Take A Nature Break - A Trip To Potter Marsh

Even though the path is a man made boardwalk and the highway and shooting range noises interfere, going out to see the seasonal changes at Potter Marsh is always a soothing event.  This time my three month old grandson and his parents were along, and while he slept through it all, it was good to take him out there.


So if you need a relaxing nature break, enjoy the post.  Clicking on any picture will give you a MUCH sharper version. 

The ducks I could identify were all mallards.  Mallards are really beautiful, but I tend to dismiss them because they're so common.  I just enjoyed the patterns of and the reflections in the water.

 

Most of the summer birds were gone.  The bald eagles (it's in the old cottonwood, look for the white head) nest back there and spend the winter in the area.  The Arctic Terns were gone.  We did see some trumpeter swans, but they were camera shy yesterday.  

Climate Change March in New York: There Are Things We Can Do

Tens of thousands of people are supposed to be marching in New York City this morning to let our leaders - in DC and in other world capitals - know that people want them to take action to mitigate global climate change.  From the New York Times:

“We’re going to sound the burglar alarm on people who are stealing the future,” said Bill McKibben, co-founder of the group 350.org, which is helping to organize the march, and the author of several books about climate change, notably “The End of Nature,” published 25 years ago.

“Since then we’ve watched the summer Arctic disappear and the ocean turn steadily acidic,” Mr. McKibben said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “It’s not just that things are not getting better. They are getting horribly worse. Unlike any other issue we have faced, this one comes with a time limit. If we don’t get it right soon, we’ll never get it right.”

Why aren't leaders doing anything?  There are a number of reasons, for example:

• There are organized campaigns to deny that climate change is happening or if it is, that it's caused by human action. 
• The oil industry and other carbon fuel related businesses and those that maintain their infrastructure all have a short term financial interest in not making changes and keep the pressure on the public and politicians to do nothing.  Much like the tobacco industry did and still does deny tobacco is harmful.
• While people are starting to feel the effects of climate change - particularly in extreme weather patterns, for example, bringing huge rainfalls in some places and drought in others, the connection to human behavior is not obvious.
• People who understand it's a problem don't know what to do or think it's too late.

 

Solutions

There are solutions.  I joined the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) because I was so impressed with

• the information and experts they had
• their organization and efficiency, and
• their focus on a revenue neutral (tax revenue is returned to citizens) carbon tax as the most effective and politically viable way to fight climate change.
• the first Saturday of the month international call in meetings with great speakers and brief but empowering reports on what CCL has accomplished in the previous month.

CCL chapter map - click map to find your local chapter

You can see from the map there are chapters nearby most everyone in the U.S. and Canada.  If you want to be cheered up, rather than depressed about global warming and what can and is being done, go to a chapter near you.  The next meeting is Saturday, October 4.  The national phone call to all the chapters is at 10am Pacific Time.)  In Anchorage we meet at Rasmuson Hall 220 at UAA at 8:30 Alaska Time.


CCL's basic tactic - as the name implies - is to create chapters in every congressional district and have members lobby their representatives and senators.  In the three years I've been going to CCL meetings they've grown from 45 chapters to over 200.  Members bring information to their congress members about the benefits of the carbon tax which will significantly - more than any other option - lower CO2.  CCL members aren't confrontational and bring the latest and best information to their representatives.  You can see from their website that they've got lots of resources.  The goal is to build a relationship of trust over the long term.  Reps come to know that CCL members won't harass them, but will give them straight information. 

A recent report by REMI - Regional Economic Modeling Inc. - commissioned by CCL - looked at the potential economic impacts of the carbon tax they propose.  REMI does economic modeling of various taxes and other projects to see how they will impact a state's or the nation's economy.  States regularly contract with REMI  to determine the economic impact tax and other proposals.  That's what they were asked to do with the carbon tax proposal.    Other studies have already determined that the carbon tax will be reduce CO2.  This was a study to determine what such a tax would do to the economy, because critics claimed it would cost jobs and hurt the economy.  Turns out they were wrong.

