Wednesday, November 20, 2013

AIFF 2013: Tales From The Organ Trade - How Is Selling Sex Like Selling A Kidney?

In both cases, selling your body (parts)  is illegal in most places, but giving it away is not.

People  sell their bodies (generally) or body parts,(nearly always) because they can't see other viable ways to break out of poverty.

But there are differences.
  • A prostitute can deal directly with the client, but there has to be a sophisticated infrastructure available to remove and transplant a kidney.
  • Even if you give away your kidney, the recipient still pays a lot.   
  • You can only sell a kidney once. 
How much would you sell your kidney for?  What about a finger?

There is a black market in kidneys.  Kidneys from people so poor that they will sell one to a stranger for as little as $1000.  And doctors who transplant those kidneys to people paying $100,000 or more. The doctors argue it's their moral obligation to save a person's life.

I'd note that I don't think the comparison to prostitution came up in the movie, but it
seemed a logical one after I saw the movie.

Surgeon - image source
Tales From The Organ Trade, a documentary film that will show at the Anchorage International Film Festival, brings these abstract questions into stark reality.  There are interviews with people needing kidneys, with a man in Toronto who got a new kidney in Kosovo, with people who have sold their kidneys (from the Philippines and the Moldovan woman whose kidney went to the Toronto man), with a prosecutor chasing down doctors who perform illegal operations and the managers who arrange everything, and with the Turkish surgeon who put the Kosovo kidney into the Toronto man.
Recipient- image source


This is not a preachy or academic film, it's more like a good investigative reporting movie that deals with a hard subject in a straightforward way.  It challenges us to think beyond black and and white and to deal with ethical ambiguities.

At the end, the movie doesn't exactly endorse it, but it does mention there is legislation pending that would regulate selling organs.

That may be a short term solution, but the real issue, it seems to me, is a world of some rich and lots of poor, poor people who are willing to risk long term health problems for the chance to get their families into what, for them, is decent housing.

Another question I had was what percent of people, say in the US,  are registered donors - people who sign up when they renew their driver's license or register online?  How would increasing the number of donors shorten the waiting lists for kidneys?
Sellers - image source
The answer is, thanks to a little googling, about 43% of adult Americans are registered organ donors.  So perhaps doubling that number would help, and adding kids to the list would also increase the number.

Tales From The Organ Trade is one of the documentaries in competition and will show:

5:00 PM       Sat, Dec 07  AK Exp small
11:00 AM     Sat, Dec 14  AK Exp large

[Note:  I saw this film because their publicist offered me a private link online to see it before the festival.  It was an unsolicited email.]

[This is a repost because there was errant text in the middle of the original which I could not find in the code.]

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Gov. Sean Parnell Tweets Himself A Happy Birthday




Did he buy a birthday present for himself too?  What about birthday greetings to all the Alaskans who can't get health insurance?  (Actually, he'll send you a birthday greeting if you're over 50 and you request it.)



[Feedburner note:  This one had about a two hour delay.]

AIFF 2013: Features In Competition - Time To Plan What To See


Thirteen Features were selected and six [five*] are in competition.  They represent nine different countries. 
  • Australia/USA 
  • Canada 
  • France 
  • India 
  • Iran 
  • Kenya 
  • Netherlands 
  • Paraguay 
  • USA 
**  the filmmaker(s) scheduled to be there for Q&A after showing
This is a short preview of just the films in competition.   You can see a list of all the features selected and the other film categories here.


Image from Vino Veritas website





Vino Veritas
Sarah Knight
USA √
96m
8:00 PM     Fri, Dec 13  Bear Tooth** the filmmaker(s) scheduled to be there for Q&A

4:00 PM     Sat, Dec 14  AK Exp Small

I would rather know nothing about the movie I'm seeing - just see it cold.  But there are too many movies to see for total hit and miss.  I'd rather spend my time at good movies and at least get a hint of what's good before hand.  I haven't seen this movie, but this comment from the director doesn't tell you anything about it, but tells you something. 
"This film is a kind of communion for people with partners who still baffle them, whose children aren’t quite turning out the way they imagined, and who have begun to realize that their most basic reptilian instincts aren’t that far below the surface.  No helicopters explode in Vino Veritas and no zombies appear.  It’s far more real, far more primal than that, and it’s a film that will resonate with adults in a way that few movies do thanks to the simple fact that they will be able to identify with the characters and the lives of quiet desperation that the characters are leading.  Having screened a rough cut of the film for a few people (both acquaintances and strangers), I can vouch for the fact that it inspires long e-mails and a general reaction of, “So-and-so has to see this movie!”
Here's a link to the website if you want to know more.  But be careful, their videos aren't trailers, they're just ads.  Left a bad taste in my mouth - I wanted to see a trailer and had to hear about Doritos instead.  No vino veritas in that. 

