What Do I Know?

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Lick Your Rat Pups: Epigenetics, Methyl Groups, DNA, Evolution

Can behavioral change of a parent be passed on to children and grandchildren? Darwinian evolution would say no. But scientists today are finding this a lot more complicated.

Think of this post as some notes to myself. I don't even remember what caused me to google 'epigenetics.' I'm a little behind the curve on this, but I suspect I'm not the only one. And it seems like something I should know more about. Here are some tantalizing quotes in fairly understandable English.

From Discover Magazine:

"Until researchers like Razin came along, the basic story line on how genes get transcribed in a cell was neat and simple. DNA is the master code, residing inside the nucleus of every cell; RNA transcribes the code to build whatever proteins the cell needs. Then some of Razin’s colleagues showed that methyl groups could attach to cytosine, one of the chemical bases in DNA and RNA.

It was Razin, working with fellow biochemist Howard Cedar, who showed these attachments weren’t just brief, meaningless affairs. The methyl groups could become married permanently to the DNA, getting replicated right along with it through a hundred generations. As in any good marriage, moreover, the attachment of the methyl groups significantly altered the behavior of whichever gene they wed, inhibiting its transcription, much like a jealous spouse. It did so, Razin and Cedar showed, by tightening the thread of DNA as it wrapped around a molecular spool, called a histone, inside the nucleus. The tighter it is wrapped, the harder to produce proteins from the gene."

From the University of Utah

These records showed that food availability between the ages of nine and twelve for the paternal grandfather affected the lifespan of his grandchildren. But not in the way you might think. Shortage of food for the grandfather was associated with extended lifespan of his grandchildren. Food abundance, on the other hand, was associated with a greatly shortened lifespan of the grandchildren. Early death was the result of either diabetes or heart disease. Could it be that during this critical period of development for the grandfather, epigenetic mechanisms are "capturing" nutritional information about the environment to pass on to the next generation?

From Epigenome:

"Male lions are among the most sexually active of mammalian beasts. In captivity they have even been known to mount female tigers. The resulting liger offspring make their parents look like pussy cats, often exceeding twelve feet in length and doubling parental weight. In contrast, if you mate a male tiger with a female lion, the resulting tigon is considerably smaller. What makes the liger so big and tigon so small?"

From the Johns Hopkins Center for Epigenetics Website:

Understanding how the information in the human genome is utilized is one of the central questions in modern biology. It has become clear that a critical level of gene regulation occurs through the chemical modification of both the DNA itself and the proteins that organize eukaryotic DNA into chromatin. This form of gene regulation, termed epigenetics, refers to cellular "memory" other than the DNA sequence alone, and occurs through mechanisms such as the addition of methyl groups to DNA, as a way of marking specific genes as active or silent. The Center for Epigenetics has brought together investigators in genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, biostatistics, epidemiology, and clinical medicine to develop new technologies to apply to both basic science and population-based epigenetic studies. The center has developed several new genomics, biostatistical, and biochemical methods and is applying them to cutting-edge studies of epigenetic mechanisms and disease research.

From Radio Lab:

As we reported, the duo's lab work shows that when a mother rat licks a pup (her sign of "I love you"*), the action sets off a Rube Golberg-esque cascade of hormones, which ultimately wind up all the way down at the level of the DNA.

Image from Radio Lab

What do those hormones do down there? It turns out, they change the chemical markers, or epigenome, surrounding certain areas of the DNA. And the end result of these changes hinges on how much the rat pup is licked: if a rat pup gets a lot of licks, the epigenetic changes cause the pup to grow up and lick its own kids a lot; if a pup doesn't get a lot of licks, the chemical changes cause that pup to be a low-licker. In both cases, the pattern of maternal behavior is carried across generations -- from grandmothers to mothers to grandkids. Or, in the words of Radiolab producer Soren Wheeler, "It's as if the epigenetic information leaps up out of the mother's genes through a tongue and lands back on the babies' genes." (Interested? Go listen to the show for more!)