The REMI Report's main points on the revenue neutral Carbon Tax:

• The Fee And Dividend returns money to households, who spend it, which has a positive economic effect
• Consumer-centric industries tend to be more labor-intensive than the capital-intensive fossil fuel supply chain
• The border adjustment helps American exporters maintain competitiveness on the world marketplace
• The United States imports more and exports less but the Fee And Dividend is enough consumer spending that GDP stays positive

From the CCL website, here are some links to the study:

• A copy of the REMI study can be downloaded here 
• 3-page summary of report from CCL Legislative Director Danny Richter

I started this post early this morning, but grandfathering duties intervened.  Here's a more recent New York Times update.  It doesn't say how many people marched, but it does say:

Under leaden skies, throngs of demonstrators stretching as far as the eye could see moved through Midtown Manhattan late Sunday morning, chanting their demands for action on climate change.

The Power of 5: A Lottery Commercial Catches My Eye

When I visit my mom I see a lot more television than normal.  Actually normal means I see bits and pieces people post online.  The ads tend to be better than they used to be - often great images, quick messages, even humor.

This one particularly caught my eye.  It's just good video.

[UPDATE October 28, 2014:  I've been getting lots of hits on this one today - mainly from Asia, particularly Taiwan.  So I came here trying to figure out what's happening.  First, the video I liked so much is now Private so I deleted it. But I found this Chinese ad (see below)
for the California Powerball. Maybe that explains the hits. I think Californians know they are competing for this with people from other states, but do they know that Chinese are in the competition too? That may raise the prize, but it lowers the odds. What are Californians going to say when the news shows a guy in Taiwan as the winner? But the money goes to a good cause right?

This is NOT the great video I originally posted.]



World Lottery Association - has members on all the populated continents, including California.  They are all state operated lotteries and they have a set of "Responsible Gaming Principles."  I found number six directly related to marketing lotteries. 

6.   "WLA Members will provide the public with information in an accurate and balanced manner to enable individuals to make informed choices about gaming activities within the lotteries’ jurisdiction. This commitment requires the following:
a. That the marketing of lottery activities and products be subject to reasonable operator self-regulation, and promote responsible gaming practices and informed choices.
b. That individuals shall be provided with accurate information about gaming and the risks associated with it, for example, organizing education program."

 I don't see anything in the ad above that could be considered "providing accurate information about gaming and the risks associated with it."  This ad goes directly to a person's emotional responses, in the guise of some sort of scientific setting. 


I'm ambivalent about lotteries.  My sense is that people who can least afford them, spend on them.  But I also recognize that people who are virulently against taxes, will happily give their money to the government for a lottery ticket.  Lotteries are for the statistically impaired.  But then people will point out all the winners - somebody will win!

Talking About Numbers found that the numbers of lottery winners were difficult to retrieve, but found that people were about 100 times more likely to be killed in a car accident than to win a lottery. (37,000 die in car accidents and "winning tickets that pay out one million dollars or more only number in the hundreds.")


And winning apparently changes people's lives, not always for the better.  The NY Daily News offers some anecdotes like this one:

 "I had to endure the greed and the need that people have, trying to get you to release your money to them. That caused a lot of emotional pain. These are people who you've loved deep down, and they're turning into vampires trying to suck the life out of me."

California lottery  tells us that they do good things with the money:

"Initially, the Lottery Act capped administrative expenses at 16 percent of sales and required that 34 percent of sales go to education.

In April 2010, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 142, which changed the Lottery’s funding formula to follow best practices. Those practices have helped lotteries throughout the nation increase sales and earn more money for their beneficiary.

AB 142 limits administrative expenses to 13 percent of sales, while requiring that 87 percent of sales go back to the public in the form of prizes and contributions to education. The law gives the Lottery the flexibility to pay out a higher percentage of its revenues in prizes than it has in the past, but only if it does so in a way that increases the total amount of money that goes to public schools and colleges."

The World Lottery Association is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, and they have a chart with membership fees. 

Gross sales	Fees
up to US$ 100 million	CHF 4,900 (@$5,208)
US$ 100 to 500 million	CHF 5,600
US$ 500 million to 1 billion	CHF 8,400
US$ 1 to 4 billion	CHF 14,000
over US$ 4 billion	CHF 21,000 (@$22,322)

 

If you want to keep track of what's happening in the world of the lottery business, there's a website called Lottery Insider.

I also found out the Power of Five also refers to

A dark story of the supernatural. Matt a young man with unusual powers finds himself in the midst of sinister goings-on. His investigations uncover a terrible secret - eight guardians are protecting the world from the evil ones, beings banished long ago by five children. But a shadowy group want to let the evil ones back in. Can Matt succeed in stopping them...

