Do Not Open This Door Due To The Totem Pole

Lack of planning best demonstrates the benefits of planning.

When I first looked at the sign, I thought they were worried the door would hit the totem pole if it were opened all the way.  Then I looked up.

This is in the lobby of the state court building in downtown Anchorage. [Blogger stuff: Feedburner doesn't seem to be reading this and sending it out to blogrolls, so I'm trying to repost and see if feedburner will catch it. Then I'm reverting the previous post of this back to draft. For those who saw this when I put it up earlier, sorry for the inconvenience.][Update: it worked!]

Common Sense And Cooperation - Passengers Push Train, Free Man Who Didn't Mind The Gap

That's my spin on this one.  Others might label this stupidity, but I know we all could be in this guy's position.  Others might call it leadership, or low tech wins.

[Pictures are screenshots from the station video of the incident, reported at Perth News. (It's winter in Australia.)

Screenshot from Perth News Video

The video shows the train come in, people get off, people get on, then this guy drops as his leg somehow slips into the gap.  [The year in Hong Kong put the warning "Mind the Gap" indelibly into my brain.]  A passenger calls the guy in the orange vest over.
Then the orange vest guys seem to be talking to the man.  A guy with a backpack and a cell phone hovers around.  Is he talking to a friend?  Emergency people?  Train people?

Having no audio lets you imagine who these people are and what they are saying to the men in the orange vests.

There's a woman - I think - who pantomimes pushing the train.  She's in the dark grey coat.

Screenshot from Perth News Video

Does she work for the train system?  Is she just a passenger?  We don't know.  But then she walks down to the next exit and then all the passengers come out. 

Screenshot from Perth News Video

And then they line up and start pushing the train until the passenger is free.

Screenshot from Perth News Video

His getting loose is obscured by all the people.  It appears they put him on the train.  When the crowd thins, he's no longer there. One of the passengers quoted in the Perth News post is quoted:

"The train moved on its suspension enough for the man to get out from the sticky situation.

“He was walking so he was reasonably OK,” Mr Taylor said.

“He seemed to be a bit sheepish, because right where he fell was the ‘mind the gap’ writing.”

This is what people CAN do.  And I'm sure it was out of a desire to help the poor guy whose leg was caught and not just because they wanted the train to get started again.  (No, I don't think I'm a cynic, I just try to think of as many possibilities as I can.)  I think most of us would help willingly and it's a relatively small, but impactful minority, that keeps the suicide bombers active in Iraq and the violence in Gaza going.

You can watch the whole video at the Perth News website.

Shirt Buttons - One More Unnecessary Way of Separating Men And Women

I have a wife and a daughter (and a mother who didn't retire until she was 85) so I'm aware of women's issues.  If I don't notice, they make sure I do.  But even so when I was with my granddaughter at a playground two days in a row - once when she wore pants and a t shirt and the next day in more girly clothes - I posted about how even as babies they are already clearly divided into girls and boys.  And then there was the birthday party at that playground where four year old girls were lined up to beat a woman with sticks.  If any of the parents noticed what was going on, they didn't say anything. 

This isn't so dramatic, but it's one more example of unnecessarily dividing males from females that I noticed when I was getting clothes off the line at my mom's when we were there last.  Buttons!

I decided to take pictures of my mom's and my shirts in case I decided to do a post.

Where does this come from?

There are a number of posts online that all say pretty much the same thing - that it comes from [differing times in the past] when upper middle class women had servants to help them dress and since they buttoned them from the other side, they moved buttons for women over.   Others say men needed access to their weapons and women holding babies on their right arms needed access to their breasts.  Some examples: 

• In the 19th century wealthy women were typically dressed by servants. 
• According to legend, women button right over left because in medieval times they were dressed by their right-handed maids. 
• During the Victorian Era, rich women who could afford servants and expensive clothing would depend on maids to help dress them.
• Buttons on jackets, rather than shirts, started to appear on opposite sides about 1635. The reasons for the switch are obscure.  One theory is that men wanted their right hand free to have immediate access to a weapon, such as a sword . . .
• In medieval times, women were dressed by maids so women's wear was made with buttons on the opposite side.

I was surprised at how many posts there were on this, how much they copied from each other yet transformed the facts,  and how few cited any sources.  I can't believe that people believe this stuff without any historical references. (And some did note that the evidence is sketchy.)  I would note that Queen Victoria was on the throne from 1837 to 1901 (from the term of the 8th US president Martin Van Buren to that of the 25th, William McKinley. So she coincides with the 19th century. But the medieval period ended well before 1635. 

