Murkowski (The Elder) Throws Kitchen Sink Into Editorial Against Marijuana Initiative

I've been hoping to get time to tease out the arguments for and against the Marijuana Initiative and go through what each side has to say.  But Frank Murkowski's commentary in today's paper was so lame, I couldn't help jumping in.

I'll just go through it as I would with a student's paper - line by line to test what it says.  I'm fairly critical, but that doesn't mean I support or oppose the proposal.  Here I'm just evaluating the argument, which seems like a kitchen sink approach.  That is, throwing in everything he can think off why people should vote no.   I'm putting Murkowski's words in blue so it's clear what he's written and what I or others I quote have written.

Alaskans should just say no to ‘Big Marijuana’
By FRANK MURKOWSKI
   Everyone has something to say on the marijuana issue, it’s just that not everyone has said it yet.

What exactly is that supposed to mean?  The opening sentence should tell us what the argument is about.  This sentence could be said about anything.  Just cross out marijuana and put in any word you want.  It would work just as well opening an essay for the marijuana initiative.  It doesn't affect the argument one way or the other.

For the life of me I can’t understand the rush to legalize marijuana in our state, as Ballot Measure 2 would do.

"For the life of me I can't understand" - Yes, that was always a problem for Murkowski - understanding people whose view of the world was different from his.  This may sound snarky, but I mean it seriously.  As governor, he didn't engage with those who opposed his agenda.  He had a majority in both houses.  What's to discuss?  We're right, you're wrong.  He alienated enough people in his own party that Sarah Palin beat him in the primary. 

"the rush to legalize" - I don't know what rush he's talking about.  Marijuana was legal in Alaska when I arrived in 1977.  It's been almost 40 years for us to go from individuals being able to grow a few plants and smoke them at home to making it so someone besides gardeners can legally get marijuana.  That doesn't seem like a rush to legalize.

It reminds me of the herd mentality of the lemmings stampeding off the cliff with little thought to the consequences.

About the lemmings.  The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has a whole webpage on how the story of lemmings committing suicide is a myth.  Murkowski should know better.  Lemmings are arctic animals after all.   And Murkowski was governor of Alaska, so the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported to him.  If he's so uninformed on this one, how many other myths does this editorial have?  Here's part of the ADFG debunking:

"It's a complete urban legend," said state wildlife biologist Thomas McDonough. "I think it blew out of proportion based on a Disney documentary in the '50s, and that brought it to the mainstream."

. . .   According to a 1983 investigation by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation producer Brian Vallee, the lemming scenes were faked. The lemmings supposedly committing mass suicide by leaping into the ocean were actually thrown off a cliff by the Disney filmmakers. The epic "lemming migration" was staged using careful editing, tight camera angles and a few dozen lemmings running on snow covered lazy-Susan style turntable.

Oh dear.  Debunking the lemming myth and the Disney myth in one paragraph.   I'm sure that Governor Parnell will have them remove this page because the science doesn't support his policy.  [Coincidentally, while I watched a bit of Jeopardy with my mom tonight after I wrote this, but before posting, one of the questions was about the faking of the Disney movie about what arctic animal committing suicide.]

   The fact that Colorado and Washington state have recently legalized marijuana should give us pause to consider the impacts. We should wait and see how those efforts unfold. There is no incentive to be among the first.

It's not unreasonable to wait and see how their models work.  But the sky hasn't fallen in those states.  How long should we let them test it before we jump in?  Five years?  Ten?  Twenty?   I suspect there may actually be some incentives to getting there first.  We get the experience and a head start, and we get extra tourists probably.  We'd be ahead of the pack.

But he's right that if we wait, we might be able to avoid their problems.  But then, Alaskans don't usually care how they do it Outside anyway.  We Alaskans don't let the ugliness and traffic of Los Angeles, for example, keep us from repeating the strip malls, environmental degradation, and general paving of paradise.

   Should the proposal become law, would it be beneficial to our citizenry, our youths and the quality of life? What will be the impact on rural Alaskans? These are just a few of the many unanswered questions before Alaskans as we prepare to vote.

He's throwing out the questions with the implication that the outcomes will be bad, but not with any factual answers.  Rural Alaskans have the right to make their villages dry and they'll be able to do the same with marijuana.  But even though bringing in marijuana is illegal now, my understanding is that you can get it in most every village.  How will legalizing and regulating it make it worse? 

Why is the effort being initiated in Alaska? It is simply because Alaska is a cheap place to run an initiative campaign. It also has a very young population. Children and teens are especially vulnerable to potential harm from long-term pot use, and this experiment is not worth risking their futures. 

I'm sure the cost of doing an initiative in Alaska is one of the reasons.  And the young population is also a good reason - young folks are more likely to vote for it than older folks.  As are our many libertarians. And Alaska has a long tradition of marijuana being legal, so it seems like there are a lot of reasons.  If it were just the small population they could have done it in Wyoming which is closer to Washington and Colorado and not as expensive as Alaska. By the way, did you notice he said 'pot' this time?  It looks like he was being careful to say marijuana throughout, but pot slipped in here.  He says marijuana eight times.

