Sam Mack And Jade Ariah Opening At UAA Art Gallery

I'm taking the easy way out tonight and offering a glimpse of an art opening at UAA this evening.  I'll figure out what to post about the Board of Regent's meeting and their 5% tuition increase and about the Tanaina Child Development Center Task Force meeting later.

Above artists Sam Mack and Jade Ariah stand in front of the gallery at the opening of their exhibit Contentment in the UAA Student Center.  At some point as people were talking about finding space where either Tanaina  or the Student Services group that is slotted to move, the art gallery was mentioned, and I said, no, no, no.  Not an option.  And as I came out of the task force meeting to find the opening happening, I understood where my instant response came from.  We need art in our lives to refocus our attention and get us thinking about what's important.  And it shouldn't be shunted off to museums only, but be right in the middle of where we pass by every day.  And it was this evening and did the trick.

Here's a closeup from Jade's Contentment Pt V.

And from Sam's  Held Heart.    I jokingly said to the artists that they should have pictures of each other in the exhibit, and Sam pointed out that she had a picture of Jade in the exhibit.


Here's the exhibit Facebook page.

Halcro's Key Issues Seem Pretty Close to Coffey's

I'm only a week late on this, but the mayoral election isn't until the beginning of April, so we're ok for
now.  But if I'm going to get some video of some of the major names among the other candidates (I was told there are 12 in all), I'm going to have speed things up.

Overview here, and in depth transcript (and soon the video) below

Halcro's three main reasons for running for mayor were pretty close to what Dan Coffey said were his reasons a couple of weeks ago (see that interview here). There does seem to be a difference in how they might approach these though.  Coffey comes from a career as an attorney who's represented developers and the alcohol businesses and he served on the Assembly.  Halcro has been involved with his family business (Avis)  and been in the state legislature and has run for governor. Halcro is smart and I think he sees things more boardly than most.  He's certainly very sure of himself.  I think choosing the colors yellow and black for his campaign sign makes that point. 

I'd also note a real contrast in the two meet and greet evenings.  Halcro's was in a huge warehouse like room that was industrial cold, in the back of the TriGrill on 76th off of Old Seward.  While he probably had as many people at his event as Coffey did at Don Jose's (near the very busy intersection of Lake Otis and Northern Lights), the room was ten or twelve times the size as the cozy restaurant setting at Don Jose's and it looked like there was nobody there.


1.  Deal with the budget deficit.  (Actually this was a secondary issue for Coffey, but the first one that Halcro raised.)  He said he's been through this before in the legislature when oil fell to $10 a barrel.  He knows the conversations and the exercise, so he knows how to respond.

2.  Inebriates and homeless people.  And like Coffey he pushed the idea of Housing First (getting housing for this group).  Like for Coffey, this was a biggie for Halcro.  He said inebriate (or inebriation)  and homeless five times each.    Both candidates seemed to be interested in this issue because of the nuisance factor, though Coffey at least said we need to have compassion for these people because addiction is a disease and he mentioned that many of these folks were mentally ill, Halcro never raised that point.

3.  Developing Fairview.  Actually Halcro was broader on this issue.  He identified three areas near downtown that are undervalued and underdeveloped - east downtown, Fairview, and Mt. View.  He foresees cool neighborhoods for millenials who want to be near the restaurants, bars, and downtown in general.  He also saw this as a way for Anchorage to keep growing.  When I asked him if this development would help people living there or simply be gentrification forcing the current residents out, he strongly said it wouldn't be gentrification.  He wants, he said, everyone living there now to be able to stay if they want to.  This development was also one of the reasons he wants to get the inebriates and homeless out.   But if the point is to make this an area that developers want to go in, exactly what will they do there if they don't buy lower priced properties, tear them down, and put in more upscale property?  And as the price goes up, so will property taxes.  People who sell because the offers seem attractive, won't have any place else to move that they can afford.  He may not want people to move out, but I don't see how that won't happen.  And he wants the city to give developers incentives to do this.  (OK, I'm juxtaposing his words and my words, but he does want the city to give developers incentives to develop there - by making it safer (getting rid of inebriates and homeless) and with tax incentives.)

He also mentioned strengthening public education.  I'd note Halcro was the only member of the State House Sustainable Education Task Force who did not vote to approve their report which did appear to be the aim of key members from the beginning:  push for public money to go to private schools. 

A second major initiative of his presidency of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce he discussed was his diversity initiatives.  