Historical Boys' Clothing has one of the better documented discussions of this and ultimately questions these explanations:

"The historical explanations about the rationale for 'gendered buttons' has me wondering whether the 'rational' explanations that are given in fashion histories (like the one quoted from The Economy of Fashion) are post-hoc explanations, since there are no further sources given. I'm thinking of Norbert Elias' intriguing point about post-hoc explanations of manners that have little to do with the actual origins of a particular behavior."

 I can't tell you where it comes from, but I can hypothesize about why it's still around. Warning:  This strays into pure supposition..  I'm not citing any sources other than my own brain. 

Power 

While women may wear men's clothing, men in our society have been conditioned strongly NOT to wear women's clothing.  I suspect this has to do with the power differential between the genders - it makes sense for women to take on the clothes of those in power (men), but it doesn't make sense (to those who set the standards) for men to take on the clothes of those who are less powerful.  The standard setters think power is the most important possession.  

But as women gain more power in society, we get men doing things traditionally in the domain of women - shaving parts of their bodies beyond their faces, using make-up, spending more time on their hair, even coloring it, and wearing more uni-sexual clothing.

But as soon as you put on a woman's shirt or jacket, as soon as you start to zip or button it, you know - whoops, this is for a woman.

I suspect that much of the rabidly anti-women's autonomy wing of the Republican party comes from the growing power and independence of women in the United States.  If you think they went crazy when a black man became president, wait until a woman takes office.

Profit

There are people who benefit from this - mainly people who sell clothing. 



But the fewer gender barriers we have the more freedom people have to be who they are.  Girls and boys shouldn't be pressured into specific gender roles.  We should be allowed to express ourselves in whatever way feels right to us including clothing. 

I'd note that while googling for this post, the most interesting history on shirts came from a website called Reconstructing History, where you can get a pattern for "18thc Men's Shirts and Drawers." ($26.95 for non-members)  There's a long and very serious description of men's shirts based on historical documents that begins:

"Hot on the heels of the flowing garments of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance ushered in the Golden Age of the tailor's art. Clothing took on impossible shapes and radical forms, all controlled by the skill of these manipulators of fabric. Doublets were padded. Bodices were boned. The human form was hidden by what can most accurately be termed "textile architecture." Western Europeans were sailing around the world and discovering unknown lands. Certainly such beings weren't going to be restricted to traditional clothing shapes. So the clothes got more and more structured as the Age of Discovery went on.
But one element of dress harked back to its medieval antecedents: the shirt. Under the slashes and bones, the pinking and brocading, the shirt was still a very simple garment. Whether embroidered with blackwork or pleated and smocked, the shirt retained a simple elegance and basic shape which changed little between the 16th and 19th centuries."

It mentions buttons four times:

• Two handmade thread buttons on the collar and one on each cuff seems to be a common amount throughout the period.
• In 1731, we receive more information:  “Shirts of Blue and White Checkered linen, to be made at least 40 in. long, and not less than 26 in. broad. The sleeves 20 in. long and 8 in. broad, with 4 buttons substantially sewed. -- 3s 6d.”  And in the final contract we have, 1739-40, it calls for “Shirts of Blue and White Chequered linen, the sleeve 20 inches long and 8 in. broad, with 4 buttons.  40 long, 26 broad at the waist -- 3s 6d.”
• The knees are closed with linen tapes.  The waistband is closed at front with two covered buttons, but the fly is left open, confimring that these are indeed drawers and not meant for wear as breeches.

Nate Silver Has Alaska's US Senate Race 50-50

"Meanwhile, in Alaska – which has a track record of inaccurate polling — some models now perceive a slight advantage for the incumbent, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich. We think the polling is too thin and too inconsistent to warrant that prediction, particularly given that the GOP has not yet held its Aug. 19 primary."

This quote comes at the end of a FiveThirtyEight blog overview of US Senate races for November.  Overall, Silver says

". . . we continue to see Republicans as slightly more likely than not to win a net of six seats this November and control of the Senate. A lot of it is simply reversion to the mean.² This may not be a “wave” election as 2010 was, but Republicans don’t need a wave to take over the Senate.