It was filmed in Lincoln, Nebraska and the Daily Nebraskan has this interview with the director.  It sounds like another Virginia Woolfe film.  I didn't know that was a genre until the 2012 festival when the director of my favorite feature film - Between Us - told me.  And that film was also made in Nebraska. 


Tu Seras Un Homme (You’ll Be A Man)
Benoit Cohen
France ✓ 
87m

8:00 PM Sat, Dec 14 Bear Tooth**Film maker scheduled to be there.
1:30 PM Sun, Dec 15 AK Exp Small

From the movie's Facebook page:
Un film de Benoit Cohen - Une musique de French Cowboy
Sortie en salles le 15 mai 2013 avec Jules Sagot, Aurélio Cohen, Eléonore Pourriat, Grégoire Monsaingeon et Clara Bonnet
 From Filmthreat:
YOU’LL BE A MAN (TU SERAS UN HOMME), Benoit Cohen, France
Leo is 10 and wise beyond his years. A solitary dreamer who seeks refuge in books. When the carefree 20-year-old Theo steps into his life, it forces Leo out of his shell. Despite their age difference, the two become best friends, helping each other face up to their responsibilities.








Hank and Asha
James E. Duff
USA √
73m
8:00 PM Sun, Dec. 8 Bear Tooth**Film maker scheduled to be there.
6:30 PM Tue, Dec 10 Alaska Exp Small

From the Hank and Asha website:

"What do you do if your first real love is half a world away? In this charming romantic comedy, an Indian woman studying in Prague and a lonely New Yorker begin an unconventional video correspondence — two strangers searching for human connection in a hyper-connected world. "Hank and Asha" is a hopeful story about identity, longing, and the irresistible appeal of entertaining life's what-ifs."




Variety was not terribly impressed though:
If “Hank and Asha” were any more purposefully winsome, it would curl up on your lap and indicate a desire to be petted. Even at a briskly paced 73 minutes, James E. Duff’s romantic indie feels slightly padded as it unfolds a thin scenario about two twentysomethings who initiate and sustain a long-distance relationship through video letters. Fortunately, the lead players are attractive and appealing enough to make them good company for the short haul. After fest dates, the pic will play best, if not exclusively, in home-screen venues.



Detroit Unleaded
Rola Nashef
USA √
90m
1:30 PM     Sun, Dec 08  Alaska Exp Small
8:00 PM     Mon, Dec 09  Bear Tooth **Film maker scheduled to be there.


From Detroit Unleaded's website:
"Between Detroit and Arab-America, Sami works behind the bulletproof glass of a 24-hour gas station with his cousin Mike. Inside this unique neighborhood, the station is more than just a pitstop for rolling papers and fake perfume, but a place where an infinite stream of spirited and often hilarious people flow through. When Najlah walks in, Sami's shift becomes anything but routine.

​Made and cast in Detroit, the film stars first-time feature actors EJ Assi and Nada Shouhayib, along with Actor/Comedian Mike Batayeh (Breaking Bad, You Don't Mess with the Zohan), Mary Assel, Steven Soro, and Lebanese film and television Star Akram El-Ahmar.

​Detroit Unleaded had it's World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Grolsch Film Works Discovery Award and received overwhelmingly positive reviews from audiences and film critics alike.
"









7 Cajas (7 Boxes)
Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schémbori
Paraguay √
100m
8:00 PM     Thu, Dec 12  Bear Tooth
11:30 AM Sun, Dec 15 Alaska Exp Small


From Cinemablographer:
Running hustle-bustle through the crowded stalls is seventeen-year-old Víctor (played by impressive newcomer Celso Franco). Víctor is a street-smart youth, but he is still a little too young, idealistic, and naïve to appreciate fully the seediness of the underworld he inhabits. He’s an errand boy who dreams of playing the lead. Víctor begins his chaotic whirlwind to stardom when he accepts an innocuous task from a marketplace butcher: he is to transport seven sealed boxes on his wheelbarrow and deliver them to a location that will be revealed via a cell phone call that he will receive during the journey. The role seems simple enough and it offers a Hollywood paycheck of an American hundred-dollar bill. The amount is incalculable in the local denomination for Víctor, yet he grasps that the piece of paper is a passport to escape. .  .