From Science we get warned about calling every nongenetic system as epigenetic:

"The cells in a multicellular organism have nominally identical DNA sequences (and therefore the same genetic instruction sets), yet maintain different terminal phenotypes. This nongenetic cellular memory, which records developmental and environmental cues (and alternative cell states in unicellular organisms), is the basis of epi-(above)–genetics.

The lack of identified genetic determinants that fully explain the heritability of complex traits, and the inability to pinpoint causative genetic effects in some complex diseases, suggest possible epigenetic explanations for this missing information. This growing interest, along with the desire to understand the “deprogramming” of differentiated cells into pluripotent/totipotent states, has led to “epigenetic” becoming shorthand for many regulatory systems involving DNA methylation, histone modification, nucleosome location, or noncoding RNA. This is to be encouraged, but the labeling of nongenetic systems as epigenetic by default has the potential to confuse (see the related video at www.sciencemag.org/special/epigenetics/)."

I don't know what this all means yet. As I said, notes to myself.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

When Is It OK To Hold Public Meetings In Secret? The Coliseum Case

The ultimate reason for government openness is to allow the public to keep their public officials accountable. It's a value I hold strong here at this blog. This is a story about a government agency not being open.

The other day I had a photo and personal comments on the LA Coliseum. Today, the LA Times has

an article enttitled:

"Coliseum incurred big expense in trying to keep USC lease talks secret"

It begins:

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was flirting with insolvency, but that didn't stop its government overseers from incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expenses to keep secret their deliberations on a new long-term lease for the stadium.

Starting with the US Freedom of Information Act and going through various state and municipal open records acts, there is usually an exception for private negotiations. If you're bargaining over a lease, it generally isn't a good idea to let the other side know what your last best offer is.

But, apparently, in this situation, the two sides were not adversarial. The Coliseum Commissioners, according to the article,

"The emails, along with others obtained earlier under the California Public Records Act, show the Coliseum's top executive granting nearly every wish USC had for the negotiations and then helping the university build and maintain political support for the lease."

About the Coliseum

Background from Wikipedia (which reflects the agreement that was negotiated in secret):

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, colloquially known as just "The Coliseum", is a large outdoor sports stadium in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, at Exposition Park, that is home to the Pacific-12 Conference's University of Southern California Trojans football team. It is the largest football stadium in the Pac-12.
It is located next to the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Exposition Park, across the street from the University of Southern California (USC). The stadium is jointly owned by the State of California, Los Angeles County, and the City of Los Angeles, and is managed and operated by the University of Southern California. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, which has board members drawn from the three ownership interests, provides public oversight of the master lease agreement with USC. Under the lease the University has day-to-day management and operation responsibility for both the Coliseum and Sports Arena. The 98-year lease took effect on July 29, 2013 and was signed by the parties on September 5, 2013. The agreement requires the University to make approximately $100 million in physical improvements to the Coliseum, pay $1 million a year rent to the state of California, maintain the Coliseum’s physical condition at the same standard used on the USC Campus, and assume all financial obligations for the operations and maintenance of the Coliseum and Sports Arena Complex.^[7]^[8]

Disclosure versus Confidentiality

There are some legitimate reasons not to release some government information. Individuals who cooperate with the government and legitimately fear retaliation should be protected. Say, when there is gang violence or shakedowns of shop owners, and someone offers help to the police, that person's identity should be protected if it's likely there will be retaliation. And businesses who provide the government environmental or safety information about their company, should have trade secrets that are involved, kept secret so their competitors can't use it to their advantage. Without such protections, businesses are less likely to cooperate, just as in the previous example, witnesses are less like to cooperate.

The 1966 Federal Freedom of Information Act sets out a list of exemptions using the kind of reasoning I've outlined above.