 But, he's hedging his bets:

However, I also want to advance a cautionary note. It’s still early, and we should not rule out the possibility that one party could win most or all of the competitive races."

Why should we listen to Nate Silver?

For those who can't place the name, Nate Silver was the geeky statistician,  portrayed by Jonah Hill in the movie Moneyball, who helped the money-strapped Oakland A's pick winning ball players.   (The movie was based on Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.)

He took his statistical savvy into politics.  Wikipedia summarizes:

"The accuracy of his November 2008 presidential election predictions—he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states—won Silver further attention and commendation. The only state he missed was Indiana, which went for Barack Obama by one percentage point. He correctly predicted the winner of all 35 U.S. Senate races that year. . .

In the 2012 United States presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, he correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.^[11] That same year, Silver's predictions of U.S. Senate races were correct in 31 of 33 states; he predicted Republican victory in North Dakota and Montana, where Democrats won.

Silver's model includes polling data and a linear regression analysis of other factual data about candidates and voters.  From a FiveThirtyEight post in the New York Times (where Silver worked before moving to ESPN) on the methodology:

• A state’s Partisan Voting Index
• The composition of party identification in the state’s electorate (as determined through Gallup polling)
• The sum of individual contributions received by each candidate as of the last F.E.C. reporting period (this variable is omitted if one or both candidates are new to the race and have yet to complete an FEC filing period)
• Incumbency status
• For incumbent Senators, an average of recent approval and favorability ratings
• A variable representing stature, based on the highest elected office that the candidate has held. It takes on the value of 3 for candidates who have been Senators or Governors in the past; 2 for U.S. Representatives, statewide officeholders like Attorneys General, and mayors of cities of at least 300,000 persons; 1 for state senators, state representatives, and other material elected officeholders (like county commissioners or mayors of small cities), and 0 for candidates who have not held a material elected office before.

Silver's election track record has been damn accurate.  But there are also the intangibles that aren't reflected in measurable factors. 

This prediction on the Alaska race comes before the Republican primary (in two weeks) and so we don't even know who Begich's opponent will be. 

But Sen. Begich is a formidable candidate - details of legislation and people slide effortlessly from his memory banks to his lips; he knows how to put the right spin on things; he grew up in Alaska politics and has strong, long-term relationships with people all over the state; and he's a pragmatic politician who makes decisions based on his sense of the what Alaskans want and what will work.  He's also got a very aggressive campaign going - countering every negative ad as soon as it comes out and he's got an army of volunteers around the state going door-to-door.   

Of his potential opponents, Sullivan has the money, but not the Alaska cred.  Treadwell has the Alaska cred, but not the money.   And Joe Miller?  While this video of him literally blasting bullet holes through the Affordable Care Act will win him votes from the fanatical anti-Obama and pro-gun folks, it will sink his campaign among all other voters. 

If Silver has Begich at 50-50 based on the tangibles, I'd bet the intangibles will tip the scales in his favor.

The Origins of Hogwash

This cartoon in today's paper got me wondering exactly where the word 'hogwash' comes from. 

Online references are iffy, so take this with a grain of salt (useful for detecting hogwash).  But I did check a number of sites and the more legit looking ones seemed to agree on this. 


From Word Ancestry:

hogwash, n. [hawg-wosh, hŏg-wŏsh]
-Hogwash is a simple compound noun formed around the mid-15th century from the two English nouns hog 'a type of swine, a pig' and wash 'waste liquid or food refuse from a kitchen.' The wash was often put to use as food for domesticated animals, particularly as swill for pigs. By 1712, hogwash could also be used to describe cheap, poorly made liquor; by 1773, poorly written manuscripts fell under the label of hogwash. In modern English, almost anything that is badly done or ridiculous can be equated with this term for barnyard slop.

That reminded me of the Karen village we visited near Chiengmai (Thailand).  After lunch we helped wash the dishes. 







The water and bits of food left on the dishes went out the drain on the sink to a concrete trough below to the chickens.  You can see the birds below on the right waiting. 


The original post, Sustainable Farming the Old Fashioned way - Karen Village, gives a good picture story of our visit and includes the pigs too.  It's well worth a visit, but then I'm biased, of course, because it takes me back to a wonderful day we had there five years ago. 

"Alaskans should be partners with oil companies, not adversaries" Sounds Like "The lion shall lie down with the lamb"

The first quote is the title of a Mike Dingman editorial in the print version of the Alaska Dispatch News.  Online, the title is "Dingman: Alaskans should not repeal oil tax cuts."  

