate the risk of losing at trial, and possibly avoid having to go through discovery (i.e., by moving at the outset of discovery), by demonstrating to the judge, via sworn statements and documentary evidence, that there are no material factual issues remaining to be tried. If there's nothing for the factfinder to decide, then the moving party asks rhetorically, why have a trial? The moving party will also attempt to persuade the court that the undisputed material facts require judgment to be entered in its favor. In many jurisdictions, a party moving for summary judgment takes the risk that, although the judge may agree there are no material issues of fact remaining for trial, the judge may also find that it is the non-moving party that is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."

As I'm going through these, I think that I've already posted the main arguments being made by the Riley Plaintiffs and the Alaska Democratic Party (ADP).  I think.  Actually, I  there are some more ADP motions I didn't cover yet.  I'm still checking.  What I know I haven't adequately done is go over the Redistricting Board's responses and then the Riley and ADP responses to the Board's responses.  Confused yet?  I am.  


So, what seems to be happening is that the Riley Plaintiffs and the ADP are saying to the court,

"Look there are all these problems with how the Board did the plan.  We want you to rule (summary judgment) that these districts aren't compact, economic/socially integrated, etc." 

 And then the Board files a motion saying,

"They're wrong.  We did this carefully and there was no other way to do it.  We want you to rule (make a summary judgment) for us and against them."

Of course, there's more detail than that and I'll try to pull it out soon. 

The only decisions that I see that the judge has made so far (since September) have been on accepting the late filing by the Alaska Democratic Party, setting dates for a hearing if that's necessary, and accepting the Board's request to postpone the trial.  No summary judgments.  But he has talked about an 'omnibus

Waffling With Mom

Waffles were on the menu on Sunday mornings since forever.  After I had moved out in college, whenever I was home on Sunday morning, we always had waffles.  Even last year my mom made waffles for us on Sunday when we visited.

But since March, my mom's legs finally went on strike - her muscles aren't following her instructions and they hurt.  Her mind's basically sound, but it does wander off now and then.  One thing that we can do together is cook up old favorite family recipes.

So I asked Mom if she wanted to make waffles Sunday morning. 

In the summer we made my mom's old Hungarian Goulash and she supervised the whole thing, especially how to mix the ingredients for the dumplings.  We had a lot of fun and a great meal at the end.

The caregiver wasn't too sure about the waffle idea, but I was determined.

Steve:  Where's the waffle iron?
Mom:  In the lower cabinet on the left, wrapped in a white and red towel.


Sure enough there it was.  This waffle iron has to be 40 years old at least.  I checked and found this story at Chow hound about someone with the same waffle iron.  I got out the flour.  There was baking powder, milk.  We used olive oil instead of butter.

Steve:  Where's a mixing bowl?
Mom:  Turn 180˚.

And there behind me on a shelf was the old white mixing bowl with the beaters from the electric mixer.  The mixer was right next to it.  She sat at the table in her wheel chair and guided me as I poured the ingredients into the bowl.  I had to put the baking powder in a little milk and water in the measuring cup and let it do its reaction on the side before adding it to the batter. 

Soon I had a good thick, but not too thick, batter.  I'd already been told to plug in the waffle iron so it would be hot.  But we couldn't find the brush to put the oil on the griddle inside the waffle iron.  I poured a little in with a spoon then opened and closed the waffle iron several times to get it on the top and bottom.

Then I poured in the batter and closed the waffle iron.  The light was on outside.  When it went off, the waffles should be ready.  While the first one was cooking, I remembered we needed chocolate chips.

Caregiver:  We don't have any.
Mom:  Look in the second drawer on the left.  Is there a cookie tin in there?
Steve:  Yes.
Mom:  Look inside the tin.

And there was an unopened bag of chocolate chips.  There's a reason my mom doesn't want anyone organizing her kitchen (or any other part of the house) for her.

I had tried to open the waffle iron to check.  The batter had risen and pushed it open a little, but it was sticking to the griddle.  Would the waffles come loose easily or tear open because they were stuck to the griddle?

The light went out and I tried to open the waffle iron.  It seemed to be stuck, but then the waffle popped loose from the bottom and I was able to pull it off the top intact. It was perfect.

The picture is the second waffle - the one with the chocolate chips.  Fat, crispy, and fluffy inside.

Then we cut some bananas on top and poured some honey and some Himbeersaft onto the waffles.