Exemption 1: Information that is classified to protect national security. The material must be properly classified under an Executive Order.
Exemption 2: Information related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.
Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law. Additional resources on the use of Exemption 3 can be found on the Department of Justice FOIA Resources page.
Exemption 4: Information that concerns business trade secrets or other confidential commercial or financial information.
Exemption 5: Information that concerns communications within or between agencies which are protected by legal privileges, that include but are not limited to:

Attorney-Work Product Privilege

Attorney-Client Privilege

Deliberative Process Privilege

Presidential Communications Privilege

Exemption 6: Information that, if disclosed, would invade another individual's personal privacy.
Exemption 7: Information compiled for law enforcement purposes if one of the following harms would occur. Law enforcement information is exempt if it:

7(A). Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings

7(B). Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication

7(C). Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy

7(D). Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source

7(E). Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions

7(F). Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual

Exemption 8: Information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions.
Exemption 9: Geological information on wells.

Ultimately, we're weighing the short term public interest in knowing versus the long term public interest in having people cooperate with law enforcement and other government officials. We have to find the balance between keeping secret or revealing certain kinds of information. We want businesses to voluntarily provide information (including sometimes trade secrets) to government agencies that monitor them. We want clients to be honest with their attorneys. We want presidential advisers to be candid with their policy advice. If allowing that information to be confidential, and it's not critical to government accountability, then no problem. But sometimes the public needs to know some of that info in order to evaluate public decisions.

The public interest is so important that California makes it the test in some cases of disclosure or not.

"In order to withhold a record under section 6255, an agency must demonstrate that the public’s interest in nondisclosure clearly outweighs the public’s interest in disclosure. A particular agency’s interest in nondisclosure is of little consequence in performing this balancing test; it is the public’s interest, not the agency’s that is weighed. This “public interest balancing test” has been the subject of several court decisions. In a case involving the licensing of concealed weapons, the permits and applications were found to be disclosable in order for the public to properly monitor the government’s administration of concealed weapons permits.

The last example, of course, highlights the reason, in a democracy, for transparency: the public's ability to monitor the government's decisions and actions. They give a number of other examples of cases where they ruled for disclosure because the public interest was so strong.

The problem with secrecy

But whenever there is secrecy, there is the temptation to abuse that secrecy.

In the Coliseum case it appears the secrecy was used to hide how the public's representatives (the coliseum commissioners) gave USC all the advantages at tax payers' expense. (I say apparently because the LA Times was part of the lawsuit to get the information. They have a vested interest in showing that their lawsuit was legitimate. I've no evidence their report is biased. Evidence in their favor is the court's decision to make the data public. But we should take nothing for granted.)

The public interest is so important that, California makes it the test in some cases of whether to disclose or notn-disclosure.

"In order to withhold a record under section 6255, an agency must demonstrate that the public’s interest in nondisclosure clearly outweighs the public’s interest in disclosure. A particular agency’s interest in nondisclosure is of little consequence in performing this balancing test; it is the public’s interest, not the agency’s that is weighed. This “public interest balancing test” has been the subject of several court decisions. In a case involving the licensing of concealed weapons, the permits and applications were found to be disclosable in order for the public to properly monitor the government’s administration of concealed weapons permits.

The last example, of course, highlights the reason, in a democracy, for transparency: the public's ability to monitor the government's administration.

My sense is that negotiation with an adversary is a good reason to keep information secret - though not necessarily the negotiation meetings. In any case, after the negotiation is done, there's no reason not to make all the proceedings public.

But, in this Coliseum case, the participants definitely did not want people to know what they did.

The question now is, if the public representatives do not work for the public in good faith, shouldn't that invalidate the agreement?

Sham public hearings

USC Senior Vice President Todd Dickey, who also received the email, responded: "If you want us to hold an open house … and listen to 500 people speak for 5 hours, and maybe answer a few questions, I guess we can do that, but I see no value in that at all."

I think this attitude is pretty common among people used to having power and getting their way. USC is a private university that has raised $3 billion in its current campaign to raise $6 billion. The senior vice president is pretty used to dealing with very wealthy people who tend to get their way. Some examples of the kinds of people he probably works with comes from the USC fundraising page:

An anonymous $20 million gift will endow student support at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the USC School of Social Work and the USC Marshall School of Business.

