"I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla."

That's the second sentence of Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir.   They make lists of great first sentences of books, but the second line here is better.  For the record, the first line is "I joined the baboon troop during my twenty-first year."

You can find out more about Sapolsky and the book here.   


[UPDATE:  here are two more posts I did based on this book:

Did you realize that gnu dung is a palindrome?

Thank You - Another Culture Where It's Not Used So Much

AIFF 2013: What Makes A Film Great?

Great art occupies your soul.  It reshapes your brain and plays with your heart.

Since everyone's brains and hearts are constantly changing and different from other people's, what gets to me might not get to you.  What gets to me today, might not have gotten to me 20 years ago.

So picking 'best' movies at a festival is always going to be questionable and contentious.

But does that mean all movies are equal, that there are no objective standards people can agree on?  I've written about how to evaluate films before.  (Checking that link shows it similar to this list and more detailed.  And here are my thoughts on good documentaries from last year.)  But each year there are different things that happen that raise new factors to consider.  So here's this year's take on (at least) features. 

We've got the technical aspects

• visual experience
• the sound
• how it's all put together

We've got the content

• the characters
• the  story
• the import in the world

We've got the style

• complexity of the story
• point of view
• clarity
• purpose 

Each of these three categories and nine subcategories are worthy of long posts of their own.  I'll spare you now and perhaps expand if necessary as I write about the films.

I would add that the great movies leave you walking out of the theater saying, "That was great."  In the perfect movie experience, everything blends together so well that you are sucked into the movie thoroughly and you aren't also observing the movie making.  These explicit factors emerge later as you have time to think about the film.  And the really good films keep talking to you. Your subconscious lets parts of the film bubble out into your conscious to ponder further.

So, how did the 'bests' get distributed this year?

Festival Judges' Best Features:

1. Tu Seras Un Homme (You’ll Be A Man)
2. Die Nieuwe Wereld (The New World)
3. Inja Hameh Chiz Khoob Ast (Everything Is Fine Here

Audience Choice – Features

1. Mourning Has Broken
2. Hank and Asha
3. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

A note on how the festival works.  There are two kinds of fims

• those submitted for awards 
• special selections that are solicited by the festival (or offered to the festival, as was the case of the films presented by the Anchroage Mexican Counsel)

Of those films submitted and selected for the festival, the initial screeners choose what they think are the best.  These then are "in competition" for awards.

Of the films above, Mourning Has Broken was selected, but not in competition and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?  was a special selection, not eligible for an award.


Here's a table of all the features at the festival with the official awards, the audience awards, and my choices.

Title	Status	Festival Award	Audience Choice	My Choices
7 Cajas (7 Boxes)	Special Selection			1
9 Full Moons	Selected			*
Aanya Ka Banya (Delinquent Dancers)	Selected			*
The Animal Project	Selected			**
Contracted	Special Selection
Detroit Unleaded	In Competition			3
Die Nieuwe Wereld (The New World)	In Competition	2		1
The Frozen Ground	Special Selection
Hank and Asha	James E. Duff		2	1
Inja Hameh Chiz Khoob Ast… (Everything Is Fine Here)	In Competition	3		3
Juventud (Youth)	Special Selection
Mine Games	Selected			*
Mourning Has Broken	Selected		1
Route of Acceptance	Special Selection
Tu Seras Un Homme (You’ll Be A Man)	In Competition	1		2
Vino Veritas	In Competition			2
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (明天記得愛上我)	Special Selection		3	1

I've marked my choices with these symbols:

1 = Walked out thinking, wow, that was a good movie
2 =  Good movie, just not quite level 1
3 =  Lots that I liked, worth seeing
** = There's good stuff in it, but needs work
* =  Saw the movie, but not that impressed
   =  Didn't see the movie

I was trying to figure out how to write about so many films.  Putting them all in one post seemed excessive.  Now that I've finished writing about two of my favorites, I realize the best way is to just list my favorites (the films I rated 1 above) and end this post.  I'll add additional posts about specific films.  The first will discuss The New World and Hank and Asha.   As I add posts, I'll link to them from here. 


