And onions.
Sunday, November 09, 2014
"Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes . . ." Crawl In This Afternoon at 3:30 At UAA
A group I'm mixed up with, Healing Racism in Anchorage (HRA), is helping sponsor an event today that I'd strongly recommend, especially if you have kids. Shirley Mae Springer and her friend, Mary Schallert, will be introducing their new CD's.
I know Shirley, because she is a past board member of HRA and she's a very gifted singer plus she's worked many years with kids in the Anchorage School District. So if you're just sitting there checking the internet, go out and connect with real people and some great music.
3:30pm Today (SUNDAY Nov. 9) UAA Theater/Arts Recital Hall
Here's to promo language:
If you don't know that room at UAA, this is a good way to see one of Anchorage's great performing arts locations.
(Directions: It's at the far east side of campus. Go into UAA just east of the library at the light. Turn right at the Administration building. Then that road gets you to the theater/arts building.)
I know Shirley, because she is a past board member of HRA and she's a very gifted singer plus she's worked many years with kids in the Anchorage School District. So if you're just sitting there checking the internet, go out and connect with real people and some great music.
3:30pm Today (SUNDAY Nov. 9) UAA Theater/Arts Recital Hall
Here's to promo language:
Join Mary and Shirley Mae for a magical Sunday afternoon of music, music and more music!
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. — Maya Angelou
This could be the motto for two very different performers in the Anchorage community. Mary Schallert and Shirley Mae Springer Staten, combined, have more than 60 years of music experience in the Anchorage community. Shirley Mae’s music is rooted in Southern Gospel tradition and Mary’s music is rooted in the traditions of California Folk and other community-based music styles. The music passion each woman has blends into a sweet, magical sound, welcoming to all.Shirley Mae Springer Staten and Mary Schallert will convene in a magical Sunday afternoon performance to celebrate another milestone of musical accomplishment. Shirley Mae’s new CD “Perfect Love” and Mary’s CD “Short Stories.” Shirley Mae and Mary will engage the audience with a varied musical compilation including some songs from their newest CDs
If you don't know that room at UAA, this is a good way to see one of Anchorage's great performing arts locations.
(Directions: It's at the far east side of campus. Go into UAA just east of the library at the light. Turn right at the Administration building. Then that road gets you to the theater/arts building.)Saturday, November 08, 2014
Alaska Lags Behind Vermont and New Hampshire in % of 18-60 Year Olds Who Have Smoked Pot
From Live Science:
Just over half of Americans report that they have tried pot at least once
Credit: Anita Rahman/Live Science
In addition to the people who habitually smoke pot, there are many others who have at least tried it. Just over half of Americans report that they have tried pot at least once, according to data collected between 2000 and 2011 in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which provides national- and state-level data on the use of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs. However, the percentage of people who say they have smoked pot at least once varies among states, ranging from 38 percent in Utah to 67.1 percent in Vermont. Here is a map showing the percentage of people in each state who have ever used marijuana:
Just over half of Americans report that they have tried pot at least onceCredit: Anita Rahman/Live Science
How Many Blacks In The 114th Congress? And My Feedburner Issues
This post has two goals:
FeedBurner sends a message out to subscribers that a blogger has put up a new post. It also updates blogrolls on other blogs. I get enough hits from other blogrolls that if feedburner doesn't relay my new post, it's noticeable.
So when the new post was put up about the number of Blacks in Congress after the election, but FeedBurner didn't relay it to other blogs, I tried to repost it. Sometimes that works. But it didn't. When I've looked on line for reasons FeedBurner doesn't work, size is often mentioned. I've got a Scribed table in that post and I'm wondering if that's the problem. So I'm sending out this post with the link.
But it seems like a good idea to just talk about FeedBurner as well, for people who really don't know what it is. It's useful for bloggers who want people to be able to get to their blogs. With Feedburner, they can find the new blog post on other blogrolls. Or they can subscribe to the blog and get email notices or have it come to their news reader. I have to confess that once I got comfortable with how my blog was working, I stopped paying a lot of attention to the technology and focused more on what I was writing. So here's a video that explains FeedBurner better than I could.