Selim Zilkha has pledged a gift of $5 million to the Keck School of Medicine of USC to fund a new endowed chair in Alzheimer’s disease research.

A $1 million donation by USC Dornsife alumni has established the Linda and Harlan Martens Endowed Director’s Chair for the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute.

Not only is the top of the USC hierarchy used to dealing with wealthy folks, they also can get those folks to lobby for them.

"Some of the emails the government sought to keep under wraps show that the stadium officials and USC collaborated in securing backing for the lease in City Hall and Sacramento.
In one exchange, Sandbrook asked Dickey if he knew an alternate commissioner who represented then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and might attend a lease meeting.
"Damn, no I don't," Dickey replied. "We need to get to the Mayor so he can encourage her to support the lease."
After receiving a report that Villaraigosa was miffed at not receiving advance notice on the lease terms, Dickey wrote to Sandbrook and then-commission President David Israel, that USC President Max Nikias and others had been lobbying the mayor:
"Tom Sayles has been in constant contact with the Mayor's office trying to get them to support the term sheet," Dickey said in the correspondence, referring to a USC administrator. "We even had President Nikias call the Mayor and he got him today."
Villaraigosa's two representatives on the commission voted for the lease.

And they can reward those who cooperate with them:

The former mayor, now a USC faculty member, did not respond to interview

I'm not saying this was a quid pro quo deal. The former mayor certainly has a lot of knowledge to share with students and he makes USC's diversity stronger. But there is the appearance of something fishy here. And, for my own disclosure, I would add that I graduated from what is now the school he was appointed to.

What's my point?

This isn't a gossip blog. When I post stories about specific events it's usually to either document what's happening and/or to make some larger point. Since the LA Times has already done the documentation here, I need to put this in a larger perspective. So, my points probably boil down to:

1. The openness of public information is a cornerstone of democracy. Without it, there is no way to keep public officials accountable.
2. When information is not disclosed, people should be suspicious and should demand its release.
3. People everywhere should remember what the secret emails reveal in contrast to the public statements:

private communication	"If you want us to hold an open house … and listen to 500 people speak for 5 hours, and maybe answer a few questions, I guess we can do that, but I see no value in that at all."
public communication	"To support a public and transparent process, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission and the University of Southern California are jointly releasing a list of points of agreement that will serve as the basis for continuing negotiations on a modified lease between USC and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission."

Both those quotes come from the emails that the LA Times lawsuit revealed.

THEN, I hope people apply this to their own local and state officials. Recognize when you hear people proclaim their support of transparency, especially after opposing requests for more openness, that what they actually said in private was probably the opposite.

I think about how the DOWL Engineering group has held public hearing after public hearing with fancy charts and how they took public testimony which showed over and over again that the vast majority of the people were opposed to extending Bragaw through the University. Yet despite that testimony Anchorage's mayor managed to work a last minute deal to get $20 million to put the road through anyway. And then we hear it will actually cost yet another $20 million. The public process was a total sham. It was only to meet legal requirements.

I think about how the Anchorage Assembly allowed weeks and weeks of testimony on an ordinance to add gays and lesbians to our local anti-discrimination ordinance. People in were even bused in from Matsu to testify against the ordinance. And the hearings continued long enough that we changed mayors - from one who said he'd sign the ordinance to one who vetoed it.

And then that same mayor exclaimed about changes in the Labor Ordinance, "This was one of the most open, comprehensive public processes." Sounds a lot like the qote above. Fortunately, the audience at the Assembly meeting that night was heavily labor and they knew the truth.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Is LA Air Less Polluted? Yes, But . . .

Jacob commented on yesterday's post with extremely clear views of LA:

"Don't think I've seen LA air look so clear. Was it wind pushing pollution away or are environmental regs really making that much difference? A bit of both seems likely, but what's going here?"

nswfm commented that it was a bit windy.

But I haven't experienced any wind since I got here.