I asked him about the gentrification potential in Fairview - I didn't get a chance to ask Coffey - which I've addressed above and I asked about the extension of Bragaw through the university lands, despite overwhelming community council opposition, and despite the fact we have a budget problem and this would be an easy $20 million to recover since it hasn't been spent yet.  He acknowledged that he doesn't know this issue well, but his response also shows he doesn't know the university neighborhood well either.  At one point he said, " UMed district really hasn’t changed since I was a kid."  That's completely wrong.  In the last five to ten years there are four new roads that connect 36th and Tudor between Lake Otis and the new sports center.  And since Halcro was a kid, Providence and Lake Otis have become four lane roads, and DOT made a molehill out of mountain to punch 40th through from Lake Otis east to just past Dale Street.  And Bragaw (now Elmore) became four lane, and was pushed through to Abbot and MLK Blvd was added south of Tudor.  He talked about the growing University, but apparently he forgot he mentioned the State's budget problems at the beginning and the University's budget cuts being submitted right now.  Options for getting to the University include all people on campus with a university id card get free People Mover passes.  There's a campus shuttle bus that even takes people to the University Center where the University has expanded.   But I'm getting off the interview now to my own pet issue.  And Halcro acknowledged he hadn't studied this.  But he did say there hadn't been improvements in roads to the campus since he was a kid and that's flat out wrong.  And he implied, when he said the local folks couldn't be against progress, that progress means roads.  In education progress means more and more opportunities to attend class without driving there - like through online classes and audio conferencing and even Skype.

[As I prepare to post this, I realize that I'm comparing Coffey and Halcro here - which makes sense because they both emphasized the same issues.  But I'm thinking ahead of posts on other mayoral candidates and if I continue to do it this way, the posts are going to get longer and longer.  So I'll probably not do this in the future posts on individual candidates.  But I can link to here and eventually have some posts on all the candidates.]

So, here's the transcript I wrote up.  It's pretty close, and I think it captures the meaning if not the literal words.   I'm not sure you can call it an interview.  I did get a couple of questions in.  Andrew talks so fast, that even in 50% audio speed I had trouble keeping up with him to write these notes. [Video's up.]   It's taking its time to upload, so I'll post this tonight and tomorrow, the video should be ready to embed.  I'll put it here:  


Transcript of video:

Steve:  Andrew, you’ve got a good life, why would you want to run for mayor?

Andrew: Well,  That’s exactly why I want to run for mayor. There are three reasons.  One, I think the economy is going to be uncertain in the next few years  with the state in a $3 billion budget deficit and You need somebody in the mayor’s office who understands  how to contain the cost of government, not to mention I was in Juneau, I served in the legislature 15 years ago when they were going through the same thing. Oil was $!0 a barrel and we had a $1billion budget deficit. In fact we spent a lot of time looking at solutions.  We also spent a lot of time talking about where to cut the budget.  So as the next mayor, I know exactly what those conversations are and therefore I know how to plan  and how to contain costs. 

The second thing is,  I really want to make the community healthier and safer, my last couple of years as president of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, we’ve really had an issue with downtown public safety, certainly the crime rate, the chronic inebriate problem, the homeless problem

We have to take the long view of these problems.  From the management standpoint we like to nibble around the edges  or we like to adopt what we think are going to be these silver bullet programs.  We have to realize we’ve got to have a comprehensive approach.  With public safety you have to put more officers on the street,

We’re 50 officers short  …..  They’ve decimated the   gang  task force, they’ve decimated the sexual assault task force because they want more officers in patrol cars.  And that has really hurt our ability to go out and be proactive.  Addressing the gang issue and some of these criminal issues that are now percolating to the top

The communities does need to get healthier the chronic inebriate problem, the homeless problem    needs to finally be addressed.  We need to look at expanding things like the housing first model that works, it really works.  Not only does it get people off the street, it makes them safer, but it also reduces public safety calls to that area.  Police will tell you that it’s been a success.

And the third thing is really to just continue to grow the economy and  manage the cost of government.    Growing the economy in the sense where we get where we get in and doing that    should have been done a long time ago.  I think some of the greatest areas of our town are the most underdeveloped and undervalued.  

I’d like to see huge redevelopment downtown and East Anchorage.  I’d like to see us go into Fairview and clean up the area.  And provide a just really cool part of town for people to live in.  The demographics are changing.  We have 82,000 millennials that live and work in this city and they have different needs than I do or you do. It’s a different generation.  They want to live downtown, near to bars and restaurants.   They want easy access to  downtown.      In order to attract that kind of investment, you have to address the public safety concerns and you have to address the chronic inebriation and homelessness problems. Because those Developers aren’t going down there to redevelop unless those areas are ripe for development.

So really those things are why I’m running.