But near the end, he does write, "I would contend that a partnership much better serves our goal at developing our natural resources for the greatest benefit of all Alaskans."

The market, we are told, over and over again, works because of competition.  When business folks start talking about partnership with government, I get worried.  They rail against government, until they think they can get something from government.

The oil companies' main purpose is NOT to drill for oil, but to maximize profit for their shareholders. It's certainly not to help the people of Alaska.  There's nothing in their mission statements about that.   They're playing a zero-sum game:  the more money the state keeps the less the oil companies get.  The more the oil companies make, the less the state makes.

But now they're talking variable sum:  lower taxes will result in greater production and greater revenue for Alaskans. But like any good salesman or poker player, they're using all the terms that they think will persuade voters, but they're not offering any proof or promises to back up their words.  It's just platitudes. It's theory, not fact.   

Two Alaska Senators challenged the governor to agree to repeal SB 21 if it doesn't result in one barrel or one dollar more than ACES (the previous oil tax) would have brought in by 2018.  They were derided by the governor's friends as gimmicking.  But, if the governor really believed in SB 21's superiority (in terms of long term state revenues) to ACES, he should have readily agreed.  The truth seems to be that the governor isn't really sure.  It's all a poker bluff. 

There is a natural conflict between the state and the oil companies.  Actually there are more than one.

First, the State's job is to maximize Alaska's natural resources for the benefit of the people of Alaska.  As owners of the oil, its the governor and legislature's job to get top dollar for Alaskan oil.  The oil companies' goal is to maximize their shareholders' profits.  Zero-sum game.

Second, the state's job is to monitor the oil companies to make sure they comply with all state laws and regulations and the companies, in their attempts to maximize shareholder profit, are constantly tempted to find ways to cut costs - leading to things like oil spills because they were cutting on maintenance or moving oil rigs into bad weather to avoid taxes. 

In both the above cases, the companies denied what they later pleaded guilty to.  We really can't take them at their word, they've proved that over and over again.  Remember how Exxon dragged out their payments over the Exxon Valdez oil spill for over a quarter century?

The government is already at a disadvantage when negotiating with the oil companies - most state information is available to the public, but the oil companies aren't required to disclose their information.  (Yes, lots must be disclosed to regulators, but they have far more hidden at negotiations than the state does.)

The state and the oil companies are adversaries - a role the founding fathers saw as the way to keep checks and balances by giving different powers to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.  

There are times when the state and private organizations can work in partnership, but Alaska's ownership over its oil puts it in an adversarial relationship with the oil companies.  We aren't partners.  We're competitors who can sometimes cooperate.  But my confidence in Alaska's ability to bargain aggressively for the people of Alaska is greatly reduced when the head of 'our team' was an attorney and lobbyist for one of the oil companies before becoming governor.  

Saying we should be partners is a noble goal, like the lion lying down with the lamb.  (Or with the wolf as this post says was the original wording.)   I'll let all those opposing Proposition 1 let their lambs sleep with lions and watch what happens, before committing my lamb, or my state, to the lions.  

I'm all for variable sum games.  Looking at the world with a zero-sum lens is short sighted.  But the other side has to really be serious about variable-sum and there's nothing about oil companies that suggests that's their mode.  They may well believe their own rhetoric, but their failure to make any concrete commitments in exchange for SB 21 says lots more than their words. 

"a tiny, but vocal segment' and LA Bike Lanes

A July 17, 2014 (yes, I'm trying to catch up on a backload of unfinished posts)  Los Angeles Times article, chronicled the problems of carrying out the LA bicycle plan. 

Last week, City Councilman Gil Cedillo announced he is halting work indefinitely on northbound and southbound bike lanes planned for a three-mile stretch of North Figueroa Street, despite an aggressive two-year campaign by cycling advocates.
Cedillo said he feared the loss of a single southbound car lane would slow emergency response times of police officers and firefighters on Figueroa, which runs roughly parallel to the 110 Freeway. He dismissed cyclists as a tiny but vocal segment of the population.  [emphasis added]

It's always a 'tiny but vocal segment' that gets things done.  These are the folks who care enough to work hard and get things done through the political process.  It's often these 'tiny, but vocal segment' folks versus the tiny, but rich segment who have the money to influence politicians.  And it's only a "tiny but vocal segment' when they oppose you.  When they are on your side it's "democracy in action.' 