Running hustle-bustle through the crowded stalls is seventeen-year-old Víctor (played by impressive newcomer Celso Franco). Víctor is a street-smart youth, but he is still a little too young, idealistic, and naïve to appreciate fully the seediness of the underworld he inhabits. He’s an errand boy who dreams of playing the lead. Víctor begins his chaotic whirlwind to stardom when he accepts an innocuous task from a marketplace butcher: he is to transport seven sealed boxes on his wheelbarrow and deliver them to a location that will be revealed via a cell phone call that he will receive during the journey. The role seems simple enough and it offers a Hollywood paycheck of an American hundred-dollar bill. The amount is incalculable in the local denomination for Víctor, yet he grasps that the piece of paper is a passport to escape. - See more at: http://www.cinemablographer.com/2013/04/review-7-boxes-7-cajas-latin-american-film-fest.html#sthash.nVg9rjHq.dpuf
Running hustle-bustle through the crowded stalls is seventeen-year-old Víctor (played by impressive newcomer Celso Franco). Víctor is a street-smart youth, but he is still a little too young, idealistic, and naïve to appreciate fully the seediness of the underworld he inhabits. He’s an errand boy who dreams of playing the lead. Víctor begins his chaotic whirlwind to stardom when he accepts an innocuous task from a marketplace butcher: he is to transport seven sealed boxes on his wheelbarrow and deliver them to a location that will be revealed via a cell phone call that he will receive during the journey. The role seems simple enough and it offers a Hollywood paycheck of an American hundred-dollar bill. The amount is incalculable in the local denomination for Víctor, yet he grasps that the piece of paper is a passport to escape. - See more at: http://www.cinemablographer.com/2013/04/review-7-boxes-7-cajas-latin-american-film-fest.html#sthash.nVg9rjHq.dpuf






*One more film that had been in competition - Nairobi Half-Life - is no longer in.  It's been on the circuit since 2012 and was the most successful local film in Kenyan history.  You can read more about it and see a scene from the film here.

**The film maker is scheduled to be there.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Court Rules On Redistricting: "The court accepts the 2013 Proclamation Plan"

I turned on my cell phone as I got off the plane in Seattle on the way to see my little sweetie and there was a message saying the decision on the redistricting case had come down in favor of the Redistricting Board's plan.  I haven't had a chance to read the decision yet, but here it is and you can read it yourself.


Sunday, November 17, 2013

"People who think they have all the answers will always think they have a right to hurt people who don't believe them."

That's a quote from an LA Times book review of Robert Stone's new novel Death of the Black-Haired Girl.

Regular readers will understand why that quote appeals to me. A key purpose of this blog is to challenge people to regularly examine what they know and to recognize that what we don't know is much greater than what we do know.  And we do know, even those most deeply held beliefs about the world,  is shaped by our own life experiences.  Meaning that others will find our beliefs incredible.  Literally.

When you find yourself with time on your hands and nothing to do, or you can't fall asleep, put away your internet connection and ponder that title statement. 
  • Is all of it true?  
  • Any of it?  
  • Can you give examples of people who 'have all the answers "? 
  • Do they "think they have a right to hurt people who don't believe them"?
  • Does 'having all the answers" necessarily make people believe they have the right to hurt people?

I'm leery of propositions that include the word 'always.'  It's easy to quickly fill in examples of people who seem sure of what is true who are ready to hurt the people who deny their truths.  Religious zealots have burned heretics since forever. 

But do these people really think they have all the answers?  Or is their fervor really an attempt to create a facade of certainty to counter their uncertainty?  I suspect that a lot of fundamentalists assert their truths as a way of avoiding the realities they don't want to face.  Fornication is a sin to ward off one's desires.  Becoming a food fanatic to fight off one's obesity.   Consider, for example,  the homophobes who turn out to be gay.  

And while we can probably identify people with all the answers who are willing to hurt people, I don't think we can turn it around and say all people with all the answers are willing to hurt other people.

The quote is a good conversation starter when you're stuck at a party you don't want to be at. 

Reviewer David Ulin likes Death of the Black-Haired Girl a lot.   He ends the review with questions the book raises:

"What happens when we understand that all the things we take for granted are uncertain, that some genies, once let out of the bottle, can never be put back? What happens when we confront that what we see as order is really just chaos with a different face? This has been the subject of Stone's writing from the beginning, and if "Death of the Black-Haired Girl," with its university setting, appears somewhat less exotic, that does not make its vision small. Rather, with this spare and unsettling novel, Stone has vividly returned to form."
More good questions that fit right in here. 
 

Redistricting - Waiting On The Judge. What MIght He Say And When?

[This post meanders far more than I intended.  If you want to get to the meat of things, skip down to the conclusion at the end.] 

Judge Michael McConnahy's August 28 order  included a "Briefing Schedule" requiring that parties:
"must file a motion for summary judgment regarding all such concerns within 15 days of the date of the distribution of this order.  The Board shall have 10 days to file its opposition.  Replies, if any, are due 3 days thereafter. "

Fifteen days from August 28 gets us to Sept. 15
Ten more days gets us to Sept. 25
Three more gets us to Sept. 28.


There is also a section just called "Scheduling."
  • "It is the intent of this court to have all issues resolved within 90 days"
  • "If testimony is required the court anticipates setting a trial week on short notice"
Ninety days gets us to November 28.  That would have everything resolved by Thanksgiving.

