Peter Brilliantly Captures His PD Falls

I've posted about Peter Dunlap-Shohl's Parkinson's Disease blog before.  Peter's work is a bridge helping people without PD understand what his world is like.  And I'm sure people with PD appreciate that someone has captured their world and put it out there for all to see.

His most recent post is about falls.  Here's a screenshot of part of one of the panels.

Click to enlarge and focus

It's Peter's genius to be able to use his cartooning skills to capture the frustration, but also talk about the physiology and physics of what's happening. 

Pre-Checked Through Security - So Much Easier

Well, actually, there was only one other person in the regular line.  But not having to take off my shoes, or take my computer out, or my toothpaste was nice.  We didn't even have to put our hands over our heads, just through the old security walk through. 

And it made me think how when the pain is reduced, it feels good, even if it is still a pain.  There was a time when your friends and family could walk you to the gate or wait for you there as you got off the plane. 

Back in those days, they fed you on the plane and there was leg room.  BUT, and a big BUT, people could smoke on the plane.  So awful.  Even when the put the smokers in the back it was still awful.  

We checked in four pieces today.  Part of the clutter war - taking our daughter's old things still stored in our garage.  Mostly books.  And some baby stuff from friends who's kids are a little older. 

Our houseguest has gotten comfortable in the house.  What a pleasure to have him.  When he's home for dinner, he won't let us clear the table or wash the dishes.  Sometimes I actually like to do those kinds of mindless tasks, but I can get used to this. 

We'll see our daughter and granddaughter and the guys in a few hours.  So I better post this.  Enjoy the weekend.  It's warmed back up into the twenties here in Anchorage and it's mostly cloudy, but I can see blue and it's not raining or snowing. 

Narco Bling and Doumentary Heaven Trove of Docs

Documentary Heaven  is a website I ran into that has hundreds of documentaries you can watch.  Actually I didn't count them and there could be over a thousand. 

Here's the loooong  list of all the documentaries.  I suspect you could find everything just trolling YouTube, but this makes it a lot easier. 

Here are several titles that were being highlighted.

Amish: A Secret Life

An intimate portrait of Amish family life and faith, this film opens up a world usually kept private. Miriam and David are Old Order Amish and photography is not permitted under the strict rules of the Amish church. So when they agree to open their home and their lives to the cameras, they embark on a journey which is not without risk. As the film unfolds, we learn exactly what is at stake for this family and why they wanted to share their lives and risk all.

The Wall Street Code 

A thrilling documentary about a genius algorithm builder who dared to stand up against Wall Street. Haim Bodek, aka The Algo Arms Dealer. 

From the makers of the much-praised Quants:  the Alchemists of Wall Street and Money & Speed: Inside the Black Box.  Now the long-awaited final episode of a trilogy in search of the winners and losers of the tech revolution on Wall Street.  Could mankind lose control of this increasingly complex system?

 I haven't seen the first two, but I did watch this one:

 Narco Bling

Mexico is at war, a war for control of its own country against a rich and powerful enemy the Mexican drug cartel. These narco traffickers live in a world of astonishing wealth and extravagance, this being said however they live in even more spectacular cruelty and violence. This film is about the criminal gangs that are earning billions from a seemingly endless flow of illegal drugs, most of which seem to end up in the United States. National Geographic explore this dark world, where of the the most wanted fugitives is also one of the most powerful people in the region. 

It's not something I didn't already know, but the details are staggering.  The amounts of money, how things work, the impact on the US.   I couldn't help thinking:  Why are are fighting in the Middle East, when a much bigger threat is along our border? 

In the movie there's a scene in prison (it's shown with cartoon drawings) where a drug lord is imprisoned.  It shows how all the prison guards are bribed with offers of money and a laptop showing pictures of their families. It seems no one says no.  And you know that we must be losing the war on drugs because enough people on our side of the border are also being bribed.

Watch for yourself;  it's only 44 minutes. It was shown in England in 2010 on National Geographic television.

[UPDATE  Feb 23:  Less than two weeks after I post this documentary on Joaquin Guzman, he's captured.  If I used the kind of logic of some blogs and cable news shows, I could claim credit for his capture.  You can read the update post on this with links to the LA Times article on the capture.]

