A Lesson In Green

Words from Meditiation on Breath by Arnoldo Garcia

Can you tell we've had rain?  But we're getting a lesson in green. Photos mostly from our back yard, except two from our trip.

The atmosphere was quite "McCarthyistic," - I Don't Think So

It seems we're down to "Yes" or "No"; that we're down to ACES or SB 21.

That's not at all how we should be thinking about Alaska oil taxes.  ACES wasn't perfect, and SB 21 is far from perfect.  But it's just not either/or.  There is a wide range of options for tinkering with ACES that would take care of what people say is wrong with it - that it's too taxing at the high end.  But if that were the problem really, I'm guessing it would have been tinkered with already.  The real problem, as I see it, is that the oil companies, with their former attorney/lobbyist, Governor Parnell, representing the people of Alaska at the bargaining table, had enough power to get a big tax cut. 

Roger Marks is a retired state economist, who is also a friend.  When he published his article on ACES a couple of years ago, he sent me a copy, I read it carefully, and asked him questions.  Other things were going on and it just was too complicated for me to take the time I felt I needed to write about it well.  But basically, I found that his criticism of ACES seemed to boil down to the belief that when oil prices get really high ACES reduces incentives.  I asked at the time whether we couldn't leave things as they were for a while and see what happened and then make adjustments to ACES as needed.  Meanwhile we'd be getting a higher state return than with the alternatives.  I don't want to put words in Roger's mouth, but I recall that he did allow that as a viable option.

ACES can be adjusted.  It didn't need to be replaced, and certainly not with SB 21.  A yes vote on Alaska's Proposition 1 will most definitely lead to adjustments of ACES.  A no vote will most definitely give the oil companies most of what they wanted all along - back when Gov. Murkowski had private negotiations with them and tried to force the oil companies' tax bill on the legislature - events that led to an FBI investigation and a dozen or more people pleading or being convicted.

I cover this as a little historical perspective on the comments I'd like to make now on Roger Marks' Compass piece in the ADN Tuesday, entitled "History of ACES offers perspective." (At least in the print version it had that title.  Tuesday marked the day that the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch websites merged, and while I can find an online copy,  its title is different from the print version.)  Marks wrote:

As ACES was going through the Legislature in the fall of 2007, much was unclear about the extent of the scandal. By early November 2007, juries had returned guilty verdicts against two legislators charged with VECO-related corruption. There were many rumors that other legislators, and perhaps the oil companies, might get charged. For example, a published report (a blog post from a KTUU reporter) suggested that 26 total people would be indicted. The public was enraged.
That kind of talk created anxiety for a number of legislators. The atmosphere was quite “McCarthyistic,” the implication being that if you did not support a large tax increase, you were corrupt. Paranoia spread as the bill went from committee to committee, and the tax rates kept escalating. The tax structure that became the final ACES bill passed the legislature on November 15.

Let's get this straight.  What happened in Juneau in 2007 wasn't anything even close to the McCarthy period.  'McCarthyistic' is NOT a synonym for "legislators were concerned about their reelection"  and "paranoia" is a mental health condition you can read about here.  It's not an accurate description of what was spreading in Juneau.

It's true that people often exaggerate and use such terms to make their points.  But Marks is writing as an expert.  His bio on the piece describes his professional background as a petroleum economist.  He's not writing just as a private citizen.    But when he strays into political science and psychology he uses these terms - McCarthyistic and paranoia - like a talk show host.

Let's look at what PBS says about McCarthyism:

Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communists had infiltrated the United States government. Though eventually his accusations were proven to be untrue, and he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct, his zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in 20th-century American politics. . .

Known as McCarthyism, the paranoid hunt for infiltrators was notoriously difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working. Some had their passports taken away, while others were jailed for refusing to give the names of other communists. The trials, which were well publicized, could often destroy a career with a single unsubstantiated accusation. Among those well-known artists accused of communist sympathies or called before the committee were Dashiell Hammett, Waldo Salt, Lillian Hellman, Lena Horne, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Chaplin and Group Theatre members Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan, and Stella Adler. In all, three hundred and twenty artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of exceptional and promising careers.

In Juneau at that time, the FBI had recorded conversations in the hotel room of oil company support industry executive Bill Allen during the legislative session as he told legislators how to vote.  Juries convicted two Alaska state legislators based on tapes which showed that money was given to them for votes.  Others involved cooperated with the FBI and pled guilty without a trial.

No one held innocent people in terror, wrongfully deprived them of their livelihoods based on totally made up accusations.  If legislators were afraid that the voting public might think them corrupt, it might have had something to do with the amount of money they got from the oil industry and their votes on oil taxes, not on some totally false accusations.  Or maybe it was because they were hat carrying members of the Corrupt Bastards Club.

Comparing Juneau in 2007 with McCarthyism suggests ignorance of the facts of McCarthyism (or Juneau), a serious problem with analogies, a careless use of terms, or a combination of several or all.