My last two years at the Anchorage chamber, we’ve done some groundbreaking work,  Our education initiatives to strengthen public schools.  I’m chair of the 90% by 2020.  I have been for two years which seeks to strengthen public school outcomes by promoting 90% graduation and 90% attendance by 2020 

I’ve also been very active in the community with diversity,  One Anchorage One Economy has brought in all types of diverse groups.  Sitting down and talking about how the business community how we can integrate them into the business community.  Talking about how work all one Anchorage, we all live in the same economy and go to the same schools and have all aligned concerns and the same goals.  We all want a successful and happy and healthy city.  And that’s really why I want to be mayor.

I think, I've lived here for 50 years in the community.  Its been stagnant in some places I think we need to move forward on.  There are some intractable problems that we haven’t addressed that we really need to address.  But by and large, this city has been amazing to me and amazing to the people I love,  and I just want to make it stronger for future generations.


Steve:  You talked about Fairview, and when I talked to Dan Coffey, he also talked about redevelopment of Fairview.  My concern is whether development the people who live there now and get their neighborhood cleaned up and they get to stay there making their lives better, or are we talking about gentrification, and we get rid of the poorer people so the wealthier an move in?

Andrew:  No, in my view, redeveloping Fairview is keeping people in their homes who want to stay there.  Be more aggressive on the chronic inebriation and homeless problems.  Here’s an example,  years ago they went into Fairview and they created these neat little parks and put up all kinds of accessaries, then within a year or two they had to take them out because they became gathering places for crime and inebriates and the homeless.  I want to see a time when people who live in Fairview today and tomorrow have little pocket parks, I want to see when it’s safe to walk to the store at 11 at night.  I want to finally look at 13th and Gamble and say how do we clean this up.  This has been a problem since I was 16 years old.  It’s not about gentrification, it’s about cleaning up the neighborhood.  I want people to stay there.  I don’t want anybody to move out of their neighborhoods.  I want to use the city’s leverage with tax incentives   to tax deferral credits to get in and make the area safer, make it more of a great little community.  I mean, they really have a good community council, the Fairview community council the Fairview business association.  They’ve done an amazing job and what they need is a little more help from City Hall  They have overlays, they have development plans, and they need   leadership from city hall, because when I look at this city, there are three areas - there’s east downtown, there’s Fairview and Mountain view.  They have the greatest promise, because they are three of the oldest areas of town that are really ripe for people who want to live in cool little neighborhoods.

Steve:  Let me ask another question.  There’s $20 million sitting out there to build a road through the university campus.  All the community councils around there have protested and don’t want the road. Where do you stand on this?

Andrew:  I haven’t really studied this project.  But I will tell you the area is growing and we need to have better access in and out.  Whether that means adopting that road plan I can’t say.  I do know  is you have a growing University you’ve got a hospital that’s growing fast, if there are ways we can improve access without cutting the road through the CC areas, we should do that.  But there’s no question that area needs better transportation access.  The road system in the UMed district really hasn’t changed since I was a kid.  I access from Northern Lights to 36th to Providence Dr.  None of the roads in that area have matured.  Maybe instead of doing the road through the university, maybe we should look at approach roads that get people into the university district.  As a former community council president, I’m very sensitive to the wishes of community councils, they work hard, they get their people out every month, they have the best interests of their community at heart.  We went through the same things at Sand Lake when they wanted to build homes in a gravel pit.  So I understand the frustration.  It does require some collaboration.  You can’t just show up and say we’re going to build a road in that area.  But you also can’t just say we’re not going to have progress, because that area is going to continue to grow and it’s continue to be served by underdeveloped roads. 

Steve:  Any other critical issues you want to talk about?

Andrew:  No, thanks. 

Rachel Barton Pine Does Paganini In Anchorage

I just want to at least note this.  We did go to the second concert.  I listened to a couple of the Paganini caprices online, but I wondered how I was going to appreciate all 24. caprices.  Would I count to keep track?  Yes, I'd like it, but if I knew more about them before I went it would be so much better.

That's true, of course, but I needn't have worried.  Barton Pine knows that most people are not Paganini experts.  For the first half, she stopped after every two caprices and talked about Paganini and about the caprices themselves and demonstrated different techniques that the specific caprices would highlight.

The second half there were fewer explanations, but we'd been coached enough in the beginning to be able to listen and watch for the different bowing techniques and other tricks Paganini used to expand what the violin could do.

Paganini was born in 1772 - four years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  What did news reports of the new nation mean to this child prodigy?  The loss of Britain's colony in the New World and the emergence of this new 'democracy' was something he would have known about.  There is even some speculation of his visiting America, but this interesting account of his life says it never happened.