The answer, according to an LA Times article yesterday on the San Jaoquin Valley is that pollution is down, but EPA standards are up.

After spending decades and hundreds of millions of dollars cleaning up

DOT map San Joaquin Valley

stubbornly high levels of pollution, air quality officials in the San Joaquin Valley are telling federal regulators that enough is enough.
San Joaquin Valley officials say that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is unfairly blaming locals for air fouled by outside sources and is failing to take into account the pollution-trapping topography of the mountain-ringed basin.
"Once we've done everything we can, we should not be penalized," Seyed Sadredin, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, said in reference to fees his agency has imposed on local drivers and businesses in recent years after failing to meet federal deadlines to curb smog.

The local officials argue the smog they get comes from pollution blowing in from Asia and non-local vehicles driving through the San Joaquin Valley. The Valley reported that they now meet EPA standards.

"The EPA says that readings at two of the most polluted air quality monitoring sites are flawed and do not prove that the region's air has been cleaned up enough to reach the agency's 1979 standard for ozone. The EPA says that it will hold the San Joaquin Valley to the same standards as the rest of the nation and has asked the district for more data to back up its contention."

You can read the whole LA Times article, but interestingly, the print version has graphics that are not online. They show a steady, but inconsistent decline.

The San Joaquin Valley starts north of LA. ABC News in April 2013 said that

"Los Angeles Tops ‘Dirty Air’ List for 13th Time in 14 Years"

They cite a report from The American Lung Association (Key Findings) where you can look up air pollution information on any state and city in the US. I say "look up" but it doesn't mean you'll find it. All of Alaska, for instance is labeled either INC (indicates incomplete monitoring data for all three years) or DNC (ndicates that there is no monitor collecting data in the county).

But they do have information on Los Angeles. Unfortunately I wasn't able to copy the table and preserve the format, so I'm posting a screenshot and the links below don't work - the image is just an image. But if you click on it, it will take you to the Lung Association page and you can read more. As you can see, despite getting failing grades, there are significant improvements.

So, Jacob, I hope that answers your question.

[Note: Just when I thought the Feedburner problems had been fixed, this post hasn't made it to other Blogrolls for over 7 hours now.]

AIFF 2013: Two Fine Films: De Nieuwe Wereld (The New World) and Hank and Asha

This is a continuation of this post on "What Makes A Good Film?"

My 1's (movies that had me walking out of the theater going 'wow!'):

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 wasn't watching the movie making - all the technical stuff worked to tell the story, not distracted from the story (either because it was bad or so spectacular that it distracted.)

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

Of the four, I probably was the least swept away at the moment by The New World. But it wouldn't let go of me. Scenes kept coming back to me. When I saw Hank and Asha I walked out pumped. What a great film. But then, I wondered was there enough depth? Was this just a well made, but light romantic comedy? The New World seemed more important, but I didn't walk out with the same elation. Was I just being shallow?

At this point, I think they are both very fine movies. The New World told a complicated story deceptively simply. It quietly took us on a tour of two people's broken hearts. We slowly learn about Mirte and Luc and their similar losses that allowed her to reach out to help him. At the same time helping herself. On the surface though, it almost seems like a documentary about life at the airport's detention area for asylum seekers waiting for the decision whether they can enter Holland or not. It's so understated. Even the colors are muted. One audience member told me his initial reaction was negative because there was no humor. But the humor was there. It was just so quiet. Like a little dab of yellow in a grey-brown world. For example - people are coming in the door at the end of the hallway where she's just mopped the floor. She waves her hands at them to stay on the side - these are immigrants who probably don't speak Dutch. She makes 'chhhhhh...chhhhhh" sounds at them. An African stares at her as he walks down the hall. She again goes, "chhhhhhh. . .chhhhhhhhhh." He smiles and goes, "chhhhhhh. . .chhhhhhhhhh" back to her as though he were learning to say 'hello' in her language. It's such intimate cross cultural communications that make this movie so powerful. Two low level people in a political no-man's land at the airport, but not technically in Holland. In another scene, she catches him staring at her and she waves him off and tells him not to look at her. He comes up to her and in complete innocence says, "I've never seen a white cleaning woman before."