When people make comparisons to Nazi Germany, there tends to be a strong pushback, even if the comparison is accurate and limited to a specific aspect of Nazi Germany, such as their propaganda machine.   I don't think my reaction here is that kind of pushback.  I just think that McCarthy was a far more significant threat to many, many more people, plus the details of the McCarthy hearings have no counterparts in what happened in Juneau.  I don't see any part of McCarthyism that fits here:

• the level of fear wasn't the same
• the people affected weren't innocent members of the public
• any danger to the Alaska legislators came from the electorate
• no tribunal was set up to persecute innocent people 
• people didn't lose jobs simply because their name was on a blacklist
• there were no false accusations that were totally made up
• those who were accused could have a fair hearing in a federal courtroom

I'm just saying that, unlike the McCarthy period, if legislators were worried about their reelection, they probably had good reason to be based on their own behavior, and the legislators were totally unlike the private citizens who lost their jobs because of McCarthy's baseless accusations.

Legislators are threatened all the time by private interests if they vote 'wrong' on an issue.  The targeting of candidates by people and groups like the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, or the NRA cause a lot more election angst than any of the Alaska legislators could even remotely have felt, yet no one compares that to McCarthyism.  And they shouldn't.  In fact, when Sen. Harry Reid called the Koch brothers 'un-American,' Mother Jones editor, Daniel Schulman, responded:

You know, I think it’s a very dicey strategy by Reid. He has actually come out and called the Koch Brothers un-American. Now, that’s kind of an absurd thing to say. And it’s almost McCarthyite rhetoric.

But he very specifically linked Reid's use of the word 'un-American' here - the key word that McCarthy used and the name of his Senate committee.

Marks also writes:

ACES passed by the same three-to-one margin that PPT did a year earlier, with the legislature 80 percent the same people. The difference between PPT and ACES can be characterized as displaced VECO frenzy and vengeance.

I'm not saying here that legislators who were afraid of crossing oil company executives when they voted for PPT, a year later were not afraid of crossing voters.  I am saying that any fear of voters' wrath that caused them to vote for ACES was no more McCarthylike than was their fear of the loss of oil company support the year before.  But people take the power of the oil companies as the normal state of affairs here.

FBI surveillance was exhaustive. At the end of the day four legislators were found guilty of felonies related to the VECO scandal: 56 out of 60 were not. Most likely those four did not affect the outcome in 2006; they were not the most influential lawmakers. There was no evidence of taxpayer (oil company) culpability.

The FBI surveillance may have been exhausting but it wasn't exhaustive.  It was surveillance of one hotel room in Juneau during one legislative session and a few folks wearing wires for a short time.  No one was recording in oil company boardrooms or even oil company phones that we know of.  And, in fact, there was some evidence of "taxpayer (oil company) culpability."    There was a mention of Bill Allen making a report of how he was doing with legislative votes to an oil executive, but that didn't get followed up.

Finally, I'd note that Marks also writes:

SB 21 will bring in more revenues than PPT or the original ACES.

We keep hearing from the governor and all the others who are campaigning against Proposition 1 (the repeal of SB 21, which would have us revert to ACES), that SB 21 will generate more oil production and more revenue for the state.

On June 10  Senators Wielechowski and French challenged the governor.  They cited the state's own forecasts of lower production.  They wanted the governor to put up or shut up essentially.  Their challenge was new legislation that would require:

"If by 2018, SB 21 does not increase oil production by 1 barrel or increase revenue by $1, then ACES would be applied to oil companies retroactively."

They agreed to withdraw support for Proposition 1 if such legislation were passed.  If the governor and those supporting him were as certain that the state (and not just the oil companies) would do better under SB 21 than under ACES, they would have no trouble taking up this challenge.  And they could stop spending the millions they have dedicated to defeating Prop. 1. 


I've really focused on semantics here (the use of 'McCarthyistic') rather than substance.  That's mainly because getting into the nitty gritty of the two tax measures is very complicated.

But I'd note that both Scott Goldsmith (who recently published a report saying SB 21 was a better deal for the state than ACES) and Marks are economists whose analysis is totally focused on numbers, many provided by the oil companies, and based on assumptions about oil production and prices they can't be certain of.

In my conclusions, I'm also factoring in the history of the oil industry around the world, the redistricting that broke the bi-partisan coalition, the oil corruption trials of 2007 and 2008, and the knowledge that we (the people of Alaska, the state of Alaska, and the economists) simply do not know the actual numbers necessary to make the predictions.  And we don't know to what extent the oil companies held off investments before SB 21 passed and to what extent they're doing things on the oil fields now to improve numbers to help defeat Prop. 1.  What we do know is that they are investing a lot of money to convince the voters of Alaska to vote no.  And they've made no guarantees whatsoever about production levels or the tax revenues the state might expect to receive.  No reasonable person would risk their own money based on the lopsided availability of information and guarantees that Gov. Parnell and the legislature accepted from the oil companies.  And the people of Alaska have to wonder how well the governor, who used to come to Juneau as an oil company attorney and lobbyist, understood and represented the people of Alaska in negotiations with his former employers.  So, yes, I'm adding politics, sociology, psychology, history, and the study of power to the mix in addition to economics when I conclude that Prop. 1 should pass. 