We both ate way too much waffle.  But it was a delightful morning.  I tried to explain the waffle tradition to my mom's caregiver so she could understand this was more than just a messy breakfast experiment.  It was a tapping into important parts of my mom (and my) brain.  A place where she's still fully mobile and her mind has everything under control.  At one point when we couldn't find the brush to oil the griddle with, my mom forgot she couldn't walk and said, "Let me get it" and tried to stand up. 

Two Common Characteristics Of The Radical Christian and Muslim Fundamentalists

1. Interpretation of their holy books to justify anything they choose to believe.
2. Desire to shut down the US government and cripple our nation

Where is NSA when we need them?

Redistricting Board's Attorney's Health Problems Delay Court Date Until December 9 - 16

Michael White, the Alaska Redistricting Board's attorney, had significant surgery in September, according to a motion filed before the Superior Court, and so the Board has asked for any trial date to be delayed beyond the scheduled November 7 - 15 dates the judge reserved.  Judge McConahy originally set these dates should a trial be necessary. 

He made it very clear in that September 19 order he hadn't decided if a trial was needed:

“The Court expresses no opinion at this time whether such an evidentiary hearing will be necessary or that any such hearing would require all the allotted time.”

 The new order, dated October 3,  responding to the Board's motion (with no objections from the plaintiffs), sets the potential court time for Dec. 9 - 16.   Compared to the "no opinion at this time" language above, this time the judge hints that there will be a hearing.

‘The need for a hearing and on what specific issues will be addressed in the omnibus order on the summary judgment.”

I'm not an attorney so I can only use the rules of standard English to evaluate whether that sentence means the judge has decided there will be a hearing.  He doesn't say "If" in that sentence, but I guess when he addresses "the need for a hearing" he could say there is no need.  But this language is significantly closer to there being a hearing than the language in the previous memo.

The motion to continue the trial went into far more graphic detail about White's health issues than I thought needed to be public.  Again, I don't know what's normal for this sort of thing in court, but I don't think an attorney should have to reveal that level of detail about his health to the public.  If I were running things I'd allow the ill attorney to share the information with the plaintiffs and the judge and then have the those details kept out of the public records.  For those with a legitimate medical interest in those details, they are in the motion.  For others who are just nosy, I've rigged the link to destroy your computer if you click on it.  

Weather Note:  It's a good idea to take serious cold weather gear if you go to Fairbanks for the trial in mid-December. Weather Spark gives a lot of weather information; from what I can tell from their graphs, the weather is very likely to be 'frigid' (below 15˚F
[-9 ˚C]) most likely in the range of 0˚F [-17˚C] and -15˚F [-26˚C].  And so close to the solstice, sunrise to sunset in Fairbanks will be less than four hours. In the past, the Fairbanks hearing was available online or by phone.  I better check with the Board's staff to make sure they'll do that again in December.  I'm not headed to Fairbanks in the middle of the Anchorage International Film Festival. 

Blogging Note:  This procedural stuff is much easier to write about than the substantive issues in the motions.  On those I'm falling behind, but I'm hoping to catch up and get something posted before the judge writes his omnibus order.  I was hoping, now that the motions and the objections to the motions are in, to write something that compares them.  Maybe that's too ambitious.  I need to print them all out.  My laptop screen is just too small to compare them.  Plus, most of these are pdfs that I can't cut and paste text from.  Plus I'm in LA spending being with my mom, taking care of paper work and other household repairs for her. Fortunately, she has a great caregiver and they get along well. 

Looks Like the Anchorage International Film Festival Isn't Going To Meet October 5 Deadline [UPDATED]

[UPDATE 9:40pm:  The Festival website has been updated.  Dean got my email and it now says:

"Don’t Panic

We made a typo on the filmmaker FAQ page – official selections will be announced October 15th. Please forgive us and don’t panic if you didn’t get a notice from our programming team today because nobody did since the programming teams are still finalizing their selections."]

From the Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF) film maker FAQ page:

How will I be notified if my film is selected?

We’ll notify you that your submission media has arrived within a week of its arrival at the festival office. We’ll list all selected films on our website by October 5th. If you do not receive an “Official Selection” notice, or if your film is not listed on the AIFF website, please understand that this means your film was not chosen for the festival. However, we contact all filmmakers prior to the festival start with thanks for supporting the AIFF and the art of independent film. Please contact us if you are the rare filmmaker who didn’t receive an email from us. We take pride in good communications.

When I saw that date, it seemed a little early.  Perhaps not for notifying the film makers - they need plenty of lead time if they are going to travel to Anchorage in December - but for getting the list up on the website.