The part about children and teens does follow from the sentence about Alaska being a young state.  But it doesn't follow the logic of it being cheaper to do an initiative here.

He raises the theme of Reefer Madness and the impact on the kids.  Will it be different from the impact of alcohol on kids?    The National Institute on Drug abuse says (as of January 2014) that kids in the lower middle/high school grades use marijuana more than they get drunk, but in 12th grade that changes.  Specifically:

Marijuana use by adolescents declined from the late 1990s until the mid-to-late 2000s, but has been on the increase since then. In 2013, 7.0 percent of 8th graders, 18.0 percent of 10th graders, and 22.7 percent of 12th graders used marijuana in the past month, up from 5.8 percent, 13.8 percent, and 19.4 percent in 2008. Daily use has also increased; 6.5 percent of 12th graders now use marijuana every day, compared to 5 percent in the mid-2000s. .  .

In 2013, 3.5 percent of 8th graders, 12.8 percent of 10th graders, and 26 percent of 12th graders reported getting drunk in the past month, continuing a downward trend from previous years.

It seems the standard for alcohol (getting drunk) was higher than the standard for marijuana (used marijuana) so maybe a higher number used alcohol, but didn't get drunk.  What's interesting is that they say use of the illegal drug was increasing while use of the legal drug was decreasing.   Murkowski only raises the specter of something terrible without supporting it with facts.

    Where is the Outside money coming from in support of this ballot initiative? The Marijuana Policy Project of Washington, D.C., and the Drug Policy Alliance of New York have supplied the bulk of the funding. Don’t be fooled this is big business.

Evil Outside money.  It's good to see Murkowski and Begich agreeing on an issue.   Outside money shouldn't buy Alaska elections.  Unless, of course, the Outside money is supporting my candidates and my issues.

When did Murkowski become opposed to big business?  Before Parnell, he was the oil companies' best friend.  This is a real turn around in his values.  By the way, illegal marijuana distribution is also big business.  He seems to prefer illegal big business to legal big business.

 I believe the ballot process is flawed. If enough money can be raised outside the state to hire people to gather signatures, any issue can get on the ballot. The process circumvents the responsibility of legislators. Had the issue originated in our state Legislature, it would have failed overwhelmingly because every legislator would have to vote on the issue. The ballot initiative process allows any elected official to simply take a walk and avoid being held accountable. This is simply wrong. Alaskans need to know from each of their elected representatives, from the Legislature to the governor and the federal delegation, whether they support or oppose this important ballot measure. They need to respond with a simple yes or no answer.

Now he's arguing against referendums and initiatives.  "This is simply wrong."  Well, I recently pointed out that initiatives and referendums are part of the state constitution.  So now he's saying the Alaska constitution is wrong.  

Now he switches to the dual system argument, that if we pass this, we'll be out of sync with the feds:

If Ballot Measure 2 passes, it would establish a dual system. It would be unlawful to buy or sell marijuana under federal law but permissible under state law. Such an inconsistency has the federal government telling us one thing and the state government telling us another. Further, the enforcement of contradictory marijuana regulations would be very difficult for those in law enforcement. I would urge all Alaskans to read the statement from the Alaska Peace Officers Association, which details the difficulties associated with maintaining law and order.

Wow, is Murkowski still a Republican?  After all, "federal overreach" is the most common phrase among Alaska Republicans these days.  Sort of like "uh" among most people.  I thought Parnell's policy was to just ignore or sue the feds if their rules were different from ours.  But Murkowski thinks the state should not contradict the feds.  Interesting.

   It would also make hiring Alaskans for jobs that require drug screening more difficult, and may complicate insurance payouts if an accident happens. Jim Jansen of Lynden Transport and Alaska Marine Lines indicated to me that his businesses require zero tolerance, and he sees legalization as a major headache.

Most businesses also don't allow people to come to work drunk and we manage to make that work.  Testing might be more complicated than testing for alcohol though.  Healthblogger lists time marijuana can be detected in the blood, hair, urine, and saliva.  They also discuss the accuracy of current tests.  I also found a National Drug Court Institute report that says their numbers (ie 30 days detectable in the urine) are commonly accepted, but not necessarily accurate and that there are different factors that would make the length of time to get a negative reading vary from person to person.  I didn't find a publication date, but the most recent date cited in the footnotes was 2004.

So yes, Murkowski is probably correct in saying it will make some things a little more difficult for some businesses.  Every bit of legislation has that impact.  So does alcohol,  driving,  concealed carry, and sex.  For those individual choice items, we've decided the benefits outweigh the risks.  Murkowski doesn't explain how this is different from those issues. 

   Our opponents believe that with access to Outside funds they can buy our votes on Ballot Meaure 2. Let’s tell them that Alaska’s quality of life is not for sale. We have defeated this issue once and we can do it again. Big Marijuana, Big Mistake for Alaska.