My 1's:

7 Cajas (7 Boxes)

Die Nieuwe Wereld (The New World)

Hank and Asha

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (明天記得愛上我)


All four of these movies pulled me in so completely that I was engrossed in the story and not thinking about the movie making - all the technical stuff worked to tell the story, not distract from the story (either because it was bad or so good.)

For all four, I left the theater with the feeling of having seen a really good film.


When I have posted about the other features, I'll add links to this post. 

TayaSola Update: Moving On To Make And Sell Products In Kenya

In April of this year, I posted about a startup company that wanted to produce little solar light kits that could be used by Kenyans who had no electricity.  The company, TayaSola, wanted to use the kits to teach kids about solar energy and give them a way to escape from dependence on dangerous kerosene lanterns.

Alma, the CEO of TayaSola, went to Indiegogo - a site similar to Kickstarter, but the fundraisers get to keep the money pledged even if they don't reach the goal.

Alma Lorraine Bone Constable

Here's a Christmas note I received, as an Indiegogo contributor, from Alma today:

Merry Christmas to all our wonderful supporters.

It has been an incredible year for TayaSola, starting with your generous support. The love, suggestions, and support that you have shown is deeply appreciated. 

In addition, as a result of this campaign, we received a large private investment allowing us to continue the design work on our light and start on the solar cell phone charger. We were also able to secure a contract with Boardwalk to help us bring a US product to market.

Through your help, Autodesk invited us to join their Clean Tech program supporting clean tech innovators. We attended Autodesk University in December learning from leaders in our industry.  Stay tuned for more news regarding or partnership with Autodesk.

We have secured a distributor in Kenya T&P Innovation and Technology Management Services (TAPITEMS) Ltd in Nairobi.

We are on track to deliver all your perks on time. Thank you again for your support.

Have a joyous holiday season. May the blessings of the season grace each of you and your families.

 I'm hoping this will continue to be a great story. 

ADN's Lisa Demer Writes Nice Article On Questionable Legislative Office Contract

The story takes up most of the top half of the front page and all of the back page.  It's great to see pieces like this, that obviously took a bit of investigative time, in the ADN, which has been getting slimmer for a long time.

Basically it raises the following questions:

• Was the contract a good deal?  
• different people measure costs different ways
• can this special building be compared to going square foot rate?
• Did the Legislative Council fool around for 11 years until they had no choice?
• there were other choices that weren't followed up on
• Did developer Mark Pfeffer land the deal because 
• he had lots of political juice?
• he worked harder than other developers?
• he had a better product? 

  

A Good Contract?
 
     Measuring Costs:    

Demer gives the square foot price for the building given by the developer and the Legislative Affairs office as $6.21* per square foot compared to 

"Downtown, high-end office suites are going for $2 to $3 a square foot a month"

But a 'semiretired commercial broker, Larry Norene' whom Demer quotes a lot for an alternative view, thinks the numbers are fudged because the State uses gross square footage instead of  "net usable square feet" and because a lot of costs that normally are part of the rent such as "property taxes, building insurance, utilities, routine maintenance or janitorial service" will be paid for extra by the Legislature.  And there's also the $7 million of the renovation costs that the Legislature will pay for.

The new building, we're told by the state, will cost $3.4 million a year for the lease, but with the other extra expenses (tax, maintenance, etc.) and the renovation costs, Norene estimates it will come to $5 million per year.

Compared to the old  "$682,356 a year for a "full-service" lease."

Pam Varni of the Legislative Affairs is quoted as writing:  

"Our annual savings will be $528,344" 

Demer goes on to explain:

"But that wasn't savings compared to what the Legislature was paying -- once everything is added up, the state will pay about $4 million more each year. Instead, it was based on Lowe's calculation that the new building would have a "market rental value" of $3.9 million a year, compared to the $3.4 million that Pfeffer and Hawker agreed to."

According to the story, the state will pay about $5 million a year compared to the $682,356 a year they pay now.

     Is this a special building?

The explanation those defending the contract gave for the higher price was:  This is a specialized building - like

"churches and schools and courthouses and government office buildings and aviation facilities. I could go on and on. Sports facilities."

Consider a shuttered church building, he said. It will only sell for its full value to another church. Any other user would likely get a deal because it wouldn't have much use for a worship hall's special construction, stained glass windows, pews and altar. His report said prisons, medical buildings and sewage treatment plants also are examples of special-purpose facilities.