And the list isn't up and it's 7:00 pm in Anchorage.  

Last year I posted that the list was up on October 19, 2012 and that festival started a week earlier than this year.  I suspect that someone was being a little optimistic when they put up the October 5 date.

So, if you submitted a film, don't worry yet.  Nothing seems to be up.  It's not on some page you can't find. 

 I do have a call and email into the guy who does the website.  He's very professional and fanatic about getting all the details just right.  I'll let folks know what's happening if I find out. 

Four Alaskan Senators Point Out "Alaskans are among the least insured in the nation with 20.6 percent of our state living without health insurance" And Ask Governor What He Plans To Do About It

I reported recently that Alaska Senator Bill Wielechowski had sent a public records request to the Parnell administration requesting that the Lewin Group study of the impact of expanding Medicaid in Alaska under the Affordable Care Act be made public.  (It was completed in April.)

Today the Senator was joined by Senators Berta Gardner, Johnny Ellis, and Hollis French in a letter to the Governor asking him not only to release the report, but to get moving since the time for signing up for insurance has already begun.  Particularly, they note that Parnell's administration has abdicated any participation in the insurance exchange for Alaska, thus leaving it totally to the federal government with no Alaskan input. 

They also note Alaska's low level of health insurance coverage and a study by the Alaskan Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) that finds many benefits for Alaskans in expanding Medicaid. 


Here's the beginning of the Senators' letter:

Governor Sean Parnell
550 W. 7th
Avenue, Suite 1700
Anchorage, AK 99501
4 October 2013

Dear Governor Parnell,

Fall is upon us, and with it, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. While many provisions of the Act have yet to take effect, one of the more important changes, the health insurance marketplace, has just come online October 1st of this year. With this deadline only recently passed, we believe now is the appropriate time for your administration to address a variety of questions Alaskans have regarding the state’s role in ensuring a smooth transition into a more affordable, efficient health care system. 

We’ve heard, mostly from media sources, that the exchanges have yet to be set up and that your administration decided not to participate in any decision-making processes that would have allowed for an Alaska-specific exchange. While we question the wisdom of giving up Alaska’s ability to have an exchange specifically designed for and adaptable to Alaska’s unique needs, that decision is past, and we hope to have a more public and open discussion about expanding Medicaid in Alaska.

According to a study by The Society of Actuaries, Alaskans are among the least insured in the nation with 20.6 percent of our state living without health insurance. The study found that, should you decide to accept the Medicaid expansion, the percentage of uncovered Alaskans would drop to just over 8 percent.

It is critically important for legislators, as well as the public, to have access to the information the administration is using to make its decision with regards to the Medicaid expansion. We ask that your administration finalize the Alaska DHSS sponsored Lewin Medicaid Expansion Recommendation Report so that Alaskans can more fully understand the issues and benefits. .  . 

The whole letter is here.

I would also recommend that the Senators, if they haven't already, look at 

the study the Lewin Group did for the State of New Hampshire.  (Phase I)

It shows huge advantages for the state in expanding Medicaid, far more than the costs.  I'm not sure what New Hampshire contracted Lewin to study, but my look at the Alaska contract with Lewin caused me to believe that they were basically asked to look at what it would cost and not how the state might benefit. 

Here's the Table of Contents for Phase II (January 2013) of the study: (Note, this is Phase II)

Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................... 1

I.  INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 11

II.  SUMMARY OF PHASE I ANALYSIS ..................................................................... 13

III.  PHASE II ANALYSIS AND RESULTS .................................................................. 15

   A.  Impact on Other State Programs ..................................................................................15

   B.  Impact on the Uninsured ............................................................................................. 19

   C.  Impact on Providers .................................................................................................... 24

   D. Economic Impact ......................................................................................................... 37

   E.  Impact on Commercial Market ....................................................................................41

IV.  METHODOLOGY......................................................................................................... 46

   A.  Impact of ACA on Medicaid DSH Payments ........................................................ 46

   B.  Health Systems ............................................................................................................ 47

   C.  Federally Qualified Health Centers ..............................................................................52

   D.  Community Mental Health Centers ........................................................................55

   E.  Cost-Shifting ...................................................................................................57

   F.   Economic Impact ..........................................................................................................58

I'm sure a lot of what it contains will be duplicated in the Alaska study.  At the very least, comparing the two studies should prove interesting.  How are they the same and how are they different and why?  Because the data are different, or because the instructions are different?