Again, Outside money and buying the election.  I'm waiting for his piece on why we shouldn't vote for Dan Sullivan.  Quality of life means many things to many people.  A key aspect of quality of life for many, I think, would be the freedom to make personal choices.  For those who don't like alcohol or can't use it for health reasons, the option to become high on marijuana might give them a better quality of life.  For others, just having the state tell them what they can and can't ingest, lowers their quality of life.  For others, elimination of trees and natural spaces to accommodate the profits of developers lowers the quality of life.  Murkowski hasn't explained what specifically he means by quality of life and how legalizing marijuana lowers it. 


Assuming that Murkowski wrote this himself, I'd say it reflects his statement near the beginning - "For the life of me I can’t understand."  I suspect the reasons for opposing legalizing marijuana are so obvious to Murkowski, that he can't understand why anyone would be for it.  And so he can't articulate arguments that might be meaningful to people who are planning to vote yes.  He can't fill in the details that would support his opinion, because it seems so obvious.  When you only know that you believe, but can't articulate why with convincing arguments, you're in trouble.  It's faith, not science  You don't need facts.    The only factual statement I see in this essay is that someone gave his opinion -

"Jim Jansen of Lynden Transport and Alaska Marine Lines indicated to me that his businesses require zero tolerance, and he sees legalization as a major headache."   

It may be a fact that Jansen said this, but what he said was opinion.  

I realize that this post might make folks think that I'm for legalizing marijuana, but what I've tried to do here is simply look at how Murkowski made his argument.  On those grounds alone, I see no real facts, just lots of opinion.  Now I do realize that facts take up words and the ADN gives writers a limited number of words.  In that case, instead of throwing in every argument, including the kitchen sink, he should have focused on a couple and given us some facts to support his position.   

Here's a pretty good outline for how to write a persuasive essay from  Waterford Union High School.  It might be helpful to folks who need to convince others of something. 

"A scene out of Dante" - Washington Post Ebola Must Read Story

Ebola news comes in bits and pieces and until it got to Dallas seemed far away.  The Washington Post has a good overview of what has happened and is happening.  This is a major issue of concern to everyone.  This is a good way to get up to speed. 

Out of control: How the world’s health organizations failed to stop the Ebola disaster 

The LA Times also has a long story, but I think the Washington Post did a better job. [Note:  These stories, like all stories, need to be taken with a grain of salt, but for now, they both try to pull together what's been going on and who the key players are.  We can judge how good these reports were in a year or two, maybe.]

Image from Dore's illustrations of Dante's Inferno from Sexual Fables*

While people tend to think of this as a health story, I think of it as an international public administration story.  It involves, directly, the governments of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria, the United States, and other countries around Africa and the world.  It involves the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders, Samaritans' Purse, the Centers for Disease Control, the US military.

It involves religion and science. Courage and fear.

It involves cultural beliefs about how to bury the dead.  The lack of trust in the aftermath of civil war and the arms trade.  The lack of infrastructure - roads, health care systems, sanitation systems, water systems.  It involves human emotions.

And most important, it involves human beings facing death from an invisible killer.

It requires people to have the understanding of all these complicated factors and the power to implement action that will curb this disease with the least loss of life, using the fewest possible resources, so that other problems can also be addressed.  

Trying to understand how we could send men to the moon, but couldn't keep people on earth healthy was a key reason I got into the field of public administration.  I learned there are no set answers, but a lot of processes and information, that allow us to adapt to the changing challenges public administrators face daily. 


*I have a copy of The Inferno with Dore's illustrations, but it's at home in Anchorage and I'm in LA, so I have to borrow this picture, at least for now.    

Dante's Inferno, widely hailed as one of the great classics of Western literature, details Dante's journey through the nine circles of Hell. The voyage begins during Easter week in the year 1300, the descent through Hell starting on Good Friday

"Governor says he responded to every allegation but was misled by leaders."

The title is from a headline in the ADN. [The paper and online editions have different headlines and different dates.]

“Every time I heard an allegation, every time I got an allegation or my office did, we investigated that with guard leadership,” Parnell said even as he acknowledged the same leadership turned out to be the cause of some of the guard's biggest problems."

We asked the fox how the hens were doing. 

Sort of like how he investigated the claims of the oil companies that they needed a tax break so they could increase production and create more jobs.

Good intentions are important, but our Governor was simply unable to get to the heart of matters for four years.  You need more than intentions.  You need to be able to figure out what's going on and then correct it. 

For four years the governor has heard about problems at the National Guard.  Often such complaints come from people whose credibility may be questionable to people in authority, which, of course, doesn't invalidate their claims.  It just makes it harder for them to get people to listen.

But in this case the people who complained to the governor were people with credibility.  Chaplains.  Officers in the guard.  A senior politician from the governor's party.

What is revealed in this case is that the governor is, like Don Young said, Captain Zero.  He's an empty shell.  He simply doesn't have the ability to judge people - he listened to Katkus and not to Katkus' critics.  He doesn't know how to investigate and find the facts.  He got bamboozled for four years by the likes of Katkus.  (If you were to actually meet Katkus, you'd find this even more amazing.)

The National Guard scandal is all the more outrageous because Parnell made ending domestic violence one of his top priorities - but when it was waved in front of his face for four years, he didn't see it.  Or know what to do about it.  [OK, he'll say I did everything I could but there wasn't evidence.  That answer gives Parnell a fail on this question.  A more alert and serious governor would have done something much sooner.  The head of the National Guard is an appointed position and serves at the pleasure of the governor.]