On September 25, the judge set a tentative court date of November 7-15.  He wrote:
"Various motions are pending before the court.  It is not clear whether an evidentiary hearing will be needed on any issue.  The court will make that decision after the pending motions are ripe.  At the time the court will issue an omnibus order addressing all pending issues and note what, if any, issues require an evidentiary hearing.
For planning purposes the court has reserved full trial days [8:30 am to 4:30 pm] from 7 November 2013 through 15 November 2013.  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 omnibus summary judgment order will address those details, including any time limitations on specific issues.  The intent of this order is simply to allow the parties to plan their schedules accordingly."

"Ripe" in the legal sense here would mean, I guess, when all the motions have been filed, but I'm not sure.  They should have been filed September 28.

But on October 3, the judge issued another order.  This one responded to a request by the Board to postpone the trial until December because of their attorney's illness.  The other parties had no objections and the judge set a new date:  December 9-16.  He also said:
‘The need for a hearing and on what specific issues will be addressed in the omnibus order on the summary judgment.”
 I originally read that to mean that the judge expected there to be a hearing on some of the issues.  It sounded a lot more certain than the previous "it is not clear whether an evidentiary hearing will be needed on any issue."

On Monday (tomorrow) there will be three weeks left until the tentative starting date of the December trial.

What exactly might the judge rule?  (Remember, I'm not an attorney.  I'm just applying lay logic to what I've been reading. Winging it might be more accurate.)

  • He could make a summary judgment on all the issues before him, none, or something in-between.  
    • If he makes a summary judgment on all the issues, there would be no need for a court hearing.  (Though one or both parties is likely to appeal to the Supreme Court.)  
    • If he makes summary judgment on some issues, but not all, as I understand this, the parties would argue their points on the remaining issues in court. 
  • He could rule everything for the Board or everything for the plaintiffs, or some for each.  
    • If he determines any of the issues for the plaintiffs, he could order the Board to fix things or he could send the resolution of all this to a master. 
     
How likely is the judge to send it to a master?  There have been calls by the Democratic Party and an editorial in the Anchorage Daily News seeking this option

The Alaska Constitution is vague on this.  It (Article 6 §11) says:
"Upon a final judicial decision that a plan is invalid, the matter shall be returned to the board for correction and development of a new plan. If that new plan is declared invalid, the matter may be referred again to the board. [Amended 1998] "
The original plan and a second plan have already been sent back to the Board.  The language says that "the matter MAY be referred again to the board."

It doesn't say what other option that Court has if it doesn't refer it to the Board again.  The Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure - and I'm now treading on topics I know little about except what I can find online - give a Superior Court the ability to appoint a master or masters.
[Rule 53] (b) Powers. The order of reference to the master may specify or limit the master's powers and may direct the master to report only upon particular issues or to do or perform particular acts or to receive and report evidence only and may fix the time and place for beginning and closing the hearings and for the filing of the master's report. Subject to the specifications and limitations stated in the order, the master has and shall exercise the power to regulate all proceedings in every hearing before the master and to do all acts and take all measures necessary or proper for the efficient performance of the master's duties under the order. The master may require the production of evidence upon all matters embraced in the reference, including the production of all books, papers, vouchers, documents, and writings applicable thereto. The master may rule upon the admissibility of evidence unless otherwise directed by the order of reference and has the authority to put witnesses on oath and may examine them and may call the parties to the action and examine them upon oath. When a party so requests, the master shall make a record of the evidence offered and excluded in the same manner and subject to the same limitations as provided in Evidence Rule 103(b) for a court sitting without a jury.
(d) Report.
(1) Contents and Filing. The master shall prepare a report upon the matters submitted to the master by the order of reference and, if required to make findings of fact and conclusions of law, the master shall set them forth in the report. The master shall file the report with the clerk of the court and in an action to be tried without a jury, unless otherwise directed by the order of reference, shall file with it the original exhibits. The clerk shall forthwith mail to all parties notice of the filing.

Conclusion?

The judge is expected to offer his "omnibus ruling" fairly soon.  There are only three weeks left before the tentatively scheduled trial.  The attorneys and the Board all need to make their travel arrangements, should there be a trial, to get to Fairbanks.

And, the attorneys would need to prepare for their arguments in court.

But, if the judge has decided that he has sufficient information to make a summary judgment on all the disputed issues, there would be no need to have a trial.  He could actually meet his 90 timetable, set in August, if he ruled on all the issues by November 28 (which is Thanksgiving day.) 

But if the judge rules parts or all of the plan unconstitutional, will he send it all back to the Board or will he appoint masters to finish off the process?  Appointing masters would say that the constitutionally established process failed and given the time constraints until the next election and the Board's performance so far, he sees no option for a constitutional plan except to now by-pass the Board.  That's seems like a step that a judge would be reluctant to take unless he felt he had no choice. 

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Anchorage's Janice Shamberg Has Art Opening In West Hollywood

Saturday afternoon saw the opening of a show of the flower paintings of former Anchorage assemblywoman.  I would say her years at the DeArmoun Greenhouse had more to do with the subject of her paintings.