Three Bears, Dandelions, And A Moose

Some leftovers from the drive back to Alaska.


BEAR 1

Just leaving the Cassiar Highway, we saw our first bear.  A black bear.  Who was busy eating dandelions.

It seems when bears come into town, they ignore the dandelions and go after other things.  A shame.

So there's no doubt, here's a picture where he has the dandelions in his mouth.  I'm sure they would have been tastier when they were fresher and hadn't gone to seed yet.

I did stay in the car.  These photos result from a combination of the bear being close to the road, not concerned when I stopped,  my Canon Rebel telephoto lens, and some cropping. 

One more of bear 1, heading off. 
















BEAR 2

This black bear was mostly brown and we first saw him sitting in amongst the dandelions. 

His reddish brown fur was a bit mangy. 











BEAR 3

The next day, between Haines Junction and Kluane National Park, we saw the brown bear. 

It too was at the side of the road eating dandelions.  I stopped well before I got to the bear and was able to get a couple of shots when a big pickup pulling a huge trailer passed me slowly and stopped right next to the bear. 

Thanks, I muttered, and thought some choice things about the driver as the bear turned to the brush and disappeared. 

There must have been some discussion in the cab of the truck.  At the visitor center at Kluane National Park the trailer pulled up just after we did and a woman got out and apologized for her husband chasing the bear away.  The husband didn't get out.  I imagine this woman might apologize for her husband a lot.  I told her it was fine, I'd gotten my pictures. 

Then we went for a short hike to the first viewpoint on the nearby trail the rangers suggested. 

Kluane is a huge park and is a World Heritage site  combined with several other US and Canadian parks. 

The Kluane/Wrangell-St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek national parks and protected areas along the boundary of Canada and the United States of America are the largest non-polar icefield in the world and contain examples of some of the world’s longest and most spectacular glaciers. Characterized by high mountains, icefields and glaciers, the property transitions from northern interior to coastal biogeoclimatic zones, resulting in high biodiversity with plant and animal communities ranging from marine, coastal forest, montane, sub-alpine and alpine tundra, all in various successional stages.

 It has a tiny, fairly primitive visitors center.  So far, it hasn't been spoiled with an adjoining commercial cluster of hotels and restaurants and other encroachments on the wilderness.  The hike was pretty much straight up, but the view was wonderful, the temperature delightful,  and there were a number of birds and insects (besides mosquitoes).  A visit to this national park is a visit back in time as well as space.  This won't last too much longer I suspect.

Then, driving on, in the 30 mile no-man's land between the Canadian border station and the American border station, we saw this stock image of a moose in a lake in the wilderness.  But I couldn't resist getting a picture.

"One of us for all of us!" - Russ Millette Is Running For Governor

This sign caught my attention the other day:

What exactly did it mean?  What party is Russ Millette?   It says Tea Party supporter, but  that's not an official party in Alaska. 

His website says (in an undated press release there):

He will be running under the auspices of the Alaska Republican Assembly.  Millette has entered under the Republican Assembly banner because of the corruption in the Alaska Republican Party and the ARP’s leadership’s refusal to be financially accountable to the rank and file membership. Millette sees this election in Alaska as the fight for the soul of the Alaska GOP.

I didn't know what the Alaska Republican Assembly was - as opposed to the Alaska Republican Party.  (The link wasn't as obvious on the website.)

So I checked to see if it is an actual party in Alaska.  Here's the list of gubernatorial candidates from the State Division of Elections page:

Governor

• Carolyn F. "Care" Clift (Libertarian)
  6402 Hampton Dr.
  Anchorage, AK 99504
  Phone: (907) 337-9679
  email: info@carecliftcampaign.com
  Candidate's web site: http://www.carecliftcampaign.com
  

• Hollis S. French (Democrat) - Withdrew
  2640 Telequana Drive
  Anchorage, AK 99517
  Phone: (907) 243-0569
  

• Gerald L. "Tap" Heikes (Republican)
  16170 E. Smith Rd.
  Palmer, AK 99645
  Phone: (907) 745-1139
  

• Byron I. Mallott (Democrat)
  P.O. Box 22387
  Juneau, AK 99801
  Phone: (907) 586-6937
  

• Russ Millette (Republican)
  3705 Arctic Blvd #798
  Anchorage, AK 99503
  Phone: (907) 330-9070
  

• Sean R. Parnell (Republican)
  P.O. Box 100719
  Anchorage, AK 99510
  Phone: (907) 929-2014
  

• Brad Snowden (Republican)
  P.O. Box 670
  Seward, AK 99664
  Phone: (907) 491-0427

• Phil G. Stoddard (Democrat)
  3307 Boniface #153
  Anchorage, AK 99504
  Phone: (907) 338-1776

So, he's actually running as a Republican.  No Alaska Republican Assembly. But when I copied the quote above, the link was obvious so I went there.  The link takes us to the NFRA website.  It says:

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies is a grassroots movement to take back the Republican Party for the vast and disenfranchised majority of its members:  Reagan conservatives, who believe in small government, lower taxes, free market capitalism, a strong defense, the right to life, and a decent America.
In short, we are the Republican Wing of the Republican Party.