Here's the 'bike lane' I ride on part of my route to Venice Beach when I'm at my mom's.  It doesn't even have a line to separate the bikes from the cars.   If it did, there wouldn't be enough room for the cars.  It's a dance between drivers and riders.  It's only about 3/4 of a mile stretch like this with lots of stop signs so the cars are going slowly. It's the most direct route.  But I have to be constantly watching for car doors that could open in front of me and I pray that the drivers aren't going to clip me.


Here's what it looks like from the bike. 

The article sums up the opposing sides:  

Bicycle advocates have long argued that the addition of dedicated lanes can achieve multiple goals: spurring more people to take up cycling — and reducing the number of cars on the road — while calming traffic in a way that cuts down on accidents and keeps drivers within the speed limit.
Opponents argue that too few bicyclists are on the road to justify the loss of so many car lanes and the suffering that comes with lengthier commutes.

I'd say this was a pretty narrow view of things.  The real problem is that transportation infrastructure in LA (and elsewhere) was created for the automobile.  Trolly tracks in LA were pulled out in the 50's to make more room for cars.

Bikes need to have their own, car-free, paths.  Not simply for recreation, but for transportation.  They do in the Netherlands, and to some extent in Anchorage and Portland and other places.  And along the beach at Venice and Santa Monica.

Below is the dedicated bike lane along Santa Monica beach.  No motorized vehicles.  (Well, that's not completely accurate - people ride rented Segways there too.)  There's a separate path for pedestrians, though there are parts of the path where there are both pedestrians and bikes.  This path is full of bikers of all ages, ethnicities, and economic backgrounds.  People like to bike.  And they will when it's safe.

If there were lanes like this that all over LA (or fill in whatever city) that riders could use to commute, there'd eventually be a lot fewer cars on the road, a lot less space used up for parking, a lot less carbon fuel used, and a lot of people who'd get good exercise on a daily basis.  

Making bike lanes on streets built for and still dominated by cars will always be a poor way to go.  It's a makeshift adjustment that leaves cyclists in mortal danger and pisses off drivers.  In already existing cities, my guess is that eventually some streets will become bike only routes, with a lane restricted to cars that live or deliver on that block.

Without exclusive bike routes, cycling can only grow so much.  Biking in traffic is for those who still believe in their own immortality or are knowingly risking their lives to be pioneers for future generations of non-motorized transportation options.

Not everyone can ride a bike to work.  Not everyone can ride a work every day.  But a lot more people can than do.  Some of the barriers are mental - it's not part of their mental habits to think about biking to work.  But most barriers are bad infrastructure - like sketchy bike lines that suddenly disappear and don't deal with the need for cars to make right turns and don't really separate cars from bikes.  

Why I Live Here - Giving Guests A Great Meal And A Near Moose

We had some out of town guests - up on a cruise - to entertain for the evening.  We decided on Kincaid Grill because it's near Kincaid Park, and maybe we could find them a moose.  They seemed very pleased with the meal and I was too. 

This was my salmon - one of the evening's specials.






But we couldn't find them a moose at Kincaid.  But Glen Alps was the next destination.  We walked to Powerline trail and I did find them a couple of moose grazing way, way out in the distance that you could see in the binoculars.  Not great, but the view was spectacular along Powerline Pass and there were two moose.




And then on our way back to drop them off at their hotel, we passed a moose on the side of the road and they got as close to a moose as they could reasonably want to be.

Generally, I try to confirm people's beliefs that Anchorage is the frozen wasteland year round.  But a great dinner followed by a walk in the mountains and a near moose is one of the reasons I still live here.

I don't usually have two "Why I Live Here" posts in a row, but sometimes I just can't help myself.  

Why I Live Here - Salmon, Politics, and Food

It's another beautiful sunny Anchorage day.  Mid 70s, blue skies, like yesterday when I went for a bike ride to stretch my muscles a bit.  There were salmon coming up Campbell Creek. I didn't get a good picture with fish, but here's the creek, looking toward Lake Otis Blvd from one of the bridges. People are in the water in the background.