There were a lot of folks there when we arrived after seeing Lion Ark nearby in Beverly Hills.  More on that movie - coming to the Anchorage International Film Festival in December.



These are big and bold portraits of flowers Janice has known. 

AIFF2013: Film Festival Schedule Now Available

The Anchorage International Film Festival starts in three weeks - Friday night Dec. 6, 2013.  The schedule of all the films is now up on their website.

You can see a list of all the films in all the categories here.

The festival also contracts with an independent company - Festival Genius - for software for film festival schedules.  The Anchorage Festival's schedule - all the dates and times and locations of the films are there.

Screen shot from AIFF 2013
The blue fg logo is for Festival Genius.  This image is from the AIFF2013 page.  It's a header that rotates with other headers.  Click on the blue logo when you see it on the AIFF website and it will take you to the schedule.  (But the logo on the image here doesn't link.  But I did link the whole image below.)


It takes a little time to get used to, but you can sort by

  • event (there are also parties, awards, screen blocks*, and workshops)
  • category (to see the Features, or Documentaries, or Animated, etc.)
  • country (there are 24 different countries listed that films come from)
  • venue (Bear Tooth, Alaska Experience Theater, Museum, etc.)



If you click the image, it will take you to that page and you can experiment with it.

Beware: [Dean Franklin, the AIFF computer guy, corrected this in the comment below.  Just click on the AIFF banner in Festival Genius and you get back to the AIFF pages.  I wonder how long that's been the case.  I know the first year it wasn't.  Thanks, Dean.]  The Festival Genius page - even for the Anchorage International Film Festival schedule - is a totally different website.  It doesn't have links back to the AIFF site.  You can usually use your browser's "go back one page" arrow in the upper left corner.  If you hold that arrow down, it will give you a list of pages.  So if you look at five pages on FG, you can hold that arrow down and find the link back to the AIFF2013 site.  (I know, most of you know that.  But some people don't.)



*screening blocks are groups of shorter films that are shown together in a single program.


[Feedburner Note:  This is the third post in a row to get pinged immediately to blogrolls.  I'm guessing they've figured out and fixed the problem.  But I'll be checking for the next couple of weeks just in case I'm wrong.  I won't leave any of these notes if all is well.  But if there is another problem I'll note it.]

Friday, November 15, 2013

The Case That HD 5 Was Gerrymandered - Part 2

In Part 1, I offered some background information on where things stand now and on redistricting and gerrymandering in general, including four major ways to manipulate districts.  I also included a section on "The current partisan redistricting facts in Alaska" as I see them.

In this post, Part 2, we start looking at the maps to understand in excruciating detail (yet still not enough) why the plaintiffs are challenging the plan.  This post focuses on House District (HD) 5, though the plaintiffs challenge other districts as well.

I thought I'd finish this post (Part 2), but there's definitely more left over for Part 3.  Also, I realize I started all this in an earlier post - Alaska Redistricting Board: Compactness And Fairbanks Districts 3 and 5 - Part 1.  That one looks at the concept of compactness as discussed by different students of redistricting. It's good background for this post.


Some Maps

Let's go from the theoretical to the hands-on and look at some maps.   The Board's map of HD 5 makes it hard to actually see
Note:  House Districts are numbered
and Senate Districts are lettered so on
maps 5-C means it's HD 5 in SD C.
Senate Districts have 2 House Districts.
all of HD 5.    The inset, lower right, shows the whole district, but it's much to small to understand what's really going on in this district. It doesn't show you how much of the district has no population and where there are actually people.

[All the maps except B and E should get much bigger if you click on them]

Map A - whole district in two parts

I  enlarged the inset to better see the whole district.    I've colored in the populated areas in yellow.  I don't know Fairbanks, so there may be a little more area to the left of Chena Ridge that has population along the road, but as I looked at the maps, it looked sparsely populated at best.

Map B - With populated areas in yellow

The populated parts of the district are a small part near the top left (to the west of the City of Fairbanks), a little bit southwest of Fairbanks, and then the part that has been called 'the anvil' to the east of the City of Fairbanks and more connected to North Pole.

Most of the district is what was called 'the bombing range' by the Board.  Actually, it's Tanana Flats Training Area.  The right (below) is a map of the Tanana Flats Training Area - part of Ft Wainwright and unpopulated and inaccessible to the public without a permit - and you can see an amazing resemblance to HD 5. Basically, there's a tiny populated part on top and then the Tanana Flats was tacked onto HD 5. 

Map C:  Comparing HD 5 map to map of Tanana Flats Training Area of Ft. Wainwright

But this map also helped me understand what I hadn't understood before.  On the Board's maps, there are diagonal lines going through HD 2.  They are like the lines shown in most of HD 5.  Looking at the map above I realized that the little 'turret' on top of Tanana Flats is Fort Wainright. (People who know Fairbanks would, of course, have realized this.) And it's right in the middle of HD 2.  The brown outline in the top picture (see below) was in the original.  I added it in to the bottom image to make it easier to see.