This is putting it on thick.

Anyone who's been to Polaris K-12 School knows you can even turn a movie theater into a school.    This is not nearly as special as a prison or sewer treatment plant.  It's offices and a meeting room.  And certainly no more security than many of the other office buildings downtown. Definitely less than the Federal building and the State Court building not to mention Concoco-Phillips. 

The head of the Legislative Council, Mike Hawker is quoted:

"The main hearing room sometimes couldn't handle all the constituents trying to attend, and it was tucked away on the second floor, reachable by one slow elevator."

How often is 'sometimes'?  Once every few years?  I've been to Redistricting Board meetings there and to a few legislative hearings - like the ones for HB 110.  

Back half of LIO Public Meeting Room Anchorage

There was no problem with capacity.  And if they're going to have a really big meeting, the Egan Center and Dena'ina Centers are nearby.

True, the elevator is small and slow, but there are stairs too.  Tucked away?  Then so are the House of Representatives' chambers tucked away on the second floor in Juneau.  That's silly.  That's painting a dire image to justify the change.  Don't get me wrong.  The existing offices were not luxury, but they were no worse than, say, many University faculty have as their full time offices.  (Most legislators have other full time jobs and only spend a great deal of time in their Juneau offices during the session.) 

It does need good teleconferencing facilities, but that's not too difficult to find in 2013.  And with the $4 million a year extra they'll be paying, they could get some pretty fancy stuff.

One reason for the 'good' numbers from the State, the article suggests, is that the appraiser, a Mr. Lowe, was an old friend of Mark Pfeffer.  (Read the article for more on that.)

From Wikipedia - click to focus

Did the Legislative Council fool around for 11 years until they had no choice?

"The council had been searching for replacement space since 2002 but nothing worked out, Hawker says. The Legislative Affairs Agency issued requests for proposals in a competitive procurement process in 2002 and again in 2003. The agency sent out five informal requests for information to see what was available, in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013."

In their defense, I'll say that it's hard when there's no real boss to make the final decision and they have to get a majority to agree. But this isn't like Congress where one house is Republican and the other Democratic.  Or the US House where a chunk of the Republicans threatens retaliation against their fellow Republicans (not to mention the minority Democrats) if they don't march to their inflexible orders.  Over an 11 year period, this looks like lack of focus and leadership to make a good deal for the citizens of Alaska.

"We were stuck with what we had because nobody had done anything and our lease was up," [Republican Representative] Pruitt said.

"State Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak and a member of the Legislative Council that agreed to let Hawker negotiate the terms, said he has "renter's remorse." Stoltze, co-chairman of the House Finance Committee, said he mistakenly assumed the council would get to sign off on the terms when it agreed on June 7 to let Hawker negotiate.
"Bad on me," Stoltze said in an interview. "It was off to the races after that enabling vote."

That's what I call taking responsibility:  "Bad on me."  Possibly tens of millions of dollars in unnecessary costs and the consequence for Stoltze is 'bad on me."  (But at least he admitted a mistake, that's not something legislators do very often.)   Stolze is the guy who once spent ten minutes at Leg Council arguing why the legislature shouldn't allow its members to access Facebook from the Capitol building computers.  This was after saying he knew nothing at all about Facebook. 

Apparently there were a lot of choices over the years, but the Legislative Council couldn't get its act together to follow up on them.  

"Promising prospects fell through; the council failed to move quickly enough, the other party backed out or the property was too expensive."

"In response to the 2011 query, builders, developers, brokers and landowners -- among them some of the most prominent in town -- offered up a total of 24 possibilities for new legislative space. Twenty-two were within the specified geographic boundaries that started downtown, stretched south to Tudor Road then east to Gambell Street."

There was a Mental Health Trust parcel downtown. 

"The Legislature could have ended up there in a new building for much less than the cost of the renovated Fourth Avenue building, according to an analysis put together in 2011.