And this is the governor who told us we needed to pass SB 21  giving the oil companies a $2 billion a year tax cut because the tax was hindering oil production and costing the state jobs.  (If he had done the math, he would have known that for $2 billion a year he could have given every unemployed Alaskan a decent paying job.)  And he fought against the referendum to repeal SB 21 saying it would cost the state oil revenue and jobs.

Yet the oil companies Parnell supported said themselves production would decline and after it passed one oil company said there wouldn't be increased oil production and another laid off  a significant number of employees.  We all know that if Prop 1 had passed, they would have blamed it for the layoffs.

We don't have a governor, we have a puppet.  He only knows what to do when one of his puppeteers tells him what to do.  His "Choose Respect" campaign to end domestic violence was a poor marketing campaign.  The scary thing is that I believe Parnell thought it had substance. (There were some substantive actions, but only because a non-profit that  working with state agencies had already developed a statewide plan and the governor's task force was able to adopt some of that.)

But it seems the governor is a good representative of the voters of Alaska who continue to believe Parnell's promises and continue to elect Republican majorities in the house and senate.  And continue to buy the Republican brand for our US Representative. The majority of voters seem to be swayed by symbols and not by substance.  Perhaps the so-called Unity Party with Walker an Mallot will change things.  I think just the change itself will allow for a little different direction, but how long will it last? And if he wins, how will Walker's socially conservative values play out after the election?   Stay tuned.

I realize this is not my normal style.  But this situation is so outrageous, even I have to call it out harshly.  This is a clear fail on the part of the governor.  There are no shades of gray here. 

It's Yom Kippur - Time to Reflect and Ask For and Give Forgiveness

[This seems appropriate for reposting.  It never loses its relevance.  It's from  Yom Kippur 2007.]

So exactly why does a skeptical agnostic spend most of his day in the synagogue, fasting and praying? Several things come to mind.

1. It's good to have some days where you check out of life as usual and sit and reflect on how you are living your life.
2. The Jewish High Holy Days structure that sort of meditation. Thousands of years of collected wisdom have been invested into this. A lot of the stuff makes good sense in very modern and practical ways.
3. The reformed Jewish movement has a fairly open view that allows everyone to come at this their own way.
4. I figured out, long ago, while living in a northern Thailand town for a couple of years, that tradition is a way to connect people with their ancestors and the generations to follow. At least theoretically, my ancestors were at Mt. Sinai when Moses came down with the Ten Commandments. Who am I to break those links? Hitler tried to wipe out the people who practiced those traditions. Since my parents got out of Germany in time to survive, I would just be completing Hitler's unfinished work if I were to abandon the tradition.
5. I like to see the many people I've come to know over the years who come together at the synagogue.

So let me show you a little about what I like in the services. (All citations are from The New Union Prayer Book: For the Days of Awe. [well it was new once.])

On Rosh Hashanah it is written,
on Yom Kippur it is sealed:

So during the ten days between the two holidays, people have time to repent, ask forgiveness, forgive others and to change their fate before it is sealed.

How many shall pass on, how many shall come to be:
who shall live and who shall die;
who shall see ripe age and who shall not;
who shall perish by fire and who by water;
who by sword and who by beast;
who by hunger and who by thirst;
who by earthquake and who by plague;
who by strangling and who by stoning;
who shall be secure and who shall be driven;
who shall be tranquil and who shall be troubled;
who shall be poor and who shall be rich;
who shall be humbled and who exalted.

But REPENTANCE, PRAYER, and CHARITY
temper judgment's severe decree.

Whether our lives are actually determined for the next year or not, it is true that some will live and some die, etc. I find it good for me to reflect on that. And to consider where I'm slipping, where I can do better, who I've wronged and ask their forgiveness; and whom I have the power to forgive.

And collectively, we have a time to be forgiven and to forgive:

For tansgressions against God, the Day of Atonement atones; but for transgressions of one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with one another.

I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have wronged me, whether deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account.

As I forgive and pardon those who have wronged me, may those whom I have harmed forgive and pardon me, whether I acted deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed.

This discussion about forgiveness and judging has special meaning this year as I've spent the last two weeks in court watching the trial of an Alaskan politician accused of bribery. He apologized to the jury for his vulgar behavior seen in the surveillance video tapes. Is their forgiveness enough? What about his constituents? All Alaskans? Peter Kott, for my part, I forgive any transgression. And as a blogger, I'm reminded by "whether by word or by deed." Blogging gives me lots more opportunity to do harm by word. And I ask forgiveness for those I might have inadvertently harmed.

But I think what I like about this service is that next we get into specifics. We can all smugly assume we haven't wronged any, or at least not too many, people when it is stated that generally. But the prayer book gives us an alphabet of sins to help prick our memory.

Who among us is righteous
enough to say: 'I have not sinned?'
We are arrogant, brutal, careless,
destructive, egocentric, false;
greedy, heartless, insolent,
and joyless,
Our sins are an alphabet of woe.