It turns out Millette is the guy who got elected chair of the Republican Party when all the Ron Paul supporters came out and outsmarted the Republican regulars.  Only to have the regulars lock up the bank and eventually get them turned out.  

So, who is Russ Millette?  Here's what the website tells us:

About Russ

• Russ is married to Tish Millette and they live in Anchorage, AK.

• 28 year resident of Alaska.

• The father of 8 children and 14 grandchildren.

• A small business owner and entrepreneur (who has had to meet weekly payrolls.)  [Not too specific, but there's more on this below.]

• Former History teacher and school principal. [Where?  For how long?]

• College administrator and football coach.  [More below]

• Youth minister

• Retired corporate manager.  [Is this different from business owner and entrepreneur?]

• Public speaker and trainer.

• General Telephone Directories Hall of Fame.  [Tried to find something about this online.  Couldn't find anything.]

• Dually elected Chairman of the Alaska Republican Party per April 2012 State Convention.  [Dually elected?  To two different positions?  Or did he mean 'duly'?  I don't mean to quibble, but this is on his website and he was a teacher and college administrator after all.  'Per' used this way always grates on me, but that's my own personal issue.]

For 28 years I have been privileged to live and work in Alaska. I arrived in Alaska in September of 1975. Over the years I have lived in Sitka, Ketchikan. Eagle River, Hatcher Pass and Anchorage.  [Let's see, I got to Alaska in 1978 and I figure I've been here for 37 years.  So if he got here three years before I did, how come he's only been here 28 years?  It's possible he left the state and came back and he's being scrupulously accurate, but the way he's written it looks like he has trouble with math as well as spelling.  And, remember, he was a history teacher who should be able to figure out dates and time lines.]

[UPDATE July 14, 2014 - talked to Russ today about the defacing of his signs and so I asked him about the time he was in Alaska.  It turns out my first possibility - that he came, then left, then came back - was the correct one and so his math is correct.]

During my tenure with Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka I had the privileged of visiting every high school in Alaska as Director of Admissions. [Getting to every high school shows he was able to access a very healthy travel budget out of Sitka.  But I want to know what those trips accomplished.  Did he get enough students enrolled at the college to at least cover the travel budget?  Did those students stay and graduate?  I'd note that lots of people besides Millette might write something like that and think it's important.  What's important to me though is what he accomplished with all those trips.] After 25 years in the Telephone Book publishing business I retired in 2008 and live with my wife Tish in Anchorage. [These are the people that leave all those unwanted tomes on your doorstep and then you have to take them to the recycling center.]  Together we have 8 children and 14 grandchildren.

[UPDATE July 14, 2014  - since I had him on the phone, I also asked about this.  He said when he got to Sheldon Jackson in the 1970s they had 200 students and when he left (maybe a year or two later, I don't recall exactly) they had 230 - a 15% increase.  That's quite a big increase.]

I was born in Long Beach, California and have lived in California, Hawaii, Texas, Georgia, Virginia and traveled to England, Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, Japan, Mexico and Canada. Of all those wonderful places I would rather
live in Alaska than anywhere I've been.

I googled a bit and found another bio in the May 11, 2012 Seward City News:

Russ Millette, the Alaska Republican Party Chairman Elect, will be in Seward this coming Saturday.

Mr. Millette, 67, is a retired Advertising Executive for GTE Directories and The Berry Company. He has a broad background in advertising and direct mail and was twice inducted into the GTE Hall of Fame.

[I couldn't find anything on the GTE Hall of Fame.  I'm guessing it's a company award.  I don't know how many people get in or why they get in.  The Berry Company seems to be related and is involved in helping businesses do their marketing.  I did find a Yelp review but Millette says he retired in 2008, five years before the review.  So I won't include it.  Just want you to know I looked.] 

A former Private School Teacher and Administrator, Public Speaker, and Historian, Russ holds a BA in History from Masters College in Newhall, California. His passion is engaging young people in dialogue about the issues. His vision is to ensure that the common man has a voice in American politics and restore the Republican Party to its legacy. Mr. Millette and his wife, Tish, reside in Anchorage.