"We never got a response," said John Morrison, chief administrative officer of the Mental Health Trust Land Office. That lot now is being marketed anew." [emphasis added]

And there was

"the old Unocal oil company building at 909 W. Ninth Avenue as its No. 1 choice. Legislators were skittish about making an offer, and a deal involving NANA Development Corp. beat them out. Pfeffer, who is part owner of the building with Bristol Bay Native Corp. listed as majority owner, was the developer. The redone building is now a striking new NANA office."

And when they missed that opportunity, Demer writes:

"There's no evidence the council re-examined the next best sites."

Did developer Mark Pfeffer land the deal because 

• he had lots of political juice?
  No question here.  The article points out all the Leg Council members Pfeffer had contributed to. 
  

  "On the current Legislative Council, Republican Reps. Hawker, Pruitt, Stoltze, Craig Johnson, Alan Austerman and House Speaker Mike Chenault, as well as Sens. Peter Micciche, Lesil McGuire, Kevin Meyer, Gary Stevens and Senate President Charlie Huggins, all got donations from Pfeffer their last campaign. So did Democrats Max Gruenberg, Dennis Egan and Lyman Hoffman, who like Austerman is an alternate. Only Rep. Peggy Wilson of Wrangell and Sen. John Coghill of Fairbanks, both Republicans, didn't report any contributions from Pfeffer."

  Follow the Money, in a report on attempts to privatize prisons in Alaska, says that Pfeffer's company's contributions to Alaska politicians from 1998 to 2006 were second only to VECO's (by quite a bit).
  

  "KOONCE, PFEFFER AND BETTIS

  Mark E. Pfeffer, founder of architect and design firm Koonce, Pfeffer and Bettis, gave $96,775 between 1998 and 2006. Democratic legislators got $20,600 and $63,825 went to Republicans. He gave $1,000 each to Gov. Knowles in 1998 and Murkowski-Leman in 2002. He also contributed $9,500 to the Alaska Republican Party."

  
  Back to the ADN article:
  

  "Mark has been involved in political and civic activities for many years," his marketing director, Slinker, said. "He does not target any special interests or particular candidates. Mark believes in the civic process and has a history of participating at the city, state and federal levels."

  "[He] believes in the civic process"?  What does that mean in this context?  Giving money to all politicians so that whoever wins, they'll see me and help me out?
  
  It's my experience that people give money to politicians for a number of reasons:
  
  • The are friends with the candidate
  • They are in alignment with the candidate's and/or party's platform
  • They are supporting the candidate's stand on a particular issue
  • For personal gain in the form (for example) of
  • greater access to the politician and information
  • favorable treatment in government contracts
  The first three can be idealistic and the only expected personal benefit is that the official will support one's world view, but not give personal favors.
  
  But when someone gives money to candidates of different parties with different ideologies who were not personal friends before the candidate entered politics, then we're left to assume they are doing it for the last reason.  
  
  And when almost all the politicians on the Council, that will decide a contract that the contributor has had an ongoing interest in acquiring, get maximum allowable financial support,  it becomes more than just a little suspcious. 
  
  
•  he worked harder than other developers?
  
  I don't doubt this.  Most business owners try to do their business and really want to have as little to do with government as possible.  But there is also a segment of business owners who have figured out how government procurement works and like playing that potentially lucrative game. Pfeffer's company has made a lot of money out of government construction in Anchorage.
  

  "Pfeffer has been involved in numerous big public-private projects -- the Dena'ina Civic & Convention Center, the Linny Pacillo parking garage, the NANA office and the Alaska Regional Hospital expansion.He also is part of the group that owns Anchorage City Hall."

  I suspect that Pfeffer knew that there was a lot of money to be made and that not many other players were in the game.  The odds were good that he might win.  Of the 22 possible sites that met the location criteria in 2011, the ADN writes:
  

  "Pfeffer Development pitched five ideas, including a view lot on L Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues that made it to the top five list."

• he had a better product?
  
  It seems from what I've cited above from the ADN article, that Pfeffer really wanted part of this action.  As the five other proposals he'd been part of failed, and the end of the contract came near, he bought into the building the Legislature was already using.
  

  "Pfeffer is a prominent and politically active Anchorage developer who bought into the Fourth Avenue building and neighboring Anchor Pub and Club earlier this year."

  The article says the current owner was difficult to work with, but when Pfeffer got involved, "legislators saw opportunity."
  