Enjoying The Pre-Equinox Sun

September 22 will be the fall equinox, when everywhere around the world will have the same amount of daylight and night.  That does, of course depend on where you are.  It's on September 23 Greenwich Mean Time.

In Anchorage the clouds and rain that have been here over a week gave way to sunshine and big puffy clouds.  My little guy is visiting from SF and was out with his parents, so I took off on my bike to move my muscles a bit. 

Campbell Creek, near Lake Otis

UA President's Bonus Rescinded And Fuller Cowell, The Regent Who Voted No

This is old news, but I want to complete the story I started on this topic and also get people to start paying attention to who is on the Board of Regents.

At their September 8, 2014 meeting, the Board of Regents voted, at the President's request, to rescind the $320,000 retention bonus.  I'm hoping this is the end of this particular series of posts, but I would note that the president's request did say that the bonus was inappropriate at this time.  Leaving open, perhaps, a more appropriate time.  But I want to give the president the benefit of the doubt.  As I've indicated in previous posts on this topic, he's already earning - with pensions from the Air Force and the Alaska Railroad - and his UA salary, in the ballpark of half a million a year.  Anyone could find something to do with $320,000, but at his income level, surely he can live well without it.

One of the regents voted against rescinding the bonus.  KFQD reported:

"[Cowell] says the university wants to attract high-quality leaders and the vote sets a bad precedent. Gamble says he appreciates the support of the board."

It seems that the rest of the regents thought giving the bonus sends an even worse message to students, faculty, and staff of the university system, not to mention potential donors, the legislature, and the general public.  And I'm not sure what bad precedent it sets.  That the Board listens to the president?  That it is sensitive to public opinion?  That it can correct a mistake?  Or that if you want to be president of the Alaska system, your salary won't be unlimited?

I emailed Regent Cowell right after the vote to ask some questions, but I never got a response.  He's also the only regent who doesn't list his phone number on the University pages for the regents.

So I took to the internet to try to figure out who he might be.  I'll warn you, I've been doing this long enough to know that figuring out someone's values and motives from scraps of bio information is a risky business.  At best it can let you speculate and raise questions to ask.

So let's look at Cowell's online shadow.

First, from the University of Alaska's bio of the regent.

Fuller A. Cowell of Anchorage was appointed in 2007 by Governor Palin. Regent Cowell was raised on a homestead in Fairbanks, attended Lathrop High School and studied biology at UAF. He completed his bachelors of business administration with an emphasis in marketing at National University, Sacramento, California graduating Summa Cum Laude. Cowell completed the Advanced Executive Program at the Kellogg Business School, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois. In 1995, he was awarded the UAF Alumni Achievement Award for Community Achievement. The award was established to recognize outstanding UAF alumni.

If you just read this you might think Cowell was born in Alaska, but a McClatchy article from 1993  says he didn't come until he was seven. 

He has an extensive background in Alaska, moving to the state with his family when he was seven years old. 

That's no big deal.  I didn't get to Alaska until I was in my 30s. It's not so much how long you've been here, but a) whether your story matches what really happened, and b) whether your time here was spent getting to know the state, particularly the people.    

Probably much more relevant to his position as a regent is his educational background.  From the official bio we can infer that he studied at, but did not graduate from UAF.  Then, apparently he switched from biology to business.  National University is today a big online university. How good it is, I can't tell.  Students often go to online universities because it's easier to get in, class times are more flexible, and they want a degree.  While you can get a good education online (and a bad one in person), my guess is that most people going to online programs want the degree more than they want an education.  That's a generalization and there are lots of exceptions.  Does it apply to Cowell?  First, I don't know when he went and whether it was even online at the time.  But it's not a traditional university.  I'm guessing he went there because after dropping out (?) of UAF, he just wanted to get his diploma.  But I don't know.  We just gather clues and make hypotheses and try to test them.  His next educational experience seems to point in the same direction. 

"Cowell completed the Advanced Executive Program at the Kellogg Business School, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois."

First, I'd mention that Northwestern is in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  But maybe they have a Chicago branch, or maybe he thought people wouldn't know where Evanston was, or maybe he's not a stickler for details.  It's probably not important, but just another clue that may or may not prove useful.