This is a movie where you have to look closely or you'll think nothing is happening, but it's just happening at a lower volume and slower pace than we're used to in US film. Slight gestures fill the screen with meaning if you're attuned to them. When they get to the scene where she's washing the glass wall and he dances on the other side along with her motions it's like an explosion in another movie.

We get glimpses behind the scene in this asylum center - the workers making bets on who's lying, the attorneys trying to find ways to mesh the clients' stories with the specifics of the law, the impossible responsibility of determining if someone is telling the truth. We see the healing relationship between the mother and her young son. There's the motor bicycle she rides everywhere. There's so much. I was only able to see this film once and I know that a second and third viewing would reveal so much more I didn't see.

Actors Bianca Krijgsman and Issaka Sawadogo were superb. This was, for me, one of the gems of the festival.

And then I saw Hank and Asha. This is a feel good movie. It's a video romance between two strangers, played by actors (Mahira Kakkar and Andrew Pastides) loaded with charm. It's all told in the videos they - two budding film makers - send back and forth to each other between New York and Prague. There's no nudity, no sex, no violence, just two well adjusted 20 somethings falling into an unexpected friendship that gets to the edge of something more. Everything worked for me as they shared their lives with each other via video. There's nothing heavy here, no imminent deportations, though there is appropriate cultural and parental conflict. The epistolary film, that uses an exchange of videos rather than letters, is itself a comment on what we have lost as we've moved to instant global communication. Everything worked for me. The story, the characters (I never thought of the actors as actors it was so real), the way it was all put together seemed so natural. We were simply eavesdropping as two people opened their video mail from their new found friend across the Atlantic.

The film makers - James Duff and Julia Morrison - were at the festival and I was able to learn more about the film. You can see my video with them in Anchorage discussing the film here. Most surprising was that the two actors only met after the filming was done. In fact Mahira did all her video in ten days in Prague before any of Andrew's video was made. This speaks well to the scripting, the acting, and the editing.

James and Julia said Hank and Asha will be available on Netflix in April and people should put it on their lists now. This is the kind of film I feel pretty comfortable recommending - it's hard not to like. We did see this one twice and it held up nicely the second time. I saw lots of things I'd missed the first time.

Next, two films that were not in competition because they were special selections - invited films, not submissions.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Tale of Two Cities - Divided Between Anchorage And LA

Ice Wall Seward Highway south of Anchorage

It was several degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) when we left Anchorage just after midnight Christmas morning. It was ridiculously warm (on the way to mid 80s) and clear as we arrived into LA almost 40 minutes early around 8 am. (There'd been a stopover in Seattle)

So this post is going to mix some leftover Anchorage photos from a great sightseeing day with New York based film maker Thanachart Siripatrachai mid December with photos of flying into LA today. That jumble of hot and cold, wilderness and urban has been the last year as we try to spend as much time with my mom in LA as possible, yet maintain our Anchorage activities. So why shouldn't you go back and forth between the two too?

Anchorage sunset Dec. 12, about 3:45 pm returning from Glen Alps.

Flying into LA Christmas Day, looking south toward Palos Verdes with Catalina Island very clear in the background. LAX in the foreground. We were early and spent some time flightseeing over LA.

Benz (Thanachart) checking out mostly frozen Turnagain Arm. It was about 10˚F (-7˚C) that day and while it was mostly clear when we left the house, twenty minutes later it was mostly cloudy in the Arm and soon began to snow lightly.

And there was a brisk wind. We walked around Beluga Point checking the ice formation on the water. It was getting really cold with the wind. So it was a little surprising when we saw three people get out of a car. She was wearing lots of white. They climbed over the barricade and over the railroad tracks. She pulled off her shawl and they started taking wedding pictures. He had on an overcoat and scarf.