  Does he have a better product?  Probably not in terms of the facilities and the cost.  But probably in his ability to negotiate a deal with politicians, lubricated, I'm sure, by his campaign contributions.  I'd note that the Alaska Public Offices Commission report on his contributions shows that most of the Leg Council members got the maximum allowable contribution ($500 per year) from Pfeffer  for 2011 and 2012.
  
  

Conclusion

As go through all this, it seems pretty clear to me that we have:

1. A political body that
1. is not particularly well focused, efficient, or effective
2. has more incentive to get advice from the people they should be negotiating against than to stand firm for the best interests of Alaskan citizens
2. A politically savvy contractor who has learned how to work governmental contracts, particularly those worked out with politicians and whose checkbook is busy during campaign season

The Legislature does NOT sit down and prioritize their spending.  Some committees might do that, but overall, the legislature puts together their budget piece meal.

Did anyone in the Legislature weigh the benefits to the state of having fancier offices against getting, say, running water and sewage systems into the rural Alaskan villages that still don't have them?  Or getting Alaska out of the top ten states in rape statistics?  But that's expecting way too much.  After all, these are the folks who were convinced by the oil companies that the only way the companies could eke out a profit in Alaska was with a $2 billion a year tax break. 

At the end of 10 years, the state will have paid $50 million in rent.  If they'd just built or bought their own building, they would at least have own the building at the end of that time.  As it is, they'll be back in the same place they are now.  


I hope that Lisa Demer and the ADN don't think I've ripped off their article for this post. It's really meant as a nod of appreciation for doing this kind of work. We need a lot more of this kind of reporting. I hope my post adds a little value to all the hard work you've already done. And I'd add, buildings and leases are at least tangible and relatively understandable to most readers. We also need this kind of investigation into the more complex legislation that is passed in Juneau. And readers might consider that if the Legislature fiddles around on something relatively simple like a building, and are so influenced by savvy contractors, how badly are they doing on other legislation?


* for the first five years, and then when the renovation costs are paid, it will drop to $5.24 a square foot.

Beautiful On A Gray Day, Spectacular On A Sunny One

It's gray today, but so beautiful out.

And when it was sunny the other day, it was amazing.

Oil, Power, And Three Books

A story on NPR Friday talked about petcoke dust from refining tar sands crude oil.

Crude oil from Canada's tar sands is providing a booming business for American refineries, but residents of one Chicago neighborhood complain that a byproduct of that business has become a health hazard. They want towering mounds of a dusty substance known as petroleum coke, or petcoke, moved out of the city. And as NPR's Cheryl Corley reports, Chicago is now requiring one company storing the substance to do just that.

I'd note that it mentioned that the plants were owned by the Koch brothers - a good reason for them to try to make people believe that global warming isn't caused by human use of carbon based fuel.

I posted the other day about Keystone pipeline protesters in Oklahoma City against bringing tar sands oil through their state and being arrested on anti-terrorists grounds.sting

I also checked out the new books section at the UAA library this week.  There are lots of interesting books on important subjects.  But too many folks get all they know these days from sound bites and sketchy internet posts.  Good books that focus on a topic can give someone a reasonably comprehensive understanding of an issue.  Good books that is.  Or a couple, just to make sure the book is reasonably balanced.

Here are three I found that are related to these stories.

The first, Cold, Hungry, and In The Dark,  challenges 'common knowledge' about fracking and the belief that our oil shortage days are over. Keystone and fracking are different things, but they are brought to you by the same industry.  From Art Berman's forward to the book:

"When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  This is particularly true about shale gas.  Shale gas is a commercial failure.  That is not what the exploration and production companies that produce gas or the mainstream media and sell-side brokerage companies that help promote the plays tell the public.
Over the past 5 years, I have evaluated, published and spoken about shale gas plays.  I am a petroleum geologist and I make my living evaluating prospects and plays based on fundamental geology and economics.  Shale gas does not pass the test.
I have written about a phenomenon that I cal "magical thinking."  Magical thinking focuses on gas production volumes but does not consider cost.  This is its catechism:  because the volume of shale gas production is great, it must therefore be a commercial success;"

Author Bill Powers is a Canadian investment manager.  Is he badmouthing shale oil to promote Canadian tar sands?  I couldn't find evidence either way, though it seems like his bias is finding good investments, in which case he should be seeking 'truth.'