Masters College?  Here's its mission:

The mission of The Master's College is to empower students for a life of enduring commitment to Christ, biblical fidelity, moral integrity, intellectual growth and lasting contribution to the Kingdom of God.
Commitment to Christ, as evidenced by:

• Acceptance and acknowledgment of Christ as Lord and Savior
• Unreserved worship of God
• Pursuit of Christlikeness in word, deed and attitude

Biblical Fidelity, as evidenced by:

• Devotion to the study and application of the Scriptures
• Willingness to defend the inerrancy, authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures . . .

"Christlikeness" could be a very positive thing if one copied Christ's warmth and tolerance of all people and one recognized Christ's distinction between Caesar's realm and God's. But there are also Christians who think 'inerrancy, authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures' means things like the earth is 6,000 years old.  I don't know how Millette interprets 'Christlikeness.' 

So I think it would be reasonable to assume his private school was a Christian school. 

So, what exactly does he stand for?  I think you (and he) would agree that he's even more conservative than our current governor, against whom Millette is running in the Republican primary.  From the Millette website:  (This is also the page that says, "One of us for all of us!" whatever that means.)

Platform of Russ Millette

• Balance the Alaska State Budget within first year through line item veto.
• Protect 2nd Amendment rights so they will never be infringed in Alaska.

• Take an advisory vote from Alaska’s voters to distribute ½ of the Alaska Permanent Fund.
• Get the 1,000,000 acres of land that the state of Alaska holds (for the people) distributed to the citizens of Alaska.
• Get mineral and land rights to all land owners.

• Vigorously resist (including veto) any attempt to implement a state income tax or sales tax. The state has shown it can live within its revenue stream.
• Nullify Obama Care and Common Core within Alaska.
• Nullify the EPA and BLM.

• Drill in ANWAR NOW!!! Drill baby, Drill. Just do it!
• Deregulate the oil patch so small oil drilling companies can compete and get more oil in the pipeline which results in more revenue for the Alaska.
• Get mineral and land rights to property owners.

• Establish Sheriff’s in each Alaska Borough. The highest elected law enforcement officer in the Borough protecting the Boroughs citizens from State and Federal tyranny and responsible to only the residents of the Borough.

• Local School Board control and supervision over its respective school districts. 

So if you want to nullify Obama Care and the EPA and BLM, I was going to say, vote for Millette.  But I suspect that's not too far different from Parnell. 

Bird Break - "True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings"

Should I organize the post around birds and flowers?  Or around the places I saw them?  How we categorize things affects how we see the world and whether people can find what they are looking for.

That's how I started this post, I had no idea how this was going to play out. Now that it's done, I see that you'll be able to follow the evolution of a post.  I decided to leave the camera notes for others who are having such issues, or can give me tips.

I did these four bird pictures from our trip. (The Goldeneye is the only one I didn't photoshop.)  But to justify that narrow focus I started thinking about the important role of birds in nature and in the lives of humans.  And that led me to finding references to these birds in art, literature, and music.

The birds' physical beauty, their songs, their eggs, and their ability to fly have charmed people from early on, and inspired some of the greatest artists of all times.

Here's a redwinged blackbird from Tyhee Lake provincial campground on the Yellowhead Highway - after Smithers, but before New Hazelton.  (These birds are all from the Tyhee Lake.)

Red Winged Blackbird

"Pack up all my cares and woes, here I go, singing low, bye bye blackbird."  Ray Henderson and lyricist Mort Dixon, Bye-bye Blackbird 

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night" - Beatles, Blackbird

"II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds."  Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird.  

Eventually I'll get the hang of capturing flying birds with the Canon Rebel.  I did learn that some of it is luck.

Like these swallows (two different pictures melded into one.)  A couple of the many shots I took as they swooped around me actually came out.

"True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings"(From Richard III Act V, Scene 2)   [I'm sure Shakespeare knew, when he wrote this, that swifts very closely resemble swallows and that they are hard to tell apart. And after reading about the distinction at the link, I'm not sure these aren't swifts, or martins.  Or that they are the same type of bird.]

And if the birds are far enough away, it's easier to get them in focus like this loon.

"The devil damm thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon!"  (Macbeth Act V, Scene 3)

Again, this is just one loon photoshopped twice onto one picture.   It was a mere speck flying way on the other side of the lake.

Goldeneye in the reeds

Of course, if they aren't moving much, it's easier to get in focus, though the auto focus has trouble figuring out what to focus on in a picture like this one of the Goldeneye in the reeds.  I have to figure out how to tell the camera which of the 'spots' is the one to focus with.  I think this ended up manual focus.  And I realized that my old Pentax manual focus (all it had) was easier because it turned more smoothly and because it magnified the focus.  And as I write this I remember I read there was a way to do that on the Rebel too.  Need to look that up again.

It's harder to find a literary or art reference specifically to a Goldeneye.  Ian Fleming's Jamaica house was called Goldeneye, but it doesn't appear that it's named after the duck.  I did find a painting in my 1950 edition of Audubon's Birds of America that I've had since I was a kid.  Audubon killed his wild birds and then painted them so they are really pictures of dead birds.