From Paganini.com:

In early 1828 Nicolo began a six and half year tour that started in Vienna and ended in Paris in September 1834. During the two and half year period from August 1828 to February, 1831 he visited some 40 cities in Germany, Bohemia, and Poland. Performances in Vienna, Paris, and London were hailed widely, and his tour in 1832 through England and Scotland made him wealthy.

His playing of tender passages was so beautiful that his audiences often burst into tears, and yet, he could perform with such force and velocity that at Vienna one listener became half crazed and declared that for some days that he had seen the Devil helping the violinist.

Rachel Barton Pine

Also of interest, was Barton Pine's description of her violin which is on loan to her and was  made by Joseph Guarnerius del Gesu in 1742, two years before his death and 40 years before Paganini's birth!  The violin is known as ex-Soldat for one of the violinists who played it - Maria Soldat.  The story includes Brahms and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosopher. But that will have to be another post.  I'm sure regular readers can already anticipate the directions that post might take.

It was an incredible evening and the 800 seat Discovery Theater was pretty much full.  It's a theater, while four times the size of the location of the previous night's concert, where every seat gives you a great view and great sound.




And just to end this with a totally different note, here's a link to Rachel Barton Pine playing her version of Metallica's One.   And if you must (and you must) here's Metallica's version.

Final, final note - The picture above was taken at the end of the concert during the standing applause.  The picture below was taken in the lobby while Rachel Barton Pine talked to fans and signed autographs.

If People In East Think Their Weather Refutes Climate Warming . . .

It's climate change.  And a cold spell in the East doesn't change the overall trend.  While it might be freezing in New York, our indoor/outdoor thermometer reads 48˚F here in Anchorage.

Replacing Jon Stewart

When a teacher has a 'problem' student in class, the easiest response is to get him (or her) out of the class.  But experienced teachers know that another one will take his place.  The real answer is to analyze your teaching and find if there is a different way to get your message across or find out what the underlying problems are that the kid has and find help.

I thought about that when I watched this video of John Oliver over on Immoral Minority.  People have been lamenting the departure of Jon Stewart from the Daily Show.  And Stewart does have a knack for getting right to the issue and nailing it.  Of course it helps to have a great staff of researchers and production folks to back you up.

But my thought was, when one leaves, another one will pop up to take his place.

We are a country of 300 million people.  1% of 300 million equals 3 million.  Half of that is still 1.5 million.  So there's a pool of 1.5 million Americans in the top one half percent of the funniest/smartest Americans.  Surely among that group we can find plenty of talent to not only replace Jon Stewart, but to find new and amazing ways to expose the corrupt and crazy among the powerful.  We  have the talent to put on 100 different Daily Shows if we look and nurture the very best.

Jeff the Diseased Lung and John Oliver

So, here's the segment that inspired that thought.  John Oliver takes on the tobacco industry for suing nations over tobacco restrictions.  Yes, nations.  They lost in Australia's supreme court, according to Oliver, but then they appealed it over technical issues in trade treaties.  And for Uruguay and Togo, two more countries they sued over restrictions on cigaret packaging, the threat of a huge lawsuit is more than such a country can handle.

The whole segment is definitely worth watching  to

1. see how truly evil the tobacco companies are
2. think about how we empower these companies so they can violate the health interests of independent nations
3. consider what they are doing to us in the US (think "global warming hasn't been proven")
4. realize that there are plenty of other Jon Stewarts waiting out there to take his place, and then some.
5. have a good laugh or three at Phillip Morris' expense
   
   

On The Difference Between Al Qaeda and ISIS

Most of us know almost nothing about ISIS.  There's a name, news reports, and photos and we each create our own story to explain them.  My friend Jeremy linked to an Atlantic article which gives us more.  Of course, we take the author's words with a grain of salt.  But it's evidence to put into the record to compare with the other evidence that is gathered.  I recommend reading it. 

Here's a snipped that contrasts Al Qaeda with ISIS, says one is  modern and corporate while the other is 7th Century:

We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature. Peter Bergen, who produced the first interview with bin Laden in 1997, titled his first book Holy War, Inc. in part to acknowledge bin Laden as a creature of the modern secular world. Bin Laden corporatized terror and franchised it out. He requested specific political concessions, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia. His foot soldiers navigated the modern world confidently. On Mohamd Atta’s last full day of life, he shopped at Walmart and ate dinner at Pizza Hut.

There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.

Is this accurate?  Time will tell.   Meanwhile this article offers much to chew on.  More than the simplistic coverage we mostly get. 