When I was looking for FeedBurner info, I found a number of posts around July 2013 predicting that Google might be shutting down FeedBurner and what bloggers should do about it. They say the program hasn't been updated for a long time. Maybe that's why I'm having problems regularly. Here's a post in June 2014 that tells people about alternatives to FeedBurner and why we should use them. I guess I better start paying more attention to the tech side again.
- Get people who come to this blog from other blogs' blogrolls to see this post called How Many Blacks In The 114th Congress?
- To let people know a little bit about FeedBurner and feeds in general.
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| FeedBurner Icon |
So when the new post was put up about the number of Blacks in Congress after the election, but FeedBurner didn't relay it to other blogs, I tried to repost it. Sometimes that works. But it didn't. When I've looked on line for reasons FeedBurner doesn't work, size is often mentioned. I've got a Scribed table in that post and I'm wondering if that's the problem. So I'm sending out this post with the link.
But it seems like a good idea to just talk about FeedBurner as well, for people who really don't know what it is. It's useful for bloggers who want people to be able to get to their blogs. With Feedburner, they can find the new blog post on other blogrolls. Or they can subscribe to the blog and get email notices or have it come to their news reader. I have to confess that once I got comfortable with how my blog was working, I stopped paying a lot of attention to the technology and focused more on what I was writing. So here's a video that explains FeedBurner better than I could.
When I was looking for FeedBurner info, I found a number of posts around July 2013 predicting that Google might be shutting down FeedBurner and what bloggers should do about it. They say the program hasn't been updated for a long time. Maybe that's why I'm having problems regularly. Here's a post in June 2014 that tells people about alternatives to FeedBurner and why we should use them. I guess I better start paying more attention to the tech side again.
How Many Blacks In the 114th Congress?
My first post on this topic came out of frustration that I couldn't easily find the answer. It's sort of easier now, but not really. In any case I've found it necessary to keep updating this information - particularly after an election. From what I can tell, checking the districts of the current Black Congress Members and searching for new ones, the 114th Congress, that begins its two year term next January, will have 45 Black Congress Members. That's two more than the 113th Congress and includes the first Republican black woman (from Utah). There will also be two Black Senators - one Republican and one Democrat. You can find more on Black Senators in the previous post.
This post updates the table I put together after the 2012 election which you can find here.
I've tried to keep some of notes on changes in people between 2012 and now - in some cases people were appointed or elected to fill the terms of members who left between sessions such as Melvin Watt who resigned to become the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The chart is in alphabetical order by states. [This chart was updated Nov 7, 2016 to:
1. add New Jersey District 12 Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman originally overlooked because she was a new African-American represented from a district that was 75% white
2. corrected spelling of Rep. Marc Veassey in Texas 33rd.]
This is an update of previous lists that I put together when I couldn't find an up-to-date list of Black Members of Congress. You can get a list of earlier posts here. Please email me any errors or omissions. Email link in right column above blog archive. Thanks.
I checked the numbers with the LA Times election results page which is very quick and very easy to use. I used other sites to get the Washington DC election results. and the
Virgin Island election results.
This post updates the table I put together after the 2012 election which you can find here.
I've tried to keep some of notes on changes in people between 2012 and now - in some cases people were appointed or elected to fill the terms of members who left between sessions such as Melvin Watt who resigned to become the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The chart is in alphabetical order by states. [This chart was updated Nov 7, 2016 to:
1. add New Jersey District 12 Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman originally overlooked because she was a new African-American represented from a district that was 75% white
2. corrected spelling of Rep. Marc Veassey in Texas 33rd.]
Black Congress 2014 NovemberUpdated by Steve on Scribd
This is an update of previous lists that I put together when I couldn't find an up-to-date list of Black Members of Congress. You can get a list of earlier posts here. Please email me any errors or omissions. Email link in right column above blog archive. Thanks.
I checked the numbers with the LA Times election results page which is very quick and very easy to use. I used other sites to get the Washington DC election results. and the
Virgin Island election results.
Friday, November 07, 2014
South Carolina Race- Second Time Two African-Americans Compete For US Senate Seat
Senator Tim Scott was appointed to the US Senate in December 2012
until the November 2014 election to fill the position after Jim DeMint
resigned. This week he was elected to finish the last two years of
DeMint's original term. (So there were two US Senate races in South
Carolina this year.) Scott, the first African-American to represent
South Carolina in the US Senate, defeated Democrat Joyce Dickerson, also
an African-American, to become the first elected
African-American from South Carolina. This got me thinking about
whether there had been a US Senate race where two African-Americans were
the candidates. It turns out there was one before as people in
Illinois will surely remember.