The Roles of Birds

These birds aren't just 'pretty' (which they are).  They are important to the ecosystems they live in and even to the economy.  According to the Iowa Extension website:

Adding all wildlife watching equipment together, including bird food, binoculars, spotting scopes, film, carrying cases, etc., the nation spends nearly 20 billion dollars! In Iowa alone, we spend some 36 million dollars on bird food! Birds are not only important economically in Iowa and the nation, but also server a vital ecological role as well. Birds are critical links within the vast food chains and webs that exist in the ecosystem. Here are just a few of the many roles birds play:
Agents of Dispersal
Biological Controls
Bio-indicators

 At the link they go into each of the three roles. Basically, they spread seeds and even fish eggs and also help pollinate plants;  they keep insect populations down (and some small mammals and reptiles as well); and like the canary in the mine, they are early alerts to diseases and pollution.  That $20 billion is just what people spend directly to watch and/or feed birds.  I'm sure the $20 billion is a small amount compared to what the birds do for insect control.  They are part of the $33 trillion natural ecosystem services that E.O. Wilson writes about in The Future of Life.


Endangered Species International explains the birds' roles this way:

Birds occupy many levels of trophic webs, from mid-level consumers to top predators. As with other native organisms, birds help maintain sustainable population levels of their prey and predator species and, after death, provide food for scavengers and decomposers.

Many birds are important in plant reproduction through their services as pollinators or seed dispersers. Birds also provide critical resources for their many host-specific parasites, including lice that eat only feathers, flies adapted for living on birds, and mites that hitchhike on birds from plant to plant and even between countries.

Some birds are considered keystone species as their presence in (or disappearance from) an ecosystem affects other species indirectly. For example, woodpeckers create cavities that are then used by many other species. . .

Birds and humans

Birds have been integral to humans since prehistory. To birds’ detriment, they and their eggs have been an important human food source since humans evolved, and we have hunted many species to extinction. Feathers, usually obtained by killing their original owners, have been used as adornment in hats, headdresses, and capes. Birds are popular as “pets” throughout the world, and the pet trade has driven many species to the edge of extinction.

More benignly, birds appear in ancient art and mythology worldwide.

Just being pretty and singing beautifully, and showing us that flight is possible, might be value enough to justify birds.  We have studies that show contact with nature improves human mental health, but I couldn't find anything that specifically correlates birds to that, but I'm sure it will be shown eventually.  We can certainly document the huge impact birds have had on  artists, musicians, writers, playwrights, who have been moved to put birds in their works.

Shakespeare makes 606 references to 64 different bird species (and he may never have left the tiny British Isles.)  Here's a list of the birds he referenced.  

Above I referenced two songs about blackbrids, but here's a link to an essay on the influence of birdsong on human music in general.


Birds remind us that nature is a balancing act and that we have to protect their habitats because without them, our lives are diminished - not simply because of the loss of their beauty, but because of the loss of all the work they do to help maintain the ecosystems we depend on for life.  The more we know about birds, the more we understand the interrelationships in nature and our role in nature. 

July 4 and the Arab Spring

Egypt's military are back in charge.  Syria's civil war has killed about 150,000 and displaced millions.  The Arab Spring's spirit of democracy looks like a failure. 
Richard Youngs writes: 

Politics in the Middle East are increasingly polarized and fragmented. The Arab Spring’s citizen-led spirit of reform is still alive, but societies are increasingly torn apart by bitter tensions between Sunni and Shia, secular liberals and Islamists, and governments and civil society.

On this Fourth of July, we can recall some context from our own revolution and  remember that it took another 11 years and a revolutionary war from the

• July 4, 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence to 
• September 17, 1887 signing of the Constitution on   and two more years until the 
• June 21, 1888 ratification (nine states were needed for ratification) 

It's also important to remember that the American colonies were just one part of the vast British empire and that the colonists fought rulers who were based across the Atlantic ocean.  It could take weeks to cross the Atlantic.  (Here's an interesting piece of Ben Franklin's writings on the Gulf Stream and how shippers could speed up their voyages.) 

The American revolt was a major blow to the British prestige, but it wasn't a fundamental challenge to the existence of the British monarchy and power structure.  The middle eastern protests were attempts to overthrow the existing power structures of their countries. 

And in 1812, the British were back and burned Washington DC.

The US democracy wasn't settled in a few years.  Reading history books, knowing 'the ending,' things always look much more stable and inevitable than they do as they are happening. 

There was still a civil war that would challenge the viability of the US.

And I put 'the end' in quotes, because 'the end' tends to mean 'today.'  But today we are in a major culture clash with some seriously challenging the United States from within.  The end is well into the future.

The Richard Youngs quote above isn't actually complete.  He goes on to try to reframe the Arab spring.  