Grrr! Feedburner Problems - My Most Recent Post Isn't Showing Up On Blogrolls

Feedburner usually gets my posts to subscribers and to blogrolls on other blogs.  But frequently enough to bother me, it doesn't get them to the blogrolls.  Here's my latest post that isn't getting to blogrolls, though I posted it over 12 hours ago.  My fixes include:

1.  Going directly to Feedburner an giving it a manual update instruction.  Sometimes this works, and sometimes this doesn't.    This doesn't seem to be working today.

2.  Simply copying and reposting.  Sometimes this works.  But today there's already a comment on the post and if I do this and turn off the original post, that comment will be lost.  I could, I guess, copy the comment and repost it with an explanation. 

3.  Check the html for lots of extraneous code that might have been introduced when I cut and pasted something from another website.  If I get rid of the unnecesary code, sometimes that works.  But I'm never sure if it works because I got rid of the extra code, or because I reposted it.  Sometimes I've tried reposting without fixing the code and it doesn't work, and then after cleaning out the weeds in the html, and repost it works.

When I repost, I disable the original post so I don't have the same post up twice.

But options 2 and 3 both have the comment problem.  If I disable the original post, the comment goes away. 

So, I'm using this fourth option.  Talking about the problem and redirecting people to the post titled:

Why I Live Here:  Zuill Bailey, Rachel Barton Pine, Eduard Zilberkant Play Down The Street

For Anchorage folks, it tells them about a great musical opportunity tonight (Sunday Feb. 15).

Why I Live Here - Zuill Bailey, Rachel Barton Pine, and Eduard Zilberkant Play Down The Street

We went to the Sitka Music Festival's Winter Classics at UAA Saturday night.  Three incredible musicians, world class musicians, playing in the incredible concert hall in the UAA theater arts building.

Many readers have probably never heard of these people, though I did write about Zuill Bailey

Bailey and Zilberkant

before.  You've heard of sculptors who release the sculpture living inside a piece of marble.  My sense of Zuill Bailey is that he sets the music free from inside the cello.  He doesn't so much play the cello as help it sing.

Eduard Zilberkant was the pianist.  Let me just say he was also amazing, even though I'm partial to the strings.  Listening to the three instruments together,  trading off sounds then coming together, yet not quite, it was breath taking. Literally.  There were points where I had to remind myself to start breathing again. Go to the link, I'd be up all night if I tried to do these musicians any justice at all.

And then there was Rachel Burton Pine.  (Just go to the link.)  As is painfully clear to anyone who knows about music, I'm just a casual listener.  I can't tell you really why in musical terms, I can just tell you what it did to me.  In this case, I'm going to use someone else's words to tell you who she is and what she does.

Barton and Zilberkant

Because she plays again tomorrow night and at the Discovery Theater downtown there are more seats and it's not sold out yet.   From the Daily Beast,  why you should get tickets and go:

Violinist  Rachel Barton Pine’s life is a seemingly unending list of extraordinary achievements, from her soloist debut at age 10 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to her recent live performances of Paganini’s ‘24 Caprices For Solo Violin’--a series of virtuosic pieces so technically challenging that very few violinists perform them in sequence. She has published a book of her own arrangements and cadenzas, recorded 24 albums, and travelled with the world’s most prestigious ensembles. 

 





She's going to play those Paganini's '24 Caprices for Solo Violin' Sunday evening (Feb. 15)  at 7:30pm.  This isn't something you can see very often.  And it's here, in Anchorage, with a premiere violinist.

The Standing Ovation

Let's go back to the title of this post.  Why I Live Here.  Most of the posts that have that label are about getting to nature quickly.  But another advantage of Anchorage is that we have world class performers who we can see in intimate settings for much less than people pay in big cities.  The University venue they were in Saturday is a 30 minute walk from my house, a five minute drive, with free parking.

If you look at the pictures you can see how intimate it was Saturday night - there were 20 overflow seats on stage!   Not a good place to sit if you're prone to fall asleep in a concert.  But if you're that close, it would probably be hard to do.

Saturday night's tickets were less than half the cheapest tickets when we went to a mediocre concert at the Disney Concert Hall in LA.  The UAA Concert Hall is a magical acoustical music box seating only 200 people.  The Disney in LA seats eleven times that many - 2,265.  The Discovery Theater, where Rachel Barton Pine plays tonight (Sunday,) seats 800, still a relatively small venue.

This is most of the audience on the main floor.  There's a smaller balcony above.  Thank you Michael Hood for fighting for this building and getting it built with such incredible performing spaces.  These people played here Saturday because Zuill Bailey loved the acoustics.