There have only been nine African-American US Senators, beginning with two from Mississippi - Hiram Rhodes Revels and Blanche Bruce. Both were Republicans, the party of Lincoln. They were both appointed by the Mississippi State Legislature. (US Senators were not directly elected by the voters until after the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913.)
In 1966 Massachusetts Republican Edward Brooke became the first African-American to be elected to the Senate.
In 1992 Carol Moseley Braun, Democrat in Illinois, became the second to be elected to, and the first woman African-American in, the Senate.
In 2002 Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican and also African-American Alan Keyes. Yes, this was the first time two African-Americans ran for the US Senate against each other.
When Obama was elected President, another African-American, Roland Burris, was appointed to finish his term.
Then came the appointment of Tim Scott to replace DeMint followed by the appointment of Mo Cowan of Massachusetts to replace John Kerry when he was appointed Secretary of State.
Finally, Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, was elected in a special election to fill the vacancy after Senator Frank R. Lautenberg's death. Booker was reelected in this week's election.
So, a total of nine black US Senators. Of those,
The outlines of this post come from a Wikipedia List of African-Americans in The US Senate, which also puts these numbers into context:
That Wikipedia entry also had a strange side note of sorts about P.B.S. Pinckback titled:
Google turns up almost nothing on Pinchback. A footnote in the Wikipedia piece leads to an essay on Black politicians and the post civil war South from the US House of Representatives History, Art, and Archives pages that probably offers the most meat. Here's most of what they say about Pinchback:
I suspect that Pinchback would make a great doctoral dissertation and/or book.
For people wondering how I got into this, I'm updating my older posts on Blacks in Congress to reflect this week's election. This is one of the sidebars that's delaying posting that one.
There have only been nine African-American US Senators, beginning with two from Mississippi - Hiram Rhodes Revels and Blanche Bruce. Both were Republicans, the party of Lincoln. They were both appointed by the Mississippi State Legislature. (US Senators were not directly elected by the voters until after the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913.)
In 1966 Massachusetts Republican Edward Brooke became the first African-American to be elected to the Senate.
In 1992 Carol Moseley Braun, Democrat in Illinois, became the second to be elected to, and the first woman African-American in, the Senate.
In 2002 Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican and also African-American Alan Keyes. Yes, this was the first time two African-Americans ran for the US Senate against each other.
When Obama was elected President, another African-American, Roland Burris, was appointed to finish his term.
Then came the appointment of Tim Scott to replace DeMint followed by the appointment of Mo Cowan of Massachusetts to replace John Kerry when he was appointed Secretary of State.
Finally, Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, was elected in a special election to fill the vacancy after Senator Frank R. Lautenberg's death. Booker was reelected in this week's election.
So, a total of nine black US Senators. Of those,
- two were appointed by the Mississippi state legislature
- three were appointed, one of those going on to get elected for another term (Scott)
- four elected to office the first time
The outlines of this post come from a Wikipedia List of African-Americans in The US Senate, which also puts these numbers into context:
"As of 2014, there have been 1,950 members of the United States Senate, but only nine have been African American."
That Wikipedia entry also had a strange side note of sorts about P.B.S. Pinckback titled:
It doesn't say anything more about how that happened, but there are footnotes.
"African Americans elected to the U.S. Senate, but not seated"
Google turns up almost nothing on Pinchback. A footnote in the Wikipedia piece leads to an essay on Black politicians and the post civil war South from the US House of Representatives History, Art, and Archives pages that probably offers the most meat. Here's most of what they say about Pinchback:
"In a unique case of double contested elections, African-American Pinckney B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana was elected simultaneously to both the Senate and House. Pinchback lost the contested House seat and, citing claims of fraud in the state legislature, the Senate denied him his seat as well. Serving as provisional governor of Louisiana at the time, Pinchback signed his own election certifications."
I suspect that Pinchback would make a great doctoral dissertation and/or book.
For people wondering how I got into this, I'm updating my older posts on Blacks in Congress to reflect this week's election. This is one of the sidebars that's delaying posting that one.
Thursday, November 06, 2014
What Election?