Catching Up - Left Over LA Shots - 60 Chevy, Monarch, And Dry Landscape

We're getting ready to go south again.  A few days in Seattle to see our grand daughter (and, of course, our daughter and the rest of the gang) and then to visit my mom who has her 92nd birthday in two weeks.

I've been busy - did a workshop today on racism with people in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.  It went quite well.  Having a house guest is fun, and he's wonderful, but I spend a lot more time just talking than normally.

Also, haven't done an update on my Achilles heel.  Long story short - been to the podiatrist, physical therapy, new shoes and inserts, back to the podiatrist when it swelled up again, some steroid treatment.  I'm ok at the moment, but running is going to have to wait until it's had more time to heal completely.  It appears my minimalist shoes might have contributed.  As I wrote earlier, while they are great for something things, they do put more strain on the Achilles heal.

I'd been thinking about taking a weight training class at UAA, but didn't get around to.  But T, our houseguest, suggested I just get a pass for the semester, and so I've been to the weight room a couple of times now.  I feel so much better getting good vigorous exercise again.  But I do still see people running and get very jealous.

I don't have too much time to post today, but I thought I'd put up some left over pictures from LA.

LA is a car city, so I thought I'd give you some cars.  Next is a 1960 Chevy.  We had one of these.  I couldn't believe my parents were buying it, I was stoked.  And I couldn't help talking a picture of this one, shiny in the setting sun.

These cars used a lot of gas, but gas was 31 cents a gallon back then.  And cars today are 99% cleaner than in the 1960s.  So, cool as they might be, I'm not sure driving them around is a good idea.  Of course, I don't know what kinds of modifications they might have made, or not.  The little vehicles above make more sense today.



And then there are birds.  Well, only a few photos.

A murder of crows chasing away a red tailed hawk above my mom's house.

We saw this bird when we were hiking in Las Trancas canyon in the Malibu area with some friends.  It looked somewhat like a jay, but I wasn't quite sure.  It had a blue coat. 

And some colorful birds sitting on a wall not too far from my mom's.











And a monarch butterfly resting on a jade plant.





From a New York Times article that just went up, it looks like genetically modified corn and soybeans and pesticides are threatening this magnificent butterfly that migrates 1000 miles.

MEXICO CITY — Hoping to focus attention on the plight of the monarch butterfly at a North American summit meeting next week, a group of prominent scientists and writers urged the leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada to commit to restoring the habitat that supports the insect’s extraordinary migration across the continent.

Calling the situation facing the butterfly “grim,” the group issued a letter that outlined a proposal to plant milkweed, the monarch caterpillar’s only food source, along its migratory route in Canada and the United States.

Milkweed has been disappearing from American fields over the past decade as farmers have switched to genetically modified corn and soybeans that are resistant to the herbicide glyphosate that kills other plants. At the same time, subsidies to produce corn for ethanol have increased, expanding the amount of land planted with corn by an estimated 25 percent since 2007.

Back to the Las Trancas canyon hike.  It was a beautiful day - sunny, but not hot.  These pictures will give a little sense of how dry things are down there.

 

There were guided horseback rides that we passed on the trail.  

And one more that shows how the urban landscape can look fairly pastoral as well.  There's a public golf course near my mom's and this is a late afternoon shot along the edge of the course.  

We don't call vets with PTSD who freak out at the sound of a loud noise 'thin-skinned

The post the other day on the UAF First Amendment case has garnered a number of thoughtful comments.  I changed my initial assessment of the case when the faculty advisor of the newspaper wrote to say that the student who had been named in the piece not only gave permission to use her name, she insisted it be used. 

There were 16 comments up earlier today and I've just added a couple of long responses.

But I'm still disturbed by the lack of understanding of the epidemic of violence against women in Alaska and the dismissal of women who might be harmed by the newspaper's piece as 'thin-skinned.'  We don't call vets with PTSD who freak out at the sound of a loud noise 'thin-skinned.'  And women who have suffered long term sexual abuse shouldn't be considered 'thin-skinned'  if the kind of explicit sexual naming and shaming that was published in the student paper seriously disturbs them. 

I'm also disturbed by how our adversarial system pushes this into a win/lose debate.  In order for either side to win, it seems they must demean and diminish the other side.  The University should vigorously defend the First Amendment, but they should also, just as vigorously reach out to support those who are harmed by people's exercise of free speech.  In this case, the women likely to be hurt are people who have been traumatized in their lives by sexual harassment.  They've come to campus to escape that and find themselves trivialized and demeaned once again, this time not by a drunk abuser in a back room, but by the very university they thought would offer them a safe place to study. 