Putting things into another context is From Enron to Evo:  Pipeline Politics, Global Environmentalism, and Indigenous Rights in Bolivia.   Evo refers to the indigenous Bolivian president.  Derrick Hindery argues that despite the green and indigenous rights image, Evo has sold out to big oil.

Watching how oil takes over a place like Bolivia gives us a sense of what they are doing in Alaska and other places.  And the influence they have on our officials.  But we know that already. 







 Putting things into an even bigger perspective is this huge book that looks at our modern day issues as they played on in the 17th Century.  This book is huge - 902 pages - which means not too many are likely to read much of it.  The publisher's blurb says:

Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides – the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were not only unprecedented, they were agonisingly widespread.  A global crisis extended from England to Japan, and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. North and South America, too, suffered turbulence. The distinguished historian Geoffrey Parker examines first-hand accounts of men and women throughout the world describing what they saw and suffered during a sequence of political, economic and social crises that stretched from 1618 to the 1680s. Parker also deploys scientific evidence concerning climate conditions of the period, and his use of ‘natural’ as well as ‘human’ archives transforms our understanding of the World Crisis. Changes in the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s – longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers – disrupted growing seasons, causing dearth, malnutrition, and disease, along with more deaths and fewer births. Some contemporaries estimated that one-third of the world died, and much of the surviving historical evidence supports their pessimism.

Parker’s demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary historical achievement.  And the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we at all prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow?  [emphasis added] 

Alaska Redistricting Plan Now Final - Just The Bill Is Left To Settle

Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Michael McConahy made two short rulings [see both below] today.

The first declares the Alaska Redistricting Board's 2013 plan to be the official plan until the next decennial census.

You can see the statewide and area maps at the links below.

• 2013 Proclamation Statewide Map
• 2013 Proclamation Anchorage Map
• 2013 Proclamation Mat-Su Map
• 2013 Proclamation Fairbanks Map  
• 2013 Proclamation Kenai Map  
• 2013 Proclamation Southeast Map

For all the other documents - including individual district maps - click here.

The second addresses a dispute between the parties - as I understand it - over who is the prevailing party and public interest litigant status.  The judge gives the parties until January 22, 2014 to file motions regarding those issues and how fees and costs should be allocated.


This will be of particular interest given the change in the law which has led the state to charge Vic Fischer and Bella Hammond for their litigation over Pebble Mine.   In this case, while the challengers did not prevail in this part of the litigation, they certainly prevailed in the earlier parts and I can't see how any objective person could believe this wasn't a public interest litigation that has benefited the state, even if they did not prevail in this last portion.

First order:  

Alaska Superior Court Order Regarding Final Judgment in Redistricting Case by Steve

Second Order:   


Superior Court Fairbanks Alaska: Ruling on Redistricting Board Case - Prevailing Party Fees by Steve

Clutter War: Happy Birthday Glen

Today, the floor is more cluttered, but the closet is emptier.  This is the room that has served as our staging area.  This first happened ten years ago when we were gone for a year and rented out the house and used this room to store things we didn't want to leave out.  Since then, this is the room we put things that we don't need elsewhere or just want to hide when people come over.  I've had pictures of this room up before - use the label clutter war.  But we're having someone move in with us for a year in February and so this room has to be habitable.  

Some things are easy:  boxes of stuff quickly thrown in here without too much review.  I'm able to go through some boxes and get rid of most things - either trash or find a way to recycle.  The Arc called and took stuff away this week already.  But other things - like the 30 year old art work from my daughter I posted the other day - is more difficult.

And so is this:

My brother died in a work accident in August 1975 when my son was just a year old.  I hadn't seen this letter for years.  So this goes into one of the caches of letters from family and friends.  This is not something people of the future will have to worry much about.  Most everything today is electronic and searchable.  But there is something about holding this envelope that Glen held, wrote on, with a stamp that he licked.

Oh, and today, December 20 would be his 61st birthday.  Happy Birthday Glen, wherever you are.  We've missed you terribly all these years. 