We came into LA, just north of the airport headed east (earlier photo above) came back a bit, and then looped around north with this view of downtown and all the mountain backdrops clearly displayed. When we completed the circle we were headed west right over the Coliseum.

It was the 1984 Summer Olympics that made me realize what a huge part of my life the LA Coliseum had been. From Boy Scout jamborees to rodeos, early Dodger games and UCLA football games - I'd been to the Coliseum for various events all my early life.


Click to see map better

And at the LA Sports arena (the white oval) I saw Lyndon Johnson nominated to be the vice presidential candidate with John Kennedy in 1960. Someone had given my mom tickets and we were way up near the rafters, but we were there. And I watched the UCLA basketball team in 1963 beat number one Michigan there - getting 16 points in a row at the beginning of the game - to go on for their first undefeated season and the beginning of their dynasty. I also spent a lot of time in the museums and rose garden there at Exposition Park as a kid. Followed by my graduate studies next door at USC. Lots of my formative years spent in these few square blocks below us in the airplane yesterday morning.

After we stopped at Bells Nursery (previous post on Christmas trees) Benz and I drove up to Glen Alps and walked to the Powerline Pass trail.

We're closing in on the airport here. I'm looking north as LA stretches to the hills. It stretches even further over the hills in the valley. And south out the other side of the plane. And east. But you can't see it quite this clear most days.

This part of Chugach State Park is about 20 minutes from downtown Anchorage. Nothing out there but nature- trees and bushes, a few trails, moose, bear, and other smaller critters.

Here's Benz, tanning, Anchorage winter style.

To put the top ice picture into perspective, I thought I better add this one Benz sent me. All these are sharper if you click them.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Alaskans Get Colorado Christmas Trees And Mexican Poinsettias

During the film festival, the creator of The Words I Love (Honorable Mention in the short docs category) stayed with us for several days. Thanachart Siripatrachai - Benz - for short and I went for a few outings and during one we stopped at Bell's Nursery and found, to our surprise, Christmas trees from Colorado.

Down on the bottom - it says Poncha Springs, CO.

Needless to say we were surprised to learn Alaskans buy Colorado trees.

Here's Benz taking pictures.

I don't think these particular poinsettias are from Mexico, but I did some checking and they come originally from Mexico.

From American Phytopathological Society:

The poinsettia, Euphorbia pulcherrima Willd., is a member of the family Euphorbiaceae. The genus Euphorbia contains some 700 to 1,000 species. It is characterized by a single female flower, without petals and usually without sepals, surrounded by individual male flowers all enclosed in a cup-shaped structure called a cyathium. The showy red, pink, white, or bicolored portion of the plant, popularly referred to as the flower, consists of modified leaves or bracts (Fig. 1).

The poinsettia is a native plant of Mexico and originated in a rather limited region near present day Taxco. Long before the arrival of Europeans, the Aztecs of central Mexico cultivated the plant and called it Cuetlaxochitl. Because of its brilliant color, the poinsettia was a symbol of purity to the Indians. It was highly prized by both King Netzahualcoyotl and Montezuma, but because of the high altitude climate, the plant could not be grown in their capital, now known as Mexico City. The Indians used poinsettia bracts to make a reddish-purple dye. They also made a medicine for fever from the plant’s latex. . . [emphasis added - and there's a lot more about the history of this plant at the APS link.]

Yes, I needed to look it up too. Here's what it says:

What Is Phytopathology or Plant Pathology?

The Study of Plant Disease

Plant pathology is an interdisciplinary science that includes knowledge of botany, microbiology, crop science, soil science, ecology, genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and physiology. Most plant pathologists have master's and doctoral degrees and are employed by colleges and universities, state and federal government agencies, industrial firms, international institutes, and as private practitioners.

In any case, let me take this opportunity to wish all my readers who celebrate Christmas, a very merry Christmas!

"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

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

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:

Audience Choice – Features

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.

Monday, December 23, 2013

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
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:

A political body that

is not particularly well focused, efficient, or effective
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

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.