I wasn't on the Fairbanks campus while this was happening last year so I don't know for sure what the Chancellor and other university officials did to reach out to students who were hurt by all this.  The faculty member who filed the complaint emailed me and said that her department and a few others had many students come to them, but she was not aware of any official actions of the higher level officials to reach out to vulnerable students. 


But the stats from the CNN report cited in that first report tell us what anyone paying attention at all for the last 20 years should have known:   this problem is huge - about one in three Alaskan women have been raped or sexually assaulted according to one study.  Men, do your girlfriends, wives, daughters, or mothers have to be one of those statistics before you to do something to help end this epidemic of violence against women? 

Capitalism v. Democracy: Why The Free Market Needs Government To Work

I didn't study economics, but I've always scratched my head over what seemed to me glaring contradictions in capitalism.  Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom (which I've pointed out on here before) identified three gaps in the market that led to three legitimate  roles for government.  Friedman actually had four, but he grouped two and three together as one.  I'll treat them separately.

1.  Rule-maker and umpire - The market works only if the rules are fair and people fulfill follow them.  A business cannot function if it pays for supplies that are never delivered.    Our homes and our lives lose significant valued if someone can  build a noisy, stinky factory right on the property line.   Without a government to create rules - not just zoning laws, but rules for establishing a currency, for safety, for prohibitions against slavery and against fraud - and to enforce and adjudicate those rules, we have nothing but a free-for-all, where no one is secure. 

2.  Externalities - Friedman called these neighborhood effects back then: the costs that society as a whole, not the company that creates them, bears.  Costs such as pollution, resource depletion, social disruption, health care, loss of life, etc. that result from production (ie, the water use in fracking, water and air pollution in most manufacturing, habitat destruction to build factories); from sales and distribution (pollution caused by transportation of people and goods); and consumptions of products (injury, illness, and death from smoking, from automobile crashes, from gunshots).  Because these costs aren't captured in the price of the product, the efficiency that is supposed to be the hallmark of the market doesn't work.  Goods are sold for less than their actual cost and society as a whole, in effect, subsidizes the business.

3.  Natural Monopolies - These are often infrastructure and utilities, where the cost of multiple systems (such as sewers, electric lines, bridges) is so high that competition is not efficient.

4. Paternalistic Role - Taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves.  Friedman's example was 'madmen and children."  He's not comfortable with saying that government should step in, but he acknowledges that there are people who cannot take responsibility for themselves.




But there are lots of issues with the market system that Friedman doesn't mention in that classic book.  I was always confused, for example, when capitalism was equated to democracy (or freedom in Friedman's book title) and communism was declared undemocratic.  It seemed to me that communism and capitalism were economic systems and should be compared to other economic systems, not political systems.   Communism isn't inherently undemocratic.  Israeli kibbutzim seemed to be both communistic and extremely democratic.

Capitalism doesn't seem any more a guarantee of democracy than communism.  Capitalism thrived on slavery.  I don't think I thought about this connection between economics and freedom until people like Tom Hayden, in the 1970's, were talking about economic democracy,. Without economic equality, they said, you couldn't have democracy, because wealth could buy elections and politicians and then get laws that favored their interests.   Not only could money buy politicians, it could also buy voters, or at least, buy sophisticated marketing to sway voters.

More recently and specifically, as I watched salaries of corporate executives go up and up and up, I figured the only way to end the growing disparity in income and wealth was to put progressive taxes back on income with high earners taxed significantly.  They had been in the past, and when those taxes got cut severely, it seemed that they raised their salaries indecently on the hopes of amassing as much of a fortune as possible before new taxes were imposed.

Except, somehow, the Republicans have been able to block such taxes - not that the Democrats were asking for very much.

And now there's a French economist, Thomas Piketty’s  who has put all those ideas (and more) into a book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century.  As I say frequently here, we are prone to believe what we want to believe.  And judging from the review of this book by Thomas B. Edsall in the New York Times, this book says what I believe to be true.

. . . He contends that capitalism’s inherent dynamic propels powerful forces that threaten democratic societies.