Map D: Locating Ft. Wainwright - top map from DODPIF site

Military Bases and Redistricting

Tanana Flats Training Area is technically part of Fort Wainright - a contiguous part. Early in the redistricting process the Board got a letter from the Lt. Governor asking them to keep military bases intact as much as possible. It's something they mentioned frequently when working on Anchorage. The purpose was to not have precincts that overlapped the base and off base. It would be hard for civilians if they had to get onto base to vote and they didn't want to make military have to go off base to vote. It seemed to me at the time that military go off base all the time for other things so going a little off base to vote shouldn't be that difficult, but that was the rationale. Now, in this case, as I understand it, there is no population living in the Tanana Flats other than bears and moose and other wildlife. No voters anyway. So the Lt. Governor's rationale doesn't apply here.  But the principle of keeping military districts intact is reasonable and would have been a good rationale to have the unpopulated Tanana Flats part of HD 2.   Keep this in mind for when we get into the discussion of which district Tanana Flats was put into.


Let's go back and look at the populated parts of HD 5.  I've isolated them in this image so you can see them clearly. (Again, I'm not sure how much population is to the west of the section on the left, but if there's more it doesn't affect my point.)

Map E:  Populated Parts of HD 5 isolated
Contiguity

One of the constitutional requirements for redistricting is contiguity.  That means that all parts of the district are connected to all other parts.  If you live in the small part of HD 5 on the right/east (above), you are among 800 people in HD 5 who are separated from the other 16,900 people of HD 5 who live on the left/west side. The City of Fairbanks is between the two parts - including Ft. Wainwright and HD 1 and HD 2.   But you're in bed with folks in North Pole to the right.  (see maps above) 

Technically, these two parts of HD 5 are connected by the Tanana Flats Training Area.  But, from what I can tell online and asking folks, you need permission from the military to go on that land and there aren't any roads to take you from what I'm calling "East Pakistan" to "West Pakistan" through the Flats.  Instead you have to go through at least HD 2 and possibly HD 1 too.  Or maybe kayak along the river.

I've been told that the Alaska Courts have allowed districts to have isolated communities that are not connected to other communities by road.  But I'd wager that those decisions were made about roadless rural districts, not about urban districts.  If I were arguing this case, I'd be pointing out that this district, for all practical purposes, is NOT contiguous.  Not in any way that is meaningful to the people in it and that this lack of contiguity is not required by geography or lack of population or roadless wilderness.  This is an urban area where the population is dense enough and the census blocks numerous enough, that a few computer clicks could put these 800 people into HD 2 or HD 3 (or half in one and half in the other.)  Then a few more clicks could add 800 more people back into HD 5 and a few more clicks could get HD 2 and 3 within reasonable deviations from the ideal sized district of 17,755.  A few more clicks and all the impacted districts would be fine.  Maybe 30 minutes for someone who's been using the software a while.

The folks at the Board will talk to you about census blocks and ripple effects, but if you sat down with someone who knows the computer program, you'd see it can be done.  That same argument was made in the last trial.  They swore that changing a protrusion from one downtown Fairbanks district into the other would cause endless ripple effects.  A little later, the plaintiff's GIS expert showed the judge just how easy it was to do without causing any ripple effects. These are excuses, not reasons. 




The Anvil and Compactness

The plaintiffs didn't make a contiguity argument in their motions to the court.  Instead they talked about compactness.  And they pointed to what they called 'the anvil' sitting there on the east side jutting into the community just above North Pole.

Let's look at this 'anvil.'  As you'll see, when I tried to find a visual for it, I found another visual that seemed to fit the shape a little better than the anvil.