This Steller Jay was oblivious to yesterday's election. Didn't mention it at all when he came to visit today. Instead he wanted to know about my foot and what the doctor had said. He had his own foot problems - much worse than mine. But he seemed to be managing pretty well.
Now, he has wings to help him get around. But this foot also takes the place, somewhat, of a hand. Though the beak does a lot of that work too. So I fashioned him a boot like mine to see if that would help out.
Wednesday, November 05, 2014
Did Brat Win In Virginia?
David Brat's the econ professor at Randolf-Macon College in Virginia who knocked off House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary in June 2014.
Yes, he defeated his Randolf Mason colleague, Jack Trammell 60.9% - 36.9%. 147,897 to 89,793. [From Politico]
Someone got to my post on the June upset by googling "Did Brat from Virginia win?" and I realized I didn't know and it was a good question. So I looked it up.
A lot of people are looking up Sherrill Redmon divorce too, which I mentioned as a side comment at the bottom of another post in 2009. It's a little out of date. She retired in 2013.
By the way, here's some background on the June primary when Brat beat Cantor.
Yes, he defeated his Randolf Mason colleague, Jack Trammell 60.9% - 36.9%. 147,897 to 89,793. [From Politico]
Someone got to my post on the June upset by googling "Did Brat from Virginia win?" and I realized I didn't know and it was a good question. So I looked it up.
A lot of people are looking up Sherrill Redmon divorce too, which I mentioned as a side comment at the bottom of another post in 2009. It's a little out of date. She retired in 2013.
By the way, here's some background on the June primary when Brat beat Cantor.
Alaska Election 2014: What Does It All Mean?
Your guess is as good as mine. I guess in today's internet style I should have titled this "The Ten Takeaways From Yesterday's Election and How You can Lose Ten Pounds (or Organize Your Life, or Become Financially Secure in Two Weeks.)"
This post is just my thinking out loud after the election. Since my foot is still in a boot I can't go run or bike or even walk too much (trying to just let it relax and heal). So I'll try to write my way out of this.
1. Republicans won most offices that were up for grabs. But there are still absentee and maybe early voters to count.
Republicans kept most of their seats and took a few they didn't have in the state house and senate. They picked up one Senate seat in Anchorage
2. All the ballot measures passed (well sort of because in the wording on Anchorage Prop 1, a no vote was a vote to pass the proposition). This is noteworthy because while the Republicans did well when their label was on the candidates, the Democrats did well in the ballot measures where there was no party label.
That's what comes to mind this morning after the 2014 election. There are plenty of other issues to ponder and this is a quick and dirty post. Don't take it too seriously. I have things to do today besides blog.
This post is just my thinking out loud after the election. Since my foot is still in a boot I can't go run or bike or even walk too much (trying to just let it relax and heal). So I'll try to write my way out of this.
1. Republicans won most offices that were up for grabs. But there are still absentee and maybe early voters to count.
- Republican Dan Sullivan is ahead of Democratic incumbent Mark Begich by 48.7% to 45.1% (102,054 votes to 110,203) in the US Senate race. This morning's ADN headline is "Sullivan holds lead; Begich won't concede." Begich was behind Stevens at this point in 2008, but not as far behind.
- Republican incumbent Don Young handily beat Forrest Dunbar by 25,000 votes (51% to 40%, a margin that didn't change all night) in the US House race.
- The so called Independent/Unity Ticket of Walker/Mallot is ahead of Parnell/Sullivan (different Dan Sullivan) by 3,160 votes (47%-46%). The ADN says "Too close to call." But even if the Walker/Mallot lead stays through the absentee votes, we'll have a governor who was a Republican until he changed to undeclared before joining up with the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mallot to run as independents.
Republicans kept most of their seats and took a few they didn't have in the state house and senate. They picked up one Senate seat in Anchorage
- (Rep. Mia Costello took Hollis French's seat. He had originally been the Democratic Lt. Gov candidate before the Unity ticket.)
- Democrat Adam Wool beat incumbent Pete Higgins in Fairbanks' District 5 in the House.
- Republican Anand Dubey is 35 votes behind Democrat Matt Claman in House District 21, held before by Democrat turned Republican after the 2012 election Lindsey Holmes.
- Independent Daniel Ortiz is 19 votes ahead of Republican Chere Klein in the Wrangell District 36 that was held by retired Rep. Peggy Wilson.