The Kellog School has one of the best business programs in the country.  An advanced executive program sounds pretty substantial.  But the Advanced Management Program - Intensive today is just under three weeks long and costs $36,000! (In comparison, a Harvard Business School Program For Leadership Development costs $45,000, but goes from December to June with two (12 day) on-campus and two off-campus modules.)

Again, this is a program for someone who wants to get things done quickly, who can't or doesn't want to spend the time for a longer, more traditional program.  I'm sure it was a stimulating experience, but there's only so much you can learn and retain in such a short program. 

Is this the best person that Sarah Palin could find to be on the board?  Of course, each appointee should be considered in the context of the other members.  If they all have more traditional educations, then he might add a useful perspective. 
 

Back to the official bio. 

Cowell serves as co-chair of the Providence Foundation Steering Committee, is on the board of St. Elias (long term acute care) Hospital and on the C.W. Snedden Chair of Journalism Selection Committee at UAF. He has served on the Journalism Advisory Board at UAA, the boards of Commonwealth North, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, and the Anchorage Performing Arts Center and co-chaired the United Way of Anchorage campaign.

The Juneau Empire adds this:

He also co-chaired the Providence Foundation Steering Committee and was a founding member of the Alaska Cancer Research and Education Center.

The cancer research makes more sense if you look at Evangeline Atwood's Bent Pins to Chains:  Alaska and Its Newspapers:

"He returned to Alaska in 1993 as publisher of the Daily News but had to retire in 1999 to concentrate on a successful fight against leukemia."

Back to the official bio:

Cowell’s newspaper career took him from a newspaper carrier at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner to director of operations of the McClatchy Company and ultimately publisher of Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News. He spent ten years commercial fishing in Area E, which includes Prince William Sound and the Copper River Delta.

Cowell is married to the former Christmas Tripp of Fairbanks. Their daughter Alexis lives and works in Anchorage where she was born.

Much of his career has  been spent working for the McClatchy newspaper chain. Including time with some of its California papers.   He seems to have been in the management rather than the journalism side.  The McClatchy newspaper chain published information about Cowell when he took over as the publisher of the Anchorage Daily News, in 1993.


He's also, it seems, the owner of Cowell's Heliport Service in Big Lake.  The only date I could find on the site was a 7/2004 activation date; there's a July 2014 reference at 123 Jets. Or maybe he has a son with the same name.


OK, as I said, this is just a bunch of facts about his education and his work experience.  It doesn't tell us who he is, what he knows, what he values, and whether he's a good choice for the Board of Regents.

The University plays a critical role for Alaska.  If it does its job well, more Alaskans will get a good education and make important contributions to a sustainable Alaska, an Alaska that uses its resources wisely and has both  physical and social infrastructures that support a good life for this and future generations.

With a FY15 budget of over $1 billion, it's also an institution whose leaders should be closely followed and kept accountable.  But I dare say few Alaskans could name even one or two regents, let alone have any idea of what they do or how well.  (I did post abbreviated bios of the regents in an earlier post.)

I hope to explore this topic further in future posts. 

Alaska Election Gets Yet Stranger As Oil Consultant Brad Keithley Pledges $200K To Change Election

Brad Keithley is apparently taking advantage of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and will, according to APRN, spend $200,000 of his own money in order to pursue his concern that the state is spending too much money.

From his blog at Alaskans For Sustainable Budgets:

Today I am taking the next step in the effort by announcing the legislative races in which I intend to participate.  They are House Districts 15, 19, 21 and 25.  I also am going closely to watch Senate Districts K and N, and, after studying the dynamics at play, House District 9 over the next two to three weeks with the possibility of participating in them as well.  A brief description of the reasoning follows:  [You can read the rest here] [And you can check on the Alaska election districts here.]

He identifies spenders and savers.  He's targeted two incumbent Republicans and will support their Democratic opponents;  one Democratic incumbent and will support her Libertarian opponent; and another Republican over a Democrat in a seat with no incumbent.

His basic criterion is whether the candidate will vote for a sustainable budget.

There are a couple more races he's considering campaigning in.

 Is this a good thing?  If you are a challenger struggling to raise money to unseat an incumbent, this probably looks good.  Keithley isn't going to give money directly to candidates, because there are limits to how much you can give as an individual.  Instead he will essentially have a PAC that will independently support candidates. 