Here's a little preview of Sunday night's concert.  (Sorry, this post is getting a bit cluttered.)

Caprice # 12 - from Violin Sheet Music

And if you don't read music, here's a different sort of preview of the music (be sure to listen to the end.)




I do have to make a minor disclosure here.  I learned this week that a college friend of my son  is Rachel Barton Pine's husband.  But that's not why I'm gushing here.  This was fantastic and tomorrow night will be too.

How Many Alaska Legislators Are Child Molesters?

I realize that's a pretty inflammatory title, but bear with me.

I was listening yesterday online to David Holthouse's testimony to the Senate Education Committee about SB 31, a law to enact Erin's Law in Alaska, mandating schools teach teachers and children to detect signs of sexual abuse and to learn what actions they can take. [You can hear, for now at least, the full hearing here.] Sen. Gardner's (who is the sponsor) aide emphasized that lessons must be age appropriate and that the schools themselves would be given the power to choose the materials they wanted to use.

Below I have Holthouse's full testimony, my transcript, and audio from the legislature's website.  But first, here's the part that triggered the question above:

"And then when I was sixteen, a remarkable thing happened.  I was in a humanities course in East High School in Anchorage and the teacher was lecturing on something to do with denial on a societal level, and she mentioned, almost as an aside, how high the rate of sexual abuse of children was in Alaska. She looked out at the class and she said there’s about 25, 30 of you here, statistics say two to three of you have already been sexually assaulted and you haven’t told a soul."

 The teacher used statistics.  Gardner's aide said that nationally

1 in 4 girls   and
1 in 6 boys

are sexually abused before the age of 18.   And only 1 in 10 will say anything about it. 

She used the numbers to figure out how many students in her class, statistically, would have been abused.  And there was, in fact, at least one student who had been sexually abused in that class.  Maybe there was another.   Holthouse's response was:

And I was riveted in my seat and I felt a great sense of relief, because it had been acknowledged in public, in a school, by a teacher what had happened to me.  And it gave me tremendous comfort, even though I didn’t say anything.

 So using statistics and looking at the Alaska legislature, if one in six boys and one in four girls are sexually abused before they are 18, there must be a fair number of abusers out there in our population. How many are there?  I'll get to that shortly. 

So let's get some help from the Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute.(CMRPI)

First, definitions:

A child molester is any older child or adult who touches a child for his or her own sexual gratification.

Child molestation is the act of sexually touching a child.

A child is a girl or boy who is 13 years of age or younger.

What's the age difference between a molester and a child? It is five years, so a 14-year-old "older child" sexually touching a nine-year-old is an example. This is the accepted medical definition.

It appears that some statistics vary because researchers use different definitions.  Just take that into account.  I'll be using these, fairly broad, definitions.

How many child molesters are there?  CMRPI writes:

In fact, approximately one out of 20 men, and approximately one out of 3,300 women are sexual abusers of children.

There are 60 legislators - 20 senators and 40 representatives.  There are 43 men and 17 women. Just as Holthouse's teacher used statistics to estimate the number of students in her class who had been molested, we can do the same for the legislature.  We know that there was at least one child who'd been molested in that class.   One out of 20 men statistically would suggest there are two child molesters in the Alaska legislature.  The odds of a woman molester in the legislature is statistically low.

But, legislators are upstanding, church-going respectable people, you say. 

Again, according to the CMRPI, child molesters mirror the population.   Here's a chart they posted comparing characteristics of male child molesters to the general male population   

	Admitted Child Molesters	American Men
Married and formerly Married	77%	73%
Some College	45%	49%
High School only	30%	32%
Working	69%	64%
Religious	93%	93%

Source: The Abel and Harlow Child Molestation Prevention Study and the 
1999 U.S. Census Statistical Abstract
Note: All people in both groups were at least 25 years old.

They have another chart with ethnicity, which matches fairly closely with ethnicity in the general American male population.  A little higher for Caucasian (79% molesters v. 72% in the population), a little lower for Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asian, and a little higher for Native American (3%  v. 1%). 

There's no reason to think that members of the legislature are less likely to be child molesters than anyone else.  In fact, the position of respect and power gives them a certain cover.  We're only talking about child molesters here, not men who abuse adults.

This question came to mind, as I said, because of Holthouse's testimony about his teacher's use of statistics.  But I was also concerned a little about the fact that they tended not to ask questions of people who urged them to pass the bill.  They did ask questions of people who raised concerns.

Concerns they had were:

1.  Would this be another unfunded mandate?
2.  What's preventing the schools from adopting this on their own?
3.  Would schools have time for yet another mandated subject?
4.  Who would pay for this?
5.  What would the curriculum be like.