As polarization has deepened, the concern with engaging in dialogue to bridge differences has intensified. The relationship between these mediation efforts and support for systemic reform will be a pivotal factor in the Middle East’s future political trajectory.

 This quote could apply equally to the United States today.  

After Eight Years, Looking Back At 10 Most Visited Posts Here

Rich Mauer recently referred to me in a piece on parents who are lobbying to get the legislature to fully fund public schools as

 "a writer who blogs on the Legislature,"

Technically, that is true.  Sometimes I do write about the legislature and in 2010 I spent three months in Juneau blogging about the legislature.  But I blog about a lot of other things, really a lot of other things.  The common thread is supposed to be 'ways of knowing' or getting folks to see something from a little different perspective than normal.  Sometimes that's a stretch.

But for people who think this is a serious blog on politics and government, and even ways of knowing, the statistics show something else.  Some of what I think of as 'serious' posts get a fair share of hits.  But some of the other posts keep getting hits long after they were posted.  These aren't 'unserious' posts, but they are on other topics.  The all time high now seems to be 2009 post that still gets lots of hits each day.

And since July 2014 marks the 8th anniversary of this blog's first posts, it seems appropriate to look back at some old posts.  Today, let's look at the ten most visited posts on this blog, according to Blogspot's analytics:

• Tiny Black Bugs - Fruit Flies or Fungus Gnats?
  26,954  page views -  Nov 14, 2009, 22 comments
• What does everyone seem to have in common?  Bugs.  Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, they all have to deal with insects.  Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, all become just human when they find little black bugs in their kitchens.  At least that's my interpretation of the popularity of this post.  This 2009 post is still getting lots of hits in 2014 - 17 already today.

• Life's Little Surprises
  23,379 page views,   Apr 5, 2010, 4 comments
• And people all over the world hurt their feet and want to see x-rays and foot diagrams. The x-ray is my picture, but I found the foot diagram on-line.
  
  
  
• Detailed Redistricting Maps and Post Plan Public ...
  11,342 page views,  Apr 15, 2011, 1 comment
• Not sure why this redistricting post got the most hits.  It's not the final set of maps, but at the time people didn't know that.  
  
  
• Joe Miller: "If East Germany could, we could."
  6,871 page views,  Oct 17, 2010, 26 comments
• This post got the most hits in a single day for several days.  It's the post that probably could be said to have gone viral as the video quickly got onto Daily Kos, TPM, Huffington Post, Politico, CrooksandLians, Washington Post, even the Guardian, Paris Match, and Der Spiegel. 
  
  
• "Does you hotel have any vasectomies next week?" ...
  6,056 page views,  Mar 7, 2011, 1 comment
  
• When I need a laugh, I go to this post and the link to  Damn You Auto Correct which posts the messages people sent thanks to auto-correct.  Not sure why it makes me laugh so hard.  I think it's my imagining the people seeing these messages on their phone. 
  
  
• AIFF 2010: Features in Competition - The Temptati...
  5,645 page views, Nov 27, 2010, 4 comments
• It seems these folks aren't  coming to learn about the Anchorage International Film Festival, but rather to see a picture of Saint Anthony - particularly Salvidor Dali's painting of him, which I used to give some background of the Estonian movie The Temptation of St. Tony.
  
  
  
• Brown Bug
  4,897 page views,  Sep 28, 2009, 10 comments
• Bugs get two entries in the top ten.
  
  
• Victor Lebow's Complete Original 1955 Article
  4,878 page views, Dec 24, 2007, 57 comments
• This was probably my first 'big post' in the sense of getting lots of hits, and I'm pretty sure it has the most comments.  It was my reaction to a quote in Annie  Leonard's otherwise great video The Story of Stuff.  It involves not only the original article the quote came from, but research on Victor Lebow, and my adventures in the library tracking things down.

• 1 800 695 6950
  4,423 page views,  Sep 13, 2012, 10 comments
• People also want to know who's calling them.  In this case, a very aggressive and obnoxious collection agency.  
  
  
• Asiana Crash and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers Chapt...
  4,336 page views,  Jul 6, 2013, 10 comments 
• When I heard about the Asiana crash in San Francisco, I immediately thought about Malcolm Gladwell's chapter on Korean pilots in his book Outliers.  I was also pleased that a commenter shared a link to Ask A Korean that supported a problem I have with Gladwell:  He gets an idea and seems to run with it, ignoring glaring questions.  In this case, Ask A Korean refutes a good part of Gladwell's chapter convincingly.    

But don't take this list too seriously.  I have real questions about the accuracy of the google statistics.  But the numbers are probably relatively accurate for the rankings - particularly the first two posts which far outdistance the rest.  I'd note that for the last month, Tiny Black Bugs is also number 1. 

Nick And Tyler Bike South

We saw a lot more people heading south by bicycle on this trip than we can remember on past trips to and from Alaska.  I talked to a solo biker at the bakery at Haines Junction Monday.  A key question that seems to come up for bikers is whether to take the Cassiar Highway.  The big negative for the guy in Haines was bears.

