Denali Birds - Warbler, Robin, Sparrow, Ptarmigan, Pintail, Eagle, And Bufflehead

Some of the feathered critters we encountered this week at Denali. 

This yellow rumped warbler visited us at our campsite every morning and evening.  I chose this picture because it displays its namesake best.  I'm lucky to live in Alaska and see this bird at its best.  From Allaboutbirds:

"Though the color palette is subdued all winter, you owe it to yourself to seek these birds out on their spring migration or on their breeding grounds. Spring molt brings a transformation, leaving them a dazzling mix of bright yellow, charcoal gray and black, and bold white."

 

Another campground visitor, the robin seems almost out of place in this huge, wild, northern national park.  It should be on a lawn somewhere pulling out worms. 

This northern pintail couple on a pond near Teklanika campground. 






This bufflehead was in the same pond.  From Audubon:  

"The name "Bufflehead" is derived from "buffalo-head," for the male's odd puffy head shape."

A white crowned sparrow.

The willow ptarmigan is the Alaska state bird.  It's shedding its white winter plumage for its summer browns. 

A golden eagle hunts along a mountain ridge.  Their wingspans go up to seven feet. 

Caribou and Bear

A quick pic post, since the visitor center wifi works, even though they don't open until tomorrow.  There were a lot of caribou yesterday. 

These I saw when I was on the bike.  At first, he was looking at me head on and mostly I saw the antlers and my first thought was - why is there a windmill up there.

This, despite how remote it might look, is looking under the bridge at Savage River.

We never would have seen this bear if there hadn't been a bus and several carsfull of people with their binoculars aimed out into nowhere.  Since there were lots of caribou to be seen, we figured maybe it's a bear for all the people to be looking at something so far away.   For the most part, the bear was in the brush and occasionally you could see a glimpse of blond fur in the binoculars.  I'm guessing the bus driver knew there was a bear in the area (there was a cub too) and was looking out for it.

We stayed after everyone left and I was able to catch this quick shot as the bear got out of the brush for a moment.  It's a long ways off.  I could make up a number, but really, with the long vistas in Denali, it's really hard for me to guess how far things are.

OK, that's enough for now.  There are more animals to see.  I'll put up birds and other pics later.  The mosquitoes are already out despite the wind and they're checking me out. 

To Denali

We left Anchorage about 8pm.  I just wanted to get going and since it doesn't really get totally dark, we left. 

About 11pm past the McKinley view points - we could just see the top of the mountain, not well - I took this one.

About an hour later - on the flat lands before getting to Cantwell.  The light was incredible.  I didn't capture it unfortunately.

And then this morning, driving into the park. 

By this afternoon it was clouded over.  Lots of caribou today, a bear and cub in the distance, and some good birds.  More tomorrow.  The park officially opens Friday.  Until the buses start on May 20, you can drive in to Teklanika, which we did.  It was beautiful and clear, but it got very windy.  Got some biking in on the road to Teklanika. 

Blogger Overload - Things I Haven't Posted From Erin's Law To Shell Arctic Drilling

There is a bunch of posts still listed as drafts in my blog index of posts.  Some will never see the light of day because there are more important things, they've been partly incorporated in other posts, or they are old and the topic's been covered enough elsewhere.

The battle between living and blogging is sometimes easy and sometimes hard.  Ideally, the blog captures bits and pieces of life as I live it.  But my kids have said the grandchildren are off limits for the blog, so reflections on their growing language skills ("The rocket's at my house") and other motor skills (crawling up and down the wheel chair ramp at my mom's house) don't get chronicled here, though I think they are significant, not just for me, but for the world.  This point was made today by someone who spent about ten minutes on an older post about infants learning sign language. 

Some posts are partly or largely written.  Others are just notes.  Here are some examples.

Obergefell
What signs from the Supreme Court hearing on Obergefell are worth attending to get a sense of what their decision might be and the implications for the future?

Shell Arctic Drilling
I did a fair amount of reporting on Shell's previous Arctic drilling plans  (for example) and the later fiasco with Kulluk.  You might look at the link on the plans.  Those were last time.  I've looked quickly at parts of the new ones.  My issue then was that they were more PR than actual operational plans of what to do.  This time it seems there is more detail, but still a lot missing.  For example, there's this sort of reassuring language, that reminds me a lot of the reassuring (but incorrect) language they had in 2013.