OK, it is their job to craft legislation that will work.  They should ask questions.  But their statements of the seriousness of this problem sounded so perfunctory, like something they had to say.  They seemed  much more interested in talking about the reasons it might not be a good idea.  Some of this is because they just don't understand the huge impact this has, not just on the kids, but on society as a whole.  And some of this may be due to the fact that a couple of legislators are actually child molesters,  The statistics would suggest that. 

Erin  Merryn, the woman now, that this law has been named after, testified by phone.  She said that 19 states have adopted this law and 18 more are introducing it this year. 

Looking at those questions, I have to ask, "What is in the school curriculum that is more important than this?" 

The CMRPI estimates that there are 3 million US kids who have been molested.  Compared to that, all other threats to kids pale.  Accidents are the biggest killer of kids.   While over 30,000 people a year (the number has been falling steadily) are killed in car crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,  the CDC's figures shown at the Incidental Economist, show that a very small number of those deaths are kids - less than 1400 1-14 year olds.  The odds of getting sexually molested are way, way greater than the odds of getting killed in a car crash.  I realize that death is different from molestation, but the long term pain and subsequent dysfunction of being molested is lasts, for many, for a lifetime.  And for many leads to suicide.  [I know, using the Incidental Economist instead of the CDC numbers is a bit lazy, but he highlights the key numbers.]

Yet parents and schools don't give kids the basics they need to know to prevent child abuse in the first place and to overcome the threats of predators to report it if they do get molested.

Listen (or read) Holthouse's testimony.  It's short and very compelling.  The legislators all acknowledge it's a serious problem, but . . . There shouldn't be any buts here.  They should be finding a way to make this law work.  Every year they delay, means kids are going to be molested who wouldn't be if the law were in effect.  And the molesters aren't reported and keep on molesting more kids. 


[UPDATE Feb 15: No one mentioned that the audio wasn't here. I'm adding it again, let's see if it works this time.] Here's a recording of David Holthouse's testimony (and the beginning of Jeff Jessie's):


[The transcript below isn't exact, but it's pretty close]

Holthouse:  Here’s what I remember about being taught to keep myself safe in grade school growing up in Anchorage.  I remember what to do in an earthquake, I R  what to do if I caught on fire - stop, drop, and roll - and  IR to watch out for strangers bearing candy or toys.  But what I didn’t learn was that a vastly greater danger to me than catching fire or being crushed by falling light fixtures in an earthquake, or even being lured into a car, far greater than one of those dangers was that someone I knew and trusted would hurt me and terrify me in ways that I did not understand and did not have the words for.   And that happened in 1978  when I was seven years old.  I was raped by a family friend at a dinner party in an upper middle class household in Eagle River.

When it was over the rapist told me three things.  He told me , one, that I’d done a bad thing and that my dad would spank me if I told anybody.  And he said if I told, that he’d say I was lying and no one would believe me.  And he said furthermore if I told anybody, he would come into my house in the middle of the night and gut me like a salmon and do the same to my parents.  I know now that this is typical predator behavior.  So for 25 years I didn’t tell I kept it a secret and I did so at signifiant cost to my own well being.

Here’s how Erin’s Law would have made a difference for me.  First,
there’s a chance it would have protected me from being raped in the first place.  These types of predators depend our collective shame, denial, and silence about this issue.  Even though we all know what the rates are in Alaska.  They depend on it.  They thrive on it.  I think it’s quite possible that  having know I was being taught at school about people like him, and how to tell on people like him, and what language to use to tell on people like him, he would not have committed the crime in the first place.  There’s no way to know that for sure. 

I also think that had I been taught about safe touch, unsafe touch, none of this language needs to be graphic for 2nd graders.  All I needed to know was a word like “a bad secret” or just the very concept that someone who was a family friend might do something wrong to me and then tell me “You must keep this a secret” and if that happened, it was ok to tell a cop or my parents, or teachers, and that someone would step in and protect me. If I had been armed with that information, I think I would have told.  There’s no way to know that for sure either.

What I am certain of, is that had the public school system acknowledged the prevalence of this issue in our culture, and had I been taught that in school, I would have felt not so alone.  The loneliness was the worst part of it, feeling I had been affected by a freak occurrence and that made me some kind of freak.

And then when I was sixteen, a remarkable thing happened.  I was in a humanities course in East High School in Anchorage and the teacher was lecturing on something to do with denial on a societal level, and she mentioned, almost as an aside, how high the rate of sexual abuse of children were in Alaska. She looked out at the class and she said there’s about 25, 30 of you here, statistics say two to three of you have already been sexually assaulted and you haven’t told a soul.