By the way, here's a picture of this room cluttered and cleaned back in 2010.

AIFF 2013: Tu Eres Un Homme - Best Of The Fest Encore Showing Tonight

I think we have to pick a winner, because we don't have time to simply compare movies without actually coming up with "the best."

Best of The Fest Tonight (Thursday) 6:30  Ak Exp Large 7:30 Ak Exp Small 8:30 Ak Exp Large

I liked this film and I don't have a problem with it being 'the best' but there were other films that shouldn't have been bumped.  But since this film plays again tonight at the Alaska Experience Theater, I'll write about it now in hopes people will make the effort to go see it at 6:30pm.

It's French.  It deals with a decent family that has been rendered dysfunctional because of an accident the young son had.  And probably the father had some control issues already.  But nothing that can't be worked out.  The characters are likeable and the audience is on their side.

At the center of the film is the relationship between the 20 year old babysitter and his ten year old kid he watches over - they become good friends that is unexpected given the age difference.  But they are both smart and both are outsiders - and the babysitter seems to understand his ward's needs.  It's a chaste, but loving relationship.  I told the director that I'm looking forward to the follow up when Leo is 20 and Theo is 30.

And that's one of the neat things about the festival - we got to talk to a lot of the film

Cohen and Prada Getting Best Feature Award

makers and Benoit Cohen and producer Matthieu Prada were very available and that allows me to say more about the film than I otherwise could.

The opening scene is extreme closeups of Leo.  Cohen said afterward that he wanted to show the intimacy with which a family member, probably a parent, can look at a child.  The original opening didn't quite work, he said, and this was added later.

When Theo comes into this family's life, he begins to interrupt the dysfunctions that arose after Leo's accident:  the overprotection of Leo, the withdrawal of the mother, the need for control of the father.

Cohen said it had a small release in France but it wasn't extreme enough for the French audience.  The hints of illicit relationships don't turn into adultery or pedophilia.  It has done much better in the US film festival circuit where it has won a number of awards, including Best Feature here in Anchorage. 

This Youtube is only in French, but the film tonight will have subtitles.  




Leo and his mother are Cohen's real life son and wife.  He wanted to capture his son just before he began to change into adolescence and that caused them to rush production a bit. He said there were some issues with working his son long hours for the film.  In the beach scene he got tired of running back and forth.  I suggested the scene where he was buried int he sand gave him some rest and Cohen raised his eyebrows and said he was buried for four hours.

This film raises for us what has been lost by society's paranoia about touching kids.  The fears of incest and pedophilia have resulted in widespread prohibitions against touching by professional adults working with children.  The film challenges that response and suggests that there is a need for more non-sexualized touching and non-sexual intimacy.

It plays tonight with the animated film winner Mr. Hublot which is incredibly richly and beautifully animated.  It's a Luxumbourg/French film.  As with other animated films in the festival, it seemed that all the film makers' energies went into the visual and little was left over for a story to match the imagery. 


7:30 - in the other theater - Documentary winner McConkey plays with Super Short winner Anatomy of Injury.  McConkey was an extreme skier and base jumper.  The film shows lots of his feats and does some exploration of why he was so driven to such extreme activities. 

8:30 - back in the big theater - Best Short Documentary The Guide along with Best Snowdance Film Mike’s Migration and Best Short Lambing Season

Lambing Season director Jeannie Donohoe (R) at Awards Ceremony

I liked The Guide.   Biologist E.O. Wilson visits Gorgongosa National Park in Mozambique.  The real focus is on the young local man whose dream has been to be a park guide, but he's now thinking about being a biologist.  I haven't seen the other two yet, but have heard very good things about Lambing Season. 

Charging Environmental Protesters With Terrorism - The Potential Dangers of Glitter

A group of protesters from locked themselves to the entrance of Devon Towers in Oklahoma City.

Tulsa's Channel 9 report focused on the protesters.  The target, other than Devon Towers, is never mentioned.  The closest they come to explaining the reason for the protest was the term "anti-fracking protesters" and giving the names of the organizations sponsoring the protest:  "Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance and Cross Timbers Earth First."

The reporter, Lisa Monahan, says,

"although they had nothing to say to authorities, the protestors had plenty to say about their agenda."