Map F:  The Anvil in Context

Now, back to compactness with the anvil in mind.  I posted about compactness in relationship to HDs 3 and 5 in October.  That was the conceptual post and there was supposed to be a second one that looked at maps.  I guess that's this one, except I added one more in between.   You can look at that October post to learn a bit about compactness.  Or you can read this explanation which I'm borrowing from All About Redistricting.
  • Compactness Almost as often as state law asks districts to follow political boundaries, it asks that districts be "compact." 37 states require their legislative districts to be reasonably compact; 18 states require congressional districts to be compact as well.
    Few states define precisely what "compactness" means, but a district in which people generally live near each other is usually more compact than one in which they do not. Most observers look to measures of a district's geometric shape. In California, districts are compact when they do not bypass nearby population for people farther away. In the Voting Rights Act context, the Supreme Court seems to have construed compactness to indicate that residents have some sort of cultural cohesion in common.
    Scholars have proposed more than 30 measures of compactness, each of which can be applied in different ways to individual districts or to a plan as a whole. These generally fit into three categories. In the first category, contorted boundaries are most important: a district with smoother boundaries will be more compact, and one with more squiggly boundaries will be less compact. In the second category, the degree to which the district spreads from a central core (called "disperson") is most important: a district with few pieces sticking out from the center will be more compact, and one with pieces sticking out farther from the district's center will be less compact. In the third category, the relationship of housing patterns to the district's boundaries is most important: district tendrils, for example, are less meaningful in sparsely populated areas but more meaningful where the population is densely packed."
Using the standards from All About Redistricting (above), we can see that each one raises
Map A - whole district in two parts
a red flag for the HD 5.
  • Contorted Boundaries - There's no question that HD 5 has contorted boundaries.  If you just look at the whole district (Map A inset) without knowing where the population is, it doesn't look bad.  But when you know that a tiny percent of the land in the district has any population (Map B) and that population is separated into two non-contiguous parts (Map E), it's clear there is something fishy here. 
  • Dispersion - The central core is west of the City of Fairbanks and then you have is 'East Pakistan" ('the anvil") not only sticking out from the center, but for all practical purposes, it's not even connected to "West Pakistan."
  • Housing Patterns -  The anvil is clearly a district tendril which the description above says is more problematic in urban areas than rural areas.  Fairbanks is the second biggest urban area in the State.  There's no need for HD 5 to have an 800 person orphan neighborhood separated from the rest of the 16,900 people by two other districts. They could easily pick up 800 people from neighborhoods current split into HD 4 or HD 1. 
Also, this district does not pass the California test mentioned, because it passes up nearby folks to get the anvil people off by North Pole.  

Redrawing the lines outlines two ways to measure compactness - visually and mathematically.  The first is just to look and see if there are any odd shapes or protrusions.
  • "If the districts drawn are too irregular-looking, it may become a signal to the courts that the lines may have been motivated by a desire to engage in race-based redistricting, which may be held unlawful."
This was what I meant when I said in Part 1 that compactness (or contiguity) can be a proxy for, in our case,  political gerrymandering.  And the "too irregular-looking" anvil is one reason this plan is in court.
  • "a mathematical formula may be the best way to measure compactness. There are various methods for calculating the compactness of a district including looking at how the population is distributed within the district, measuring the borders of the district, or evaluating the area of the district."
The Board did give the court a list of statistical tests for compactness with scores for each to show that the district  (and district 3) is compact.  But I looked up the tests and what the scores mean.  (The Board just gave raw numbers without interpretation.)  For some tests, the districts in questions scored ok.  For others they were on the suspicious end of the scale.  Which is one of the problems with the tests - different tests tell you different things.

The other problem I have with the Board offering statistics to the court is that I never heard any mention at the Board meetings of using the statistical tests as a criterion to see if their districts were compact.  This is an after-the-fact justification by the Board which wasn't considered by the board while making the maps (at least not in public meetings) and doesn't really tell us whether the districts are compact or not. 


Is the anvil necessary to keep Fairbanks deviations low?

The Board tells us that they needed the anvil so the deviations would work out - that is, so that the populations of all the Fairbanks districts would be the lowest deviation possible from the ideal district size of 17,755.  I would point out that in the previous plans, urban deviations of 1% and even 2% existed.  

But this time around, low deviation became their new mantra and they got Fairbanks deviations down to below a 1/2 %.  Without the demands of the Voting Rights Act (a significant portion of which the US Supreme Court struck down last June), the Board says they can make the deviations much lower.  But why?  One or two percent is already well within legal and common sense range.  In my mind they've gone extreme at the cost of other important values.  Or they are just using the low deviations to justify creating anvils. 

I'd also note that when the Plaintiffs argue that they could configure Fairbanks Senate districts so that their deviations are even lower, the Board thinks the difference is too minor to matter.  I tend to agree with them on that, but I also think the increased deviation that cutting this whole eastern annex out of HD 5 might cause is no big deal either as long as it's still under two percent.  

But the deviation is just one of a cascade of factors, all of which fall the wrong way for the Board.  It's the totality of all these factors that should cause eyebrows to arch when looking at the Fairbanks districts.  And that's where I'll go in Part 3. 

But, before ending this post I do want to point out that there are some legitimate reasons for there to be some odd shapes. 
  • Geography - there might be mountains or rivers or other natural features that the district line follows and that make sense on the ground, but look suspicious on the map. 
  • Population - to get the right number of people into a district, the mappers might have to stretch out to capture a small distant community.
  • Odd Census Block shapes - The smallest unit the Board can deal with is a census block.  As I understand it, this is because they have to use the census data for population.  The smallest unit the census data has is the block.  So if a census block  has a weird shape - most likely for the above reasons - the map maker can claim her weirdly shaped district is a result of the census block.
  • Governmental Units -  a district line might follow an irregular city border.  
But the first thee are all more likely to occur in rural areas than in urban areas.  And when they do occur in urban areas, there's enough population so that you can usually adjust some adjoining census blocks to smooth out any bad bumps.  The last one doesn't apply to HD 5.  It's not the city borders that are irregular, it's the district borders.