Capitalism, according to Piketty, confronts both modern and modernizing countries with a dilemma: entrepreneurs become increasingly dominant over those who own only their own labor. In Piketty’s view, while emerging economies can defeat this logic in the near term, in the long run, “when pay setters set their own pay, there’s no limit,” unless “confiscatory tax rates” are imposed.

There's a graph showing 'pure rate of return to capital (after tax and capital losses)' and the growth rate of the world output. There's only a short period in the the 20th Century where the return on capital got lower and economic growth rose, and inequality decreased.



[Video from Harvard University Press Website]


Did I grow up in a golden period that was just a temporary blip and now the power of wealth, liberated from strict government regulations, works to accumulate more and more wealth for fewer and fewer people?  Piketty seems to think so.

Edsall's review tells us that conservatives won't like the book and some liberals think his predictions are too harsh, that less than a world wide progressive income tax can stop the trend to economic inequity.   But one scholar Edsall cites, "Branko Milanovic, an economist in the World Bank’s research department" is effusive:

“I am hesitant to call Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the 21st Century one of the best books in economics written in the past several decades. Not that I do not believe it is, but I am careful because of the inflation of positive book reviews and because contemporaries are often poor judges of what may ultimately prove to be influential. With these two caveats, let me state that we are in the presence of one of the watershed books in economic thinking.”

The NY Times article only quoted Milanvic's first paragraph.  A little further into the paper, he talks about Piketty's earlier work and the influence it has already had on economics and every day language.

The prominence of the work of Piketty and his associates has also been helped by the revived interest in inequality which coincided with the onset of the Great Recession and the realization that in the United States incomes around the median have been stagnant in real terms for almost 40 years while the top 1%, or even more narrowly top 0.1 %, have dramatically increased their share of total income . The confluence of the rise in the political importance of inequality, best exemplified in the Occupy movement and the 99% vs. 1% slogan, had its empirical basis in the work done principally by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (2003) . Their famous graphs of the income shares of US top decile, top 1% and top 0.1% , showing that at the turn of the 21st century rich’s income shares approached the extremely high values from the roaring twenties, are now found all over the Internet and in many magazines and newspapers. But their origin goes back to Piketty’s 2001 book on top incomes in France.

The new book is nearly 700 pages.  The English translation doesn't come out until April, and I don't read French.  So I can only repeat what a few others have said about the book.  But what they describe him to be saying makes perfect sense to me.  It's not that the market doesn't make significant positive contributions to humanity.  It's just that blind faith in the market to solve all human problems has become part of the patriotic mantra of the right, and these market zealots fail to acknowledge that capitalism isn't perfect or that there is any legitimate role for government.  

I'm hopeful this book is as good as the reviewer and Milanovic think. But I hope the predictions of increasing inequality do not pan out.  And I think there is reason to believe they won't.  Not because he's wrong about the dynamics of capitalism, but

1.  Predictions about social behavior can often change that behavior.  As people become aware of their behavior, even collective behavior, they can change it.

2.  Unexpected events can intervene.  Just as Piketty cites the Great Depression and two World Wars of the 20t Century as interrupting the trend toward greater inequity, I would argue that other unexpected events can interfere in the future.  I hope these don't have to be wars or depressions.

3.  I do believe that there is a push toward balance in most things.  Systems theory talks about equilibrium.  As things go too far out of economic balance, people will find ways to bring things back.  Unfortunately, it may include serious violence if those in power resist any sort of balancing.  While we may have had severe imbalance in the past, now that we have seen the possibility of more political and economic equality, it will be harder to take it away.  Only through a minimal standard of living, can this be prevented.  But the systems in place now to destroy labor and the gains of labor - secure jobs, decent wages, pensions - will eventually lead to a backlash if not moderated.

But, from the hints I got from the reviews, Piketty would say that the wealth will be able to control people's thinking through control of media.  If  the recent rejection of net neutrality in court decisions continues, this period of unprecedented dissemination of ideas, could end.

But why should we bother ourselves with such gloomy topics when the Winter Olympics are on?  

For those who might want to bother, here's a link to lectures Piketty has given recently in English mostly, as well as French. 