- Democrat Laurie Hummel is only 167 votes behind Republican incumbent Gabrielle LeDoux in Anchorage District 15. This one would be a little harder for Hummel to pull off, though LeDoux gained 140 votes over Hummel when the last 20% of the voters were counted. I don't know how many absentee and early votes are to be counted in this normally low turnout district.
2. All the ballot measures passed (well sort of because in the wording on Anchorage Prop 1, a no vote was a vote to pass the proposition). This is noteworthy because while the Republicans did well when their label was on the candidates, the Democrats did well in the ballot measures where there was no party label.
- Ballot Measure 2: To Legalize Marijuana - we can quibble if this was a Democratic or Republican cause because both parties had key figures leading both sides. But the Democratic opposition seemed to be more about the commercialization of marijuana than about legalizing marijuana. It passed 116,803 to 107179 or 52.15% to 47.85%. Marijuana got more votes than Dan Sullivan. But then there was no 'maybe' or other options in this election, but there were third parties in the Senate election.
- Ballot Measure 3: Increase Minimum Wage
Yes: 154,516 (68.8%)
No: 70,082 (31.2%)
While this is normally a Democratic issue, some of the Republicans supported it on the grounds that states can set minimum wage, just not the feds. Not sure how much difference that makes with their economic argument that it messes with the free market and causes jobs to disappear.
- Ballot Measure 4: Protect Bristol Bay Fish (by making it harder to build the Pebble Mine)
Yes: 143,287 (65.32%)
No: 76,062 (34.68%)
Note again, that Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan got 110,203 votes. Dan Sullivan who vehemently opposes federal regulation, the EPA report that raised major questions about Pebble Mine, and, from what I can tell, has never seen a problematic development project.
- Anchorage Proposition 1: Keep Mayor Sullivan's Draconian Labor Ordinance
Yes: 41998 (46.17%)
No: 48961 (53.83%)
Remember, a no vote essentially approved the proposition because of how it was worded: Should we keep Anchorage Ordinance 37? Also, only Anchorage voters had this on the ballot so the numbers are much lower. This was heavily backed by labor unions and Democrats and opposed by Republicans.
- Left leaning issues did well when there was no party label, right leaning candidates did well when there was a label.
- Nationally, the Koch Brothers Party did extremely well. It's more than money since there were left leaning PACs as well that poured lots of money in.
- Who's checking the voting machines? I have no evidence whatsoever that there was any tampering with voting machines. However, it's clear that such tampering is possible and has probably happened in past elections. But we have no systems to vigorously guard against such tampering in each state and nationally. We know that computer hackers can get into large corporate and government data bases. The US government has accused China of hacking to get into trade and government secrets. Yet as we watched the somewhat surprisingly heavy Republican victory nationwide last night, I heard none of the national new media even mention election fraud or hacking of machines in any of their attempts to explain what happened. They can't, because they have no evidence. But how would they get any evidence? They don't have any way of checking except for the most obvious, clumsy attempts. We need to have serious monitoring of all electronic voting equipment, just as we have monitoring of polling booths and voter ids.
That's what comes to mind this morning after the 2014 election. There are plenty of other issues to ponder and this is a quick and dirty post. Don't take it too seriously. I have things to do today besides blog.
Tuesday, November 04, 2014
Districts 24 and 25 in Ancorage Both Have 100% And Clear Winners
| HOUSE DISTRICT 24 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | |||
| Number of Precincts | 7 | ||
| Precincts Reporting | 7 | 100.0% | |
| Times Counted | 7389/13514 | 54.7% | |
| Total Votes | 7058 | ||
| Fenster, Michael "Mi | DEM | 2515 | 35.63% |
| Johnson, Craig W. | REP | 4512 | 63.93% |
| Write-in Votes | 31 | 0.44% | |
| HOUSE DISTRICT 25 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | |||
| Number of Precincts | 7 | ||
| Precincts Reporting | 7 | 100.0% | |
| Times Counted | 6253/12534 | 49.9% | |
| Total Votes | 6045 | ||
| Millet, Charisse E. | REP | 3333 | 55.14% |
| Higgins, Patti | DEM | 2693 | 44.55% |
| Write-in Votes | 19 | 0.31% | |
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