I'm going to end this post here.  It's already way too long for most readers.  There's more to be discussed.  I hope readers remember that I'm only focusing on one House district here (and that will spillover a bit into HD 5's Senate pairing in the next post).  There are so many little details here that it's easy for either side to say what it wants and most observers won't be in a position to know who's blowing smoke.  (They could both be.)  I'm hoping this post might help some people understand the what's happening here. 

Coming up in the next redistricting post(s) are things like:  
  • Why put the Tanana Flats in HD 5?  
  • The plaintiff's offer to drop the case if the the Board changed the Fairbanks senate district pairings and why the Board said no. 
  • Reviewing all the factors that are wrong about HD 5.
  • A peek at the other districts challenged in the court case.  
[UPDATE 4:47pm:  I forgot to include this in the post.  It's the legal description of HD 5 that was part of the Board's Proclamation Plan.  It doesn't mean a whole lot to me since I don't know Fairbanks at all, but it might mean something to people in Fairbanks.  Note that in some places it's a bit vague like "north along the boundary to a levee near the Tanana River, east along a non-visible line to the end of Rozak Road."


House District 5–Senate District C–Chena Ridge/Airport

House District 5 is bounded by a line beginning at the intersection of the Mitchell Expressway and the boundary of the City of Fairbanks, south then east then north along the boundary to a levee near the Tanana River, east along a non-visible line to the end of Rozak Road, north along Rozak Road to the Old Richardson Highway, northwest to Durango Trail, north along a non-visible line to Lakloey Drive, north to Bradway Road, east to Benn Lane, south to Ownby Road, east to Woll Road, north to Marigold Road, east to Badger Loop Road, to the intersection of Badger Loop Road and Repp Road, southwest along a non-visible line to the end of Willeda Street,southwest along a non-visible line to the northwestern-most corner of the boundary of the City of North Pole, southwest along the boundary to the eastern bank of the Tanana River,southeast along the eastern bank to the intersection of the Tanana River and the boundary of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, south across the Tanana River to the boundary of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, west then north along the boundary to a jeep trail near the Old Nenana Highway, east along the jeep trail to the Parks Highway, northeast the GVEA Powerlines near Rosie Creek Road, north then northeast to the Parks Highway, north to Townsend Lane, north to Goldhill Road, northeast to Ester Road, east to Tanana Drive, south to an unnamed road near Noatak Drive, northwest to Koyukuk Drive, east to Sheenlek Drive, north to a non-visible line extending west from Kuskokwim Way, east to Kuskokwim Way, east to Tanana Drive, north to the intersection of Tanana Drive and Farmers Loop Road, east along a non-visible line to the headwaters of Pearl Creek, east along a non-visible line to College Road, east to the boundary of the City of Fairbanks, southwest then southeast to the point of beginning.]

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Did You Tell Your Kids You Love Them Today?

"I want to tell you that from the moment you were in my belly, I loved you dearly. I love you then, today and always. You are my world, my everything. Without you, there's no me."
That's the letter high school football player Damian Sanchez got from his mom when his football coach sent letters home asking the parents to write down how they feel about their sons in a letter.

Then he had the players bring them back in a sealed envelope.  One day he had them all together for a meeting and passed out the letters.
What happened next took everyone by surprise. For the next 15 minutes or so, wherever Matsumoto looked he saw players sobbing — against walls, in corners, bent over in chairs.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Shalls Jacome, the team's 22-year-old offensive coordinator.

Letters of love

Players read letters their parents wrote to them.
Cesar Orozco, a senior offensive lineman, broke down when he read what his mother had written in Spanish: "You know deep inside I love you. And you're the most important thing in my life. You know I would die for you."
"I don't really get told that at home," Cesar said. "For me to be reading that, it really touches me."
John Mercado, a sophomore lineman, sobbed so hard reading his mother's letter that he had to pause before finishing. He had come close to quitting the team when his parents lost their jobs and needed financial help.
His mother wrote in Spanish: "I'm very proud. You're the nicest kid I've ever raised and during hard times you don't ever ask for anything."
 This is more than just a feel good human interest story.  This is a pretty stark and amazing testament to everyone's need for love.  While it makes total sense and I've believed that if everyone had a loving, caring family, there would be no wars, it still was surprising.   It's worth reading the whole thing.  We should always try to find the human being hidden in the bodies, and behind the facades, all around us.  When you find that real person inside  you can have authentic conversation and communication. 

Here's the link to the whole LA Times story. 

[Feedburner note:  This post was up on blogrolls in less than 15 minutes.  The two previous posts took two hours or less to get to blogrolls.  I'm hoping this was a problem that feedburner had and now they have fixed it.  We'll see.]