Out North's Waking Up From Its Coma

Last summer, Out North shut down.  There'd been rumors of problems, grants not extended, etc.  I didn't write about it at that time because I didn't know much and because it was too painful.  Out North has offered Anchorage a door to another world that isn't often seen here - a world of art and theater and performance that pushes limits and makes audience members reassess what they believe.  For me, that's one of the criteria for great art.


We'd heard rumors that that Out North might be coming out of its coma, and last night it was official.  There's a new board and new enthusiasm, and maybe soon new money.




Coming out of a coma is a good metaphor and it was echoed in the movie that showed after, The Wisdom Tree.

Earth Null School

I know that kids looking at these maps would have lots of questions.  This old kid certainly does.  And that is a teachable moment.  What are the moving lines? (When you go to the originals, the wind currents are moving)

Screenshot from Earth Null School

I started running my cursor over things until I found the magic button - the word 'earth' in the lower left.  I cut it out in the screenshot above because I hadn't discovered it yet.  Here it is in another view.

Screenshot from Earth Null School

And when you click on 'earth' you get this panel of controls.

Screenshot from Earth Null School  Need to click earth to get this view

And the residuals of my Chinese are good enough that I know the link on the lower right is to a Japanese version.  

Go have a look.  Play with it yourself.  Watch the wind currents flow.  The water currents don't move quickly enough to see.  At least I didn't see them moving.  The middle image is "Projection CE"  and when I tried to look that up, I kept getting civil engineering.  But when I got the URL it says conic equidistant.  ArcGis defines this as:

"This conic projection can be based on one or two standard parallels. As its name implies, all circular parallels are spaced evenly along the meridians. This is true whether one or two parallels are used as the standards."

If you want to know more go to the ArcGis link.  

My friend B knows how to distract me by sending links like this. 

[UPDATE Feb. 24, 2014 -  Retired aviation technology professor Bill Butler commented here and sent me a longer email which is now a follow up guest post here.  It goes into more detail on Mercator maps and Lambert's maps.]

Bragaw Extension Opposition Meeting at 5:15pm Tonight At AK Regional Hospital

February 7, 2014, 5:15 to 7 p.m.
Alaska Regional Hospital's First Floor
IVY Room #1

AGENDA
   5:15 to 5:45 p.m. will be an open discussion.
   5:45 to 6:20 p.m. UMed Neighbor Representatives.
   6:20 to 6:45 p.m. Group discussion

A group of folks who haven't given up yet in fighting the road through the UAA campus that was budgeted in the last moments of the legislature last year, are meeting to continue that fight.  Here's an email I got about it:

A meeting concluded this last week.  It was a group of tired community members. For many it had been more than a decade of meetings held by professional planning engineers.  The fiscal responsibilities for the professional’s project meetings with the public were required.  They were designing a road that would cost millions.   The people who have followed the ongoing attempts to put a road through work in this Center, or are students, patients, residents, and a large number of sport enthusiasts, walkers or bikers.
   A large percentage of the new road users would be going to Southern Anchorage or the highway south. This type of traffic would add a new population of travelers through Anchorage’s richest enterprises.
   The number one employer (health) in the state is found most in this district,
and the largest university (education), plus a burgeoning support industry.
   The folks at the meeting were those who knew the tough impacts the damaging
project would cast on a wealth of unique resources in this one special place.
   As one member put it, "We must be working to build world-class health and
education campuses." Followed by, "How are we doing?" That question drove thegroup to a commitment of action.

Tonight, at the end of the citizen comments. There will be a UMed community paneldiscussion. Professors, doctors, Community Council officers and other neighbors will outline the hazardous impacts. Key also, asking how such investment in one small group’s unexplained desire, could have ignored the actual words of so many citizens!

I've agreed to be on the panel because I think this is an important call.  Gotta run and prepare.  

Turban Outfitters - He Saw What Others Didn't

I couldn't resist this one. 

From Metro UK:

Mr Singh, a councillor for Drake Ward in Plymouth, said he was on a shopping trip in Exeter when he had ‘one of those eureka moments’ while standing outside the store.
‘It was the first Sunday where I had nothing in the diary so I said to my wife, let’s got to Exeter for a chill out day. We went by train and while we were there I thought I’d get some shoes.
‘I went into the store, asked for a pen and some paper and started to draw the T out,’ he told the Plymouth Herald.
‘People were chuckling as they walked past. One guy realised what we were doing and said it was just amazing.’