And that still isn't specific enough. We aren't just talking about murder and theft and adultery. The prayer book identifies a list of things that cause all of us to pause:

FAILURES OF TRUTH

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.
For our failures of truth, O Lord, we ask forgiveness.

For passing judgment without knowledge of the facts,
and for distorting facts to fit our theories. [Who doesn't have work to do here?]

For deceiving ourselves and others with half-truths,
and for pretending to emotions we do not feel.

For using the sins of others to excuse our own,
and for denying responsibility for our own misfortunes.

For condemning in our children the faults we tolerate in ourselves,
and for condemning in our parents the faults we tolerate in ourselves,

FAILURES OF JUSTICE

For keeping the poor in the chains of poverty,
and turning a deaf ear to the cry of the oppressed.

For using violence to maintain our power,
and for using violence to bring about change.

For waging aggressive war,
and for the sin of appeasing aggressors.

For obeying criminal orders,
and for the sin of silence and indifference.

For poisoning the air, and polluting land and sea,
and for all the evil means we employ to accomplish good ends.

FAILURES OF LOVE

For confusing love with lust,
and for pursuing fleeting pleasure at the cost of lasting hurt.

For using others as a means to gratify our desires,
and as stepping-stones to further our ambitions.

For withholding love to control those we claim to love,
and shunting aside those whose youth and age disturbs us.

For hiding from others behind an armor of mistrust,
and for the cynicism which leads us to mistrust the reality of unselfish love.

There are more verses, but you get the point. For most of us, it's these 'little' sins that accumulate and I find it a list that I respect.

And Judaism is not rigid. The rabbis do not all agree, but give their interpretations and the prayer book offers conflicting interpretations:

Rabbi Samuel ben Nachmani said: At times the gates of prayer are open, at times the gates of prayer are barred. But the gates of repentance are never barred.

But it is reported that Rabbi Juday the Prince taught: In truth, the gates of prayer are never barred.

Rabbi Akiba taught: The gates of prayer are open, and the prayer of those who practice steadfast love is heard.

Rav Chisda taught: Though sometimes the gates of heaven seem shut to all prayers, they are open to the prayers of the wounded and the hurt.

And so the prayer book recognizes that everyone has a unique relationship to God.

You are my God, and my redeemer. Therefore, while around me others think their own thoughts, I think mine; and as each one of them seeks to experience Your presence, so do I.

So whether there is actually a God external to human beings, or a God lives 'only' inside of human beings, we have available this connection to each other and connection to this heritage of moral teachings. If someone needs to believe that there is an external God who is watching and who will reward and punish, in order to live a righteous life, then they can have such a God to help them. If others cannot accept that a God exists outside of human consciousness, the words of the prayer book are still a good guide to reflecting on one's actions over the past year and the coming year.

Of course, there is also the music - the melodies that have been heard over and over again and are good friends. And in our synagogue I love that we have so many members who sing and chant the various songs and prayers. They aren't professional cantors, but they have beautiful voices and their participation enriches our services. No cantor's singing of Avinu Malchenu can reach me the way our friend Lynn, standing in front of the open ark and torahs, her dog Mary at her side, can. And members of the congregation come to the bima to read sections of the prayer book as well as the Torah. We aren't just an audience, we're participants.

224,448 Of Anchorage's 216,038 Voting Age Population (or 103%) Are Registered To Vote

Yes, go back and read that title carefully.

Anchorage's 2010 census data show 291,826 people.  Of those 75,788 are under 18 years of age.

That leaves 218,038 people old enough to vote.  103% of them are registered to vote.

The Alaska's Division of Elections has 224,448 of them registered* to vote. 

That comes to just under 103% of eligible voters are registered.  I didn't intend to write a post on this, but the numbers popped out at me when I was working on another post.  I've already written two posts - one in 2008 on Anchorage voter registration and one in 2010 on Alaska voter registration - that makes this same point.

Nationally, about 71% of the voter age population is registered to vote. So, Alaska is really high.  [At the link you have to do the math yourself - it gives 206,072,000 Americans eligible to vote and 146,311,000 actually registered.]  

As I said in the earlier posts, Alaska has a lot of transients and keeping track of people who move away and don't notify the Division of Elections isn't easy.  Division of Elections will tell you they purge the lists of people who haven't vote for four or five years and they check against names of people registered in other states.  Furthermore,  some people notify them when a relative has died or left the state.

But when you have more people registered than you have actual people eligible to vote, there's something wrong.  And it leaves an inviting hole in the system should anyone be looking for some phantom voters for their candidate or issue.  

I don't think there's any hanky panky going on here.  I think no one has taken this issue seriously and looked for more aggressive ways to purge the rolls.  And such purging needs to be done carefully, not in a way that will knock legitimate voters off the record books. 


Notes:

For the sticklers out there, I'm using 2010 census data and 2014 voter registration data.  So there are surely more people in Alaska since the census.  But I didn't count the over 5,000 registered voters in District 12 who live in Peters Creek and Eklutna (in a district otherwise in Mat-Su.)


*Actually, the Division of Elections doesn't split out data by cities or boroughs.  They offer data by Party and Precinct (with district totals), by Age, and Voter History.