Then, not too far away, a group of folks were holding signs for Russ Millette who's running for governor as a Tea Party Republican.  I'd talked to Russ on the phone when I posted about his signs being defaced and this was the first time I got to meet him.  It was very cordial.  I'm convinced that if you meet the right way - and that includes being respectful - you can have decent relationships with people even if you disagree with them politically.  A lot of the acrimony today, I'm sure, is from people feeling unrespected as a human being.  And that leads to returning disrepect.  Until things are much harder to repair. 

I even suggested to Russ that his name was too small on those signs for drivers to catch as they go by.  He agreed and said Governor needed to be bigger too.  Russ in in the red and white plaid shirt.

And then, just a minute or two down the block, I stopped at Namaste, which has changed hands, to get some take out 'Himalyan' food.  

The prices might look a bit steep, but the food was delicious and the portions enough for another meal - for us anyway. 

If it looks like I'm giving Millette a lot of attention here, it's not intentional.  A lot of times I simply post what I happen to see along my path. 

The Alaska (in name only) Film Awards Shrinking List Of Winners

The 2014 'winners' are now listed for this 'Awards' scheme.  I've written about this ripoff of the name Alaska film event at length and been threatened by their attorney.

Their only link to Alaska was a "suite" at a commercial mail forwarding company in Anchorage, some of the photos on their website (and I'm not sure of their Alaska authenticity), and the names of some of their awards.

There is no festival (they did change their name to 'awards') and no showing of films.  They do tell film makers there is no festival, but the Alaska name is highly misleading and confuses people who think they are sending films to the legitimate Anchorage International Film Festival.  (To be completely transparent, I'll mention that I cover the AIFF on the blog here, the festival links to my blog, and they give me a pass to the festival.)

Below is a list of the Film Awards winners.  Note:  there is a total of eleven winners in the film competition and four in the screenplay competition.  This is a sharp decline from their 47 film awards and 15 screenplay awards in 2010.

I'd like to think this reflects more awareness among filmmakers that this is really a vanity film festival where people can pay for awards.  But it's hard to tell, since there is no list of films that were submitted.  We don't know if every film submitted got an award or not.

 

Film Competition

Grand Jury Award: A Frenchman in Barrow directed by Paul Peterson
Special Jury Award: Parallel Maze directed by Ya Hua
Kodiak Award: Slushamed directed by Marisa McInnes-Taylor and Mara De La Rosa
Denali Award: Reestablishment directed by Shi Qin
Best Narrative Feature: Let's Play Ghost directed by Damien Dematra
Best Documentary Feature: God Has Arrived directed by John Urich-Sass
Best Director: Deep Water directed by Daniel Zagaevsky
Best Narrative Short: Roulette directed by Christine Kelly
Best Student Film: Shtax'heen Kwaan: A Rededication directed by Kristin Galla
Best Music Video: Fade Away directed by Jethro Rothe-Kushel
Best of Alaska Award: The Meaning of Wild directed by Ben Hamilton

Screenplay Competition

1st Place Screenplay - "Grace" written by Lynda Lemberg and Jeffrey Allen Russel
2nd Place Screenplay - "Taco Day in Heaven" written by Paul Peterson
3rd Place Screenplay - "Polar Bear" written by Alexander Norton
4th Place Screenplay - "Zoo" written by Annemarie Lawless

I've contacted some of the winners listed here and they've confirmed that, again, this year, in order to get their prizes they have to pay for them - not a practice of legitimate film festivals.  One of the directors listed said he didn't even know his film had been submitted, let alone that it won, though he allowed that someone else involved may have submitted it.

My hope is, as I mentioned above, that the declining number of winners means film makers are more aware of scam film events and aren't submitting to them.  If you look at the film that won the Grand Jury prize, you'll see that the quality of films isn't great.  (It's apparently a student film from Barrow and as such is fine, but it's hardly a Grand Jury prize winner.  And one might ask the Alaska International Film Awards folks who exactly makes us their Grand Jury?  And even if there is a Grand Jury?  Or is that just some fancy name with no actual Grand Jury?

Some of the other winners do seem to be serious films that have won prizes at legitimate festivals and would have been accepted in the serious Anchorage International Film Festival.  A number of these films have Alaskan themes and were purposely submitted to what they thought was an Alaska based film festival.  Deep Water was filmed in Alaska as were a couple of others.    These are films that would have been submitted to the Anchorage International Film Festival where people in Anchorage would actually have been able to see them.

I should note that there are also some other, smaller, legitimate Alaska film festivals such as the Indigenous World Film Festival.