Tyler

Tuesday morning when I talked Nick (from Michigan) and Tyler (from Minnesota) at the Deadman Lake campground, I thought I ought to get a photo for a post on biking from Alaska.  They too were weighing whether to go Cassiar and they were also interested in how many bears we'd seen. (Three - two black and a grizzly.)

Nick

Tyler and Nick started out from Anchorage about a week ago and were within easy reach of the Canadian border at their 50 mile a day average.  They're headed for California, but sounded like they'd really like to continue down to Panama. 





We talked to the campground hosts a bit later and they'd heard about some travelers who came across a grizzly eating roadkill shortly after passing a cyclist so the turned around and escorted the biker with the car between the bear and the bike, past the spot.

I mentioned that we'd seen lots of people biking south, but not many north.  Tyler and Nick said that was their experience too.  They've got a couple of months ahead of them and I hope they had better weather heading east from there than we had heading west. 

I said I'd put these pictures on my blog and they told me they had a blog too.  You can get to it here.

Low Clouds and Rain Most of Last Day

We've been pretty lucky with the weather.  We've had rain most days, but just part of the day giving us plenty of time to walk around, takes some short hikes, and enjoy the beautiful scenery. 

This morning started out ok.  The rain that we encountered last night as we entered Alaska and the Deadman Lake campground didn't stop until this morning when we got up and checked out the birds on the lake and talked to some other folks at the campground, but soon it was raining and the clouds blocked out all the spectacular views. 

We'd finished our 24 CD's of The Illuminaries and the other CD's we had just weren't as gripping as the novel about the New Zealand gold rush in 1865 and 66.  It was so good, even after driving several hours, sometimes we stayed in the car to hear the end of the CD. 

Then a yellow light went lit up on my dashboard.  It said 'check.'  We had over 300 miles to go to Anchorage.

The manual said this was the 'malfunction indicator lamp" which goes on when you turn on the ignition and then goes out.  If it doesn't go out 

"or if it should come on while you are driving, this indicates that there is a malfunction in the engine system.  .  . continue driving with reduced power and have the cause corrected promptly by a [sic] authorised Volkswagen dealer or qualified workshop." 

Is 300 miles promptly?  That's probably the nearest qualified workshop unless we divert to Fairbanks which is almost as far.  I called the VW service center in Anchorage.   It could be something like not putting the gas cap on properly.  (I got gas just before it began.)  She asked if the engine was doing anything funny.  No. She said to just keep on driving.   Which we did, but it added a bit of anxiety all the way home.  Especially as I was braking on a long downhill and could smell a burning odor.  Probably the brakes, but that doesn't normally happen. 



After a while we got hungry and we were running out of food.  The US border guard had confiscated two Canadian bought tomatoes.  US ones would have been ok. 

So I got out the loaf of bread we bought yesterday at the Haines Junction bakery, some peanut butter, and cherry preserves.

Indian River Rest Area Alaska July 1, 2013

The rest stop wasn't great, and I have to send the dumpster picture to the governor and let him know that whoever the state has contracted to collect the garbage at this rest stop (at the Indian River) and the next one isn't doing their job. 

This isn't bear damage - the dumpster was just overflowing. 

As we were nearing Anchorage, the clouds lifted and there were even patches of blue and no rain.  It was nice to be out of touch for almost a week and to be spending our evenings and mornings camped in the woods.  We just had to drive, watch the views, stop to stretch our legs along lakes, rivers, and mountain trails, and to meet other travelers along the way.  I've got a lot of pictures that I'll try to add some shortly. 

Q: Who Was The Greatest Wrestler Of All Time?

A:  Milo of Croton (according to  listverse)

"Most historians agree that Milo remains to this day the greatest wrestler and fighter (from any combat sport) the world has ever known. Milo of Croton became an Olympic champion several times during his nearly thirty-year career. His size and physique were intimidating, and his strength and technique perfect—and many people accordingly believed that he was  the son of Zeus."

Perseus tells us more:

"According to our ancient sources, Milo enjoyed showing off his unrivaled strength. For instance, he would clasp a pomegranate in his hand and have others try to take it away from him. Even though he was holding it so tightly that no one could remove it, he never damaged the fruit. Sometimes, he would stand on a greased iron disk and challenge others to push him off of it. Another of his favorite exhibitions was tying a cord around his forehead, holding his breath, and breaking the cord with his bulging forehead veins. Other times, the wrestler would stand with his right arm at his side, his elbow against him, and hold out his hand with thumb pointed upwards and fingers spread. No one could successfully bend even his little finger. "

A Princeton webpage tells us he is supposed to have been close to Pythagoras:

"Milo was said to be an associate of Pythagoras. One story tells of the wrestler saving the philosopher's life when a roof was about to collapse upon him, and another that Milo may have married the philosopher's daughter Myia."