Voter Registration Data Options on Division of Elections website

I called and told them this was all I could find and was there an easier way to get the Anchorage data.  The email I got back sent me back to this page.  So I went through Statistics by Party and Precinct and added up the totals for the Anchorage districts (Districts 13 - 28), which came to 224,448.  There may be some adding errors, but nothing serious enough to negate the basic point - that we have a large number of people on the registered voter list who no longer live in Alaska. 

Alaskans Need To Act Like Grown Ups And Sit Down With A Competent Financial Planner

Instead, we will probably stay willfully ignorant and go on spending until the money runs out with a battered Permanent Fund our only nest egg for the future.  We have lots of excuses:

• "My vote doesn't make a difference"
• "The politicians are all corrupt"
• "The cut in oil taxes will produce more revenue"
• "Don't interrupt, I'm in the middle of the game."

And our legislature is only slightly better informed because they have to attend hearings where experts speak.  But they are skilled - as we all are - in hearing only those things that reaffirm what they already believe.  And the Republicans don't have to listen to anyone else anyway because they have big majorities in the state house and senate and they have the governor's mansion. 

Alaskans have been wallowing in oil money since a decade or so after oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay in 1968.  Our population two years later - from the 1970 census - was 302,853.  The 2010 census put us at 710,231. 

That means that over half our population came after the oil boom began and doesn't know the times when Alaska had an income tax, tight budgets, and no Permanent Fund (whose $1884 dividend checks this year are making their way to every Alaskan as I write.)

But the oil revenues are going down and our spending is going up.  Despite the rhetoric of our so-called fiscally conservative Republican dominated legislature and governor, they've passed the biggest budget deficits in Alaska's history.

We have serious issues to face, such as:

• What is the range of potential future state oil revenues?    
• What have been the drivers behind the increases in the state budget over the past decade, what upward pressures are likely in the future and what are the constraints to cutting state spending?    
• How might big-ticket capital projects like the proposed large-diameter natural gas pipeline/LNG export project, the Susitna-Watana hydroelectric project and the Knik Arm Crossing affect future state spending and revenues?    
• How much revenue could Alaska raise from new taxes, and what are the pros and cons of different taxes?    
• What is the Permanent Fund for? How are our uses of Permanent Fund earnings including dividends related to our other fiscal choices?    
• What would a sustainable fiscal system look like, and how could we get to it?   

These issues will be discussed Saturday, October 4, 2014 at Loussac Library from 9am-5:30pm in a public forum hosted by

Alaska Common Ground, a non-profit whose mission is:

To cultivate Alaska’s common ground for “government of the people, by the people, for the people” by engaging diverse citizens in active pursuit of informed mutual understanding and agreement on vital issues of public concern.

and UAA's Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) - the foremost social science research unit dedicated to studying current issues in Alaska.


My guess is that between 100 and 200 people will attend.  The crowd will be predominantly white, over 50 years old, and already politically active. 

Where will the other 224,000 registered Anchorage voters be?   They'll have plenty of excuses because they don't want to think about this stuff.  This is grown up stuff and Alaskans like playing with their toys - their guns, their snow machines, their video games, their fancy running shoes and $2000 bicycles.  Hey, life is good, don't disturb me. 

The LA Times had an article Sunday about a 67 year old retired school teacher whose annual income from her pension and investments is $58,000, but she has been spending at a rate that puts her in jeopardy of being homeless in seven years.  The article discusses her shock after having her budget examined by a financial adviser.

Alaska  is that school teacher - we've had money to burn for the last 40 years and we've gotten accustomed to doing just that.  We aren't poor and we could easily live within our means, if we have a heart to heart with a good financial planner and follow the prescribed path.

But we're so busy coming up with ways to spend that money - with lobbyists in Juneau concocting all sorts of bridge and dam projects to get state money spent on mega-projects that will benefit their construction company clients - that we aren't seriously looking at what we're going to do when all the reserve funds run out and we find that our schools are lacking and our state - like the school teacher - can no longer pay the rent. 

Unlike the teacher who can make all the decisions necessary to secure her future on her own and who will have to live with the consequences, Alaskans have to get together and talk this stuff through.  And just as many Alaskans came here for the jobs oil wealth made possible, many will leave when those goodies are gone.

We have an opportunity to be grown-ups and make the hard decisions we need to make.  But I bet fewer than 200 will take the time to start facing the future on Saturday. 

And Alaska Common Ground, whose members I admire and who have good hearts, is going to have to figure out new ways to reach out to Alaskans.  An all day face-to-face forum is a great way to learn.  But that won't make a dent unless they have a plan of mobilization for after the forum.

They need to start involving more than the same old people.   Common Ground needs to get young folks to help plan how to use social media and popular culture to reach the people whose future will be most affected.

We need to develop a Grand Theft Alaska game to teach Alaskans how to save the oil wealth for future generations of Alaskans. 

"Nuisance" Ballot Initiatives - Translation: Voters Too Stupid To Decide

Let's see how calm I can stay [not very it tuns out] while I give my reaction to a story in today's ADN.