To what extent will this affect what the chosen candidates say and do?  The blog acknowledges that some of his choices are just based on questionnaires returned to him by candidates and that they might not follow through.  But he's not worried,

 "If Moore fails to live up to his words I will work to defeat him also in two years"

 For $200,000 you can be an Alaskan Koch it seems. Keithley isn't taking on the governor's race, but given Bill Walker's rhetoric on the budget deficits at the announcement of the Walker/Mallot ticket, it would seem Keithley would be supporting him, especially since the incumbent Sean Parnell was one of the architects of the current deficit budget that Keithley opposes. 

One of the incumbents he opposed came out fighting,  accusing Keithley of being a bully who takes advantage of women.  

This is not politics as usual.  It will be interesting.  November 4 is only seven weeks away. 

Can We Simplify Politics? Simpolfy Thinks They Can

A family member runs a business incubator - called Fledge - for socially-conscious startups.  They have a new group that started a week or so ago.  The website tells it succinctly:

Fledge helps impactful entrepreneurs take their ideas and prototype-stage companies into reality, via an intense, 10-week program of guidance, education, and mentorship, plus a large and growing network of support from past fledglings and hundreds of mentors.

Fledge receives applications from around the world, inviting just 6-7 to participate.  Each team is paid for the privilege, in exchange for an investment in a unique revenue-based model, where you ultimately keep the ownership of your startup.

Our goal is to help foster a wave of companies that make not just a measurable impact in the world, but a noticeable improvement in the lives of everyone on the planet.

So I was looking at the list of new Fledglings and one jumped out for me - mainly because it's a topic I know a little about.  It's called Simpolfy and the aim is set up a website:

"that simplifies politics so you can hold your representatives accountable to you!"

Their particular goal is a) to simplify complicated legislation and b) communicate to users about bills of interest to them.   You can get more details directly from Simpolfy's Indiegogo page where I got the video below.




This is a great concept.  There's simply way too much data out in the world for people to keep track of what's going on.  But simplifying legislation is also difficult.  I tried to do that when I blogged the legislature.  If you hang out at the committee meetings and read the bills carefully, you can get a good idea of what's in the bills.  But really good bill writers know how to word things, using references to other legislation, or specifying parameters so that even clever folks can't figure out that the intent is to favor a particular company or to make it impossible to, say, get an abortion.

This also raises questions for me about what they do with the information they collect from users.  It would seem of great interest to politicians and their handlers.  But these things can be worked out and I'm sure that's what they are busy doing now.  The bigger goal - turning data into useful information - is a worthy one, something that other websites - such as those that parse political ads to determine if they are truthful - have been successfully doing. 

At the end of the ten week period the Fledglings present their companies at Demo Day.  If you're in Seattle October 23 you can go see the presentations, but get your tickets early.  I was able to attend one of these and it was an exciting evening of possibilities.

Alaska Is Number 1 - Spending Per Capita

Here's a cute video advertising Common Ground's Oct 4th forum on Alaska's Fiscal Future.   It sets out quickly and with wit, the way Alaska's spending its oil wealth and the forum that will discuss it at Loussac's Marston Library on Saturday October 4. 




A Crude Awaking for Alaska from Ian Laing on Vimeo.

Leaving LAX - Light Games

These are all straight from the camera, no photoshop and in chronological order from taxiing to take off.  I like the latter ones best. 

The red comes from the decorative light tubes where the airport road connects with Sepulveda.

I have no idea why the blue lights in the foreground look stable while the background lights reflect the slow shutter speed and the planes movement.  

These shots remind me that what we see is that tiny part of the world that our eyes are wired to capture and our brain is wired to interpret.  With different eyes, we'd see different things and know different things.  For example, what if we didn't see skin pigment, just whether people were benevolent or threatening. 

Chinese Week At UAA - Food, Movies, And Other Treats

The Confucius Institute at UAA is sponsoring a Chinese culture week.  There's food, movies, and other activities. 

This is a heads up for next week.  It looks like everything is free.  I'll have to check if they have free parking passes for events too. 

I'll try to find out more about the movies - there are three short films - the poster they sent me is a little hard to read.  

Click to enlarge and focus

The Confucius Institute is the Chinese version of things like the American Libraries abroad or the German Goethe Institute, used to spread Chinese culture around the world.  The Confucius Institutes are connected with universities.  There have been some reports that they are part of the Chinese espionage system.  Whether that's true or not, these events are available and past events that I've attended were pretty good to excellent. 


I'm at LAX waiting for my plane out of the heat and back to decent weather.