And I was riveted in my seat and I felt a great sense of relief, because it had been acknowledged in public, in a school, by a teacher what had happened to me.  And it gave me tremendous comfort, even though I didn’t say anything.

So, I think that  it is important that it be mandated.  It sends a message to predators that it’s time for them to be afraid and it sends a message to kids that is of top priority to protect them.  And so, thank you for hearing me out. 

Chair:  Thank you.  Questions?  Thank you very much.

The Impact Of Modern Day Shaming

“Ignominy is universally acknowledged to be a worse punishment than death,” he wrote. “It would seem strange that ignominy should ever have been adopted as a milder punishment than death, did we not know that the human mind seldom arrives at truth upon any subject till it has first reached the extremity of error.”

This is a quote from  Benjamin Rush, a physician in Philadelphia and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  It's  in Jon Ronson's long New York Times Magazine article on public shaming in the age of social media, How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life.

Sacco posted a sarcastic tweet that people immediately jumped on as racist.  In her words, to Ronson,

“To me it was so insane of a comment for anyone to make,” she said. “I thought there was no way that anyone could possibly think it was literal.”

She tweeted from Heathrow just before boarding a plane for Cape Town.  Little did she know about the firestorm that would greet her when she landed.

Ronson, not only follows up on Sacco, but other people whose lives have been turned upside down by people piling on online.  In one case, there was a picture that the person "didn't realize that her mobile uploads were visible to the public."  It took four weeks before the photo was discovered and she lost her job.

In another case, a guy at a tech conference, made a bad joke about computer body parts, quietly, to the guy sitting next to him.  The lady in front of them stood up, took his picture.

"She tweeted the picture to her 9,209 followers with the caption: “Not cool. Jokes about . . . ‘big’ dongles right behind me.” Ten minutes later, he and his friend were taken into a quiet room at the conference and asked to explain themselves. Two days later, his boss called him into his office, and he was fired."

The article is well worth reading.  It looks at how things are taken out of context and people's lives are, at least temporarily, destroyed.  And even if someone's words are in context and inappropriate, the impact of cyber shaming is totally disproportionate to the crime.  If someone went to court for this, it would be a minor embarrassment and cost.   But it wouldn't cost someone their livelihood.

This gets Ronson to look up the history of shaming in the US.  Which led to the opening quote.

"The pillory and whippings were abolished at the federal level in 1839, although Delaware kept the pillory until 1905 and whippings until 1972. An 1867 editorial in The Times excoriated the state for its obstinacy. 'If [the convicted person] had previously existing in his bosom a spark of self-respect this exposure to public shame utterly extinguishes it. . . . The boy of 18 who is whipped at New Castle for larceny is in nine cases out of 10 ruined. With his self-respect destroyed and the taunt and sneer of public disgrace branded upon his forehead, he feels himself lost and abandoned by his fellows.'”

Of course, Tweets, often alert us to something well worth reading, and I thank Mark Meyer, for retweeting about this article.

Something to chew on.  Pause and think when you're about to post a questionable joke or in anger.  Or when you're feeling righteous indignation about something you see posted online.  Find out the truth first.  Remember the golden rule - think how you'd feel if you were on the receiving end.

[UPDATE Feb 17, 2015:  Here's the December 2014 Gawker post by the guy who spread Justine Sacco's tweet to  infamy.  They met, six months later.  Here are a couple things he says about all this:

Twitter disasters are the quickest source of outrage, and outrage is traffic. 

Fortunately, traffic doesn't make or break this blog.  It's good to know people are reading it, but I don't need to stir up fake outrage to boost traffic. 

And, as it turned out, Justine Sacco is not a racist monster. She is a kind and canny woman who threw back cocktails, ate delicately, and spoke expertly about software. She was friendly, very funny, instantly relatable, and very plainly not a cruel sicko. We talked about college, jobs, home, family, and work—she'd recently landed on her feet as the communications boss for a small New York startup, and seemed to be happily rebuilding her career. . .

Sacco was not depressed, or even slightly bitter, and said she bore no resentment towards me at all. She'd only wanted to meet up, she explained, because I owed it to her. I should get to know her before ever writing about her again. There was no catch, no setup, no tricks—she just wanted me to consider her a person, and not a meme.  .  .

 This is the point I try to make over and over again.  We shouldn't take something that a person spent a few seconds of their life doing and use it to judge a person.  We all do stupid things now and then.  Think about the stupid things you wouldn't like to have the world use to write your epitaph.]