"Scott Hawkins, founder of ProsperityAlaska believes the voting public should not decide complex tax questions or other measures that increase regulations or permitting of businesses. . .

'Our elected officials spent years and thousands of hours in hearings and hired experts and oil taxation is not a suitable subject for the ballot.'"

Where to begin?  There's so much packed in this article.

It cites a question sent to candidates for state office that asks:

"whether the rules for putting initiatives and referendums on the ballot need reform and are being 'abused resulting in a nonstop series of bad ballot measures that Alaska's business community must spend millions of dollars every 1-2 years to fight.'"

Let's get this straight.  Now that business - big and small - has helped elect a conservative legislature that is so lopsided that Democrats are pretty much ignored, they want more.  Business gets most of the legislation they want.  Apparently that isn't enough.

Because when the public gets riled enough by the kind of legislation that gets through this one-party legislature, they write petitions and gather signatures around the state to give the public the opportunity to put some brakes on the business express coming out of the legislature.  So, since Hawkin's friends already are spending so much money contributing to conservative campaigns to get the loyalty of well over half the legislature, they shouldn't have to deal with fighting citizen referendums, the only check left for the public when they think terrible legislation has been passed, or good legislation has been stymied.

And it isn't enough that the petitioning requirements have been made more difficult.  Ballotpedia explains: 

"Signatures equal to 7% of the total district vote in the last general election must be collected in each of 3/4 of the 40 Alaska House districts.

An older, less restrictive, distribution requirement was changed by a legislatively referred ballot measure on the November 2004 ballot, the Distribution Requirement for Initiatives Act. That measure was approved with 51.7% of the vote. The older requirement was that proponents must collect petition signatures from each of 2/3 of Alaska's 40 state House districts--only one voter needed to sign from each of the 27 districts."

But those pesky citizens have managed to overcome these obstacles to get initiatives on the ballot.  In August, they got enough signatures to challenge SB 21 that gave oil companies about a $2 billion a year tax break.  And the oil companies had to spend millions to defeat the referendum, and it was relatively close.  So why not cut off this last way that people can keep their legislature accountable?

I'd also note that I spent a session in Juneau as a blogger.  There are a number of legislators who have no more smarts than the 'public' Scott distrusts.  And then there are those who are reasonably smart, but ethically challenged.  And then there are those whose world view, apparently like Scott's, sees business as the savior of humankind. 

What else might voters be incompetent to decide on Scott?

Don't get me wrong.  I think the voters of Alaska make plenty of mistakes.  They voted to amend the constitution to restrict marriage to one man and one woman.  The voted to make English the official language of the state.  They've elected Don Young again and again and again.  But I trust them a lot more than I trust the oil industry or the various big business interests to decide what's best for Alaska's people now and in the future. 

 Before posting this I checked ProsperityAlaska's website. 

Prosperity has the nerve to run a headline like "Alaska Budgets Have Run Amok!" yet, they have a picture rotating through their header with the  corporate supporters who lead the Republican majority in the legislature along with Gov. Sean Parnell all of whom fought for and passed these out of control budgets!  

Image from PosperityAlaska Header

Another headline "Facing Down "Enviro Whack Jobbery" goes on to tout the bill that passed the legislature that threw out regulations on the cruise industry that were passed by an initiative.

"An important vote on cruise ship wastewater regulations brought the environmental extremists in the Alaska Legislature floating to the surface.  With solid leadership from Gov. Parnell, sound science carried the day. "

Environmental extremists?  In the Alaska legislature?  I think he means anyone who mentions any regulation on business.  This sounds like the language of the old Anchorage Times back in the 1970s.  What about the pro-business extremists in legislature?  These are folks who worship the free-market with no idea that some of its greatest supporters warned that it has serious flaws.  Everything has flaws and we need to use all tools with awareness of when they don't work.   And these folks need to recognize and protect against market's failures.  Anyone who points them out and tries to correct them seems to be pilloried. 

The cruise ship industry is one of the Outside corporations that treat Alaska like a colony and were not happy at all when citizens put restrictions on them through an initiative.  The legislation the site touts gutted much of that citizen initiative. 

Thank you Alex DeMarban (ADN reporter) for writing about this so the rest of us become alerted to this attack on the rights of Alaskans.  An attack on the Alaska Constitution.

Oh yeah, the initiative and the referendum are spelled out in Article 11.  From the Lt. Gov's website:

Article 11 - Initiative, Referendum, and Recall

§ 1. Initiative and Referendum

The people may propose and enact laws by the initiative, and approve or reject acts of the legislature by the referendum.