What did we hear about their agenda?

"I don't know if I was scared, but I was angry."

That's it.  That's the plenty they had to say about their agenda.  Was the agenda in the original piece cut by the station editors?  It sure makes Monahan look bad. 

Channel 9 concludes the report with a list of charges that included:

"Biological attack by throwing an agent or substance"


According to one of the protesters,  Eric Whelan,

"the black substance was simply glitter,  it was just to make good pictures and video and to make it pretty."

The Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance website gives us more explanation about the protesters' target and agenda: 

Devon Energy is a key player in the deadly tar sands industry. And though Devon Energy has been touted as practicing the safest and greenest form of tar sands extraction, the form of extraction that Devon practices, steam assisted gravity drainage, emits 2.5x the greenhouse emissions as open mining according to the Pembina Institute. Additionally, since 80% of tar sands reserves lie too deep within the earth to mine, this type of extraction will utilize 30x more land area than open mining.
“I’m opposed to the industry’s blatant disregard for human wellbeing in the pursuit of profit,” said Cory Mathis of Austin, TX—one of the activists locked down inside Devon. “These industries poison countless communities, often deceive and coerce folks into signing contracts, and when that doesn’t work, they use eminent domain to steal the land. Texas and Oklahoma have long been considered sacrifice zones for the oil and gas industry, and people have for the most part learned to roll over and accept the sicknesses and health issues that come with the temporary and unsustainable boost in employment.”

TransCanada Teaching Police and FBI how to use Terrorism laws to prosecute protesters

Vice.com puts this into a larger context of TransCanada training police and FBI on how to use anti-terrorism laws to prosecute environmental protestors.

When they got to jail, they found out they were being charged with a "terrorism hoax," a state felony punishable by up to ten years in prison.
Their attorney, Doug Parr, has been involved in dozens of protest cases like this one in Oklahoma and Texas. In other arrests, protesters have faced trumped-up charges, but this is a radical escalation. "I've been practicing law since the 1970s. Quite frankly, I've been expecting this," Parr said. "Based upon the historical work I've been involved in, I know that when popular movements that confront the power structure start gaining traction, the government ups the tactics they employ in order to disrupt and take down those movements."
TransCanada has been putting pressure on law enforcement to do exactly that. In documents obtained by Bold Nebraska, the company was shown briefing police and the FBI on how to prosecute anti-pipeline protesters as terrorists.
In Ohio, the Athens County Emergency Management Agency recently held a training drill that involved a fake anti-fracking group. The scenario was meant to prepare emergency first responders for a terrorist attack. Focusing the training on non-violent environmentalists caused such an uproar that the county had to issue a public apology.

Image from KWTV

Look at Sarah Totten as she was interviewed by KWTV channel 9 Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Image from KWTV

And here's Eric Whalen interviewed by KWTV.










Above are two of the protesters from tv news screenshots.  They looked terribly normal and non threatening.  But here is another set of pictures that Channel 9 says were the four who were arrested.  It takes these clean cut white kids (yeah, we're profiling here) and makes them look a lot edgier.  I'm not sure if this image was from the television station or from the police. In both cases, it's problematic. 

Image from KWTV

I'd note that before I wrote this post, I did a bit of googling to be sure I was getting the story reasonably correctly.  I do this when responding to stories I find online to be sure I'm not responsible for spreading hoax stories like the one the Anchorage Daily News reported about a SF school that was reported to having suspended a kid for wishing an atheist teacher a Merry Christmas.  That story quotes a psychologist on how we tend to believe what we want to believe:

"We tend to apply lower standards of evidence to information that confirms our predispositions," said Brendan Nyhan, assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College. "What that means in practice is people seize onto these online nuggets that confirm what they believe.
"They're certainly unlikely to seek out information to see if it's true."
Yet research shows that even if confronted with a correction to false information, it won't change people's minds, he said.
"Even in the case where someone accepts that this story is false, it isn't clear that they'll accept an actual 'war on Christmas' is false," Nyhan said. "No one thinks they're misinformed."

 This doesn't just apply to conservatives who seemed to have been the major group that keep this atheist story spreading.  Liberals can be just as vulnerable.  So constantly check your crap detectors and make sure they are working.