§ 2. Application

An initiative or referendum is proposed by an application containing the bill to be initiated or the act to be referred. The application shall be signed by not less than one hundred qualified voters as sponsors, and shall be filed with the lieutenant governor. If he finds it in proper form he shall so certify. Denial of certification shall be subject to judicial review. [Amended 1970]

§ 3. Petition

After certification of the application, a petition containing a summary of the subject matter shall be prepared by the lieutenant governor for circulation by the sponsors. If signed by qualified voters who are equal in number to at least ten per cent of those who voted in the preceding general election, who are resident in at least three-fourths of the house districts of the State, and who, in each of those house districts, are equal in number to at least seven percent of those who voted in the preceding general election in the house district, it may be filed with the lieutenant governor. [Amended 1970, 1998 & 2004]

§ 4. Initiative Election

An initiative petition may be filed at any time. The lieutenant governor shall prepare a ballot title and proposition summarizing the proposed law, and shall place them on the ballot for the first statewide election held more than one hundred twenty days after adjournment of the legislative session following the filing. If, before the election, substantially the same measure has been enacted, the petition is void. [Amended 1970]

§ 5. Referendum Election

A referendum petition may be filed only within ninety days after adjournment of the legislative session at which the act was passed. The lieutenant governor shall prepare a ballot title and proposition summarizing the act and shall place them on the ballot for the first statewide election held more than one hundred eighty days after adjournment of that session. [Amended 1970]

§ 6. Enactment

If a majority of the votes cast on the proposition favor its adoption, the initiated measure is enacted. If a majority of the votes cast on the proposition favor the rejection of an act referred, it is rejected. The lieutenant governor shall certify the election returns. An initiated law becomes effective ninety days after certification, is not subject to veto, and may not be repealed by the legislature within two years of its effective date. It may be amended at any time. An act rejected by referendum is void thirty days after certification. Additional procedures for the initiative and referendum may be prescribed by law. [Amended 1970]

§ 7. Restrictions

The initiative shall not be used to dedicate revenues, make or repeal appropriations, create courts, define the jurisdiction of courts or prescribe their rules, or enact local or special legislation. The referendum shall not be applied to dedications of revenue, to appropriations, to local or special legislation, or to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety.

§ 8. Recall

All elected public officials in the State, except judicial officers, are subject to recall by the voters of the State or political subdivision from which elected. Procedures and grounds for recall shall be prescribed by the legislature.

You best check the link now before the governor thinks the Constitution is too radical to have on the state's website.

Random Shots From Prospect Heights Trail

The bridge at the creek not too far along the trail from the Prospect Heights parking lot.  I think this is the south fork of Campbell Creek, but I'm not certain.

 A close up of lichen on a dead tree branch.

A view from the trail.  I'm pretty sure that peak on the left is Near Point.

There was a little (really little, maybe two feet wide) creek that dropped a bit and had lots of bubbles.  This picture is a bit surreal, but I like it.  The bubbles are toward the left on top. 



It was a spectacular day, and this time of year there were no mosquitoes.

Hong Kong Democracy Movement Heats Up

It seems like the whole world is full of governments trying to control their people and people taking to the streets in protest.  It's hard to keep track of them all.

But I spent a year in Hong Kong, just after Tiananmen, when everyone was jittery because the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong coming in 1997, looked a lot more ominous after June 4, 1989. 

A recent white paper from the Beijing government on Hong Kong sent the notice that elections the people of Hong Kong had been expecting soon, would have Beijing approved candidates only.

This has pushed democracy advocates into action.

(Reuters) - Violent clashes between Hong Kong riot police and students galvanized tens of thousands of supporters for the city's pro-democracy movement and kick-started a plan to lock down the heart of the Asian financial center early on Sunday.
Leaders and supporters of Occupy Central with Love and Peace rallied to support students who were doused with pepper spray early on Saturday after they broke through police barriers and stormed the city's government headquarters.  [For the whole article, click here.]

Part of Hong Kong is attached to mainland China.  Then there's Hong Kong Island, the heart of the business district.  Central - as in "Occupy Central" above - is where many of  the modern office buildings and the main government offices are located.  I don't have a good feeling about how this is going to end.

One of those arrested, according to the Reuters piece, is 17 year old student leader Joshua
Wong. 

Wong has already won one major victory against Beijing. In 2012, he forced the Hong Kong government to shelve plans to roll out a pro-China national education scheme in the city's schools when the then 15-year-old rallied 120,000 protesters.

 Here's a BBC article
And China Daily's take on this.
It says China's deployed 7000 police to keep order.  If there were 70,000 protesters, that would mean one cop for every 10 protesters.  Even if there were 700,000 it would still one cop for every hundred protesters.  Now do you understand why I don't feel good about this.

Tea N. Crumpet Returns Online As Token Liberal

When I first started blogging in 2006 and 2007 a small community of Alaska bloggers found each other and linked to each other.  We had relatively small audiences and we checked each others blogs regularly.  Many of them have dropped by the wayside, and just the other day I was thinking how much more community we had back then.

Well, I just learned that Tea N. Crumpet is returning at Token Liberal.  Back then she basically had a mommy blog and blogged about, mostly, the joys and unjoys of raising her nine kids.  She described herself as living north of Chicago, but soon the stories she wrote seemed more Ancchorage than Chicago until I finally emailed to ask why.  Her reply was that Alaska is north of Chicago.  In those days we all played with versions of anonymity because we didn't know what we were going to say and how this would all play out.  Tea N. Crumpet's family played a big role in her blog and she wanted her location vague.  

So I'm pleased to put her new blog  onto my blogroll.  We'll see how it evolves, but I expect it will be well written and interesting.  Check it out.