"Operational Monitoring:
Operational monitoring is conducted to minimize the potential of penetrating an overpressure
zone resulting in a loss of hydrostatic overbalance.

1. 1)  Flow checks are conducted with the pumps off to confirm the static mud weight over balances pore pressure.
   
2. 2)  Frequent pit drills and mock well control drills are planned and conducted.
   
3. 3)  Drilling Contractor / Shell Staff have relevant and current Well Control Certificates.
   
4. 4)  Shell requires its operational staff to attend and pass its internal Advanced Well Control Training.
   
5. 5)  Real Time monitoring of the well and operational parameters is conducted by the Real Time Operations Center that is staffed by a team of experts. Any anomalous signals or indications are immediately relayed to the rig.
   

This extra set of monitoring provides a secondary team of individuals to monitor the wells status and minimize the potential for loss of situation awareness by the drilling team" [from page 2/6 Well Control Plan which is in a zip file linked at Appendices and Attachments on this page at this Bureau of Oceans and Environment Management (BOEM) page. ]

"loss of situational awareness' was a big red flag for me.  Here's a post I did on that phrase back in 2010:  Euphemism Alert!! What the hell is "Lack of Situational Awareness"?

I understand that there's an art to giving an overview, and I have yet to probe deep enough in all the documents to find out if there are more operational details than this. 

For instance,
1)   how often the flow checks are conducted and where the results of those tests go and how quickly and how quickly do government regulators see them? 
2)  What does 'frequent'?  I'd like to see some numbers - once a week, once a month (I don't know what's reasonable) - and records kept and reported that they happened and what was learned from each drill and what improvements were made based on the drill. 
3/4) should be expanded somewhere to list the job titles of the "Shell staff" and "operational staff" and the names of the people in those positions with a list of the specific certificates they have, when they got them,  plus links to what the training includes and what the certificate guarantees the staff know and can perform. 
5) how about a list of the 'team of experts' including their name and expertise and how their expertise is determined.

It's in Shell's interest that all this rhetoric is backed up, but I know these things are written to get approval.  I'd like to know that BOEM is getting more detail than this.  BUT, it may be in there somewhere, I just haven't had the time to read it all and then find the people I can ask my questions of.  So, these posts are still unwritten. 

Then there's this somewhat disturbing prospect:

The estimated total duration from the initial mooring to well kill pumping through a relief well would be approximately 28 days for a Burger blowout (Table 1). In the event of a blowout, the secondary rig if located at the Burger Prospect, will cease drilling, suspend the well so that it cannot flow, recover its BOP stack and moorings, and transit to the relief well drill site. In this case, the estimated duration of flow prior to drilling a relief well to intersection with the original wellbore and killing the flow is approximately 34 days (six days to mobilize and moor and 28 days to kill the well). If the secondary rig is located in Dutch Harbor, the rig will transit from Dutch Harbor to the relief well drill site. The rig will initiate relief well drilling operations upon arrival and mooring and will remain at the site through plugging operations on both the relief well and the blowout well. The max additional time required will be to unmoor in Dutch Harbor, transit to relief well site, and moor is an estimated 10 days (10 days to mobilize and moor and 28 days to kill the well).  [emphasis added] [Page 2-5 from
Revised Outer Continental Shelf Lease Exploration PlanChukchi Sea, AlaskaBurger Prospect:Posey Area Blocks 6714, 67626764, 6812, 6912, 6915Chukchi Sea Lease Sale 193]

I don't know what sort of damage can happen in 28 days, and I need to check.  But I suspect it won't be pretty. 

But I also know that Shell has huge incentives for everything to go right.  Not only are accidents costly to them in lost time and equipment, they are disastrous in terms of public opinion and the future obstacles that result.  So Shell surely wants things to go well, wants to get oil as quickly as they can with no mishaps.  I don't question their intentions to have no serious problems.  The question is their ability to carry it out.

They have a lot of smart people, but many of them are smart in a narrow area of knowledge.  But I have lots of reading to do, and questions to ask before I tackle this for real.  And I may or may not get there.  

Erin's Law
This bill still hasn't been passed.  I've emailed the representatives who voted against it (only Rep. Tammy Wilson has responded) and I've got what the ADN says their reasons for opposing it are.  But I need to get a bit more information.

Others

Tanaina preschool followup, mayoral election reflections, left over press club conference thoughts, the university searches for a president and Fairbanks chancellor, and it goes on. 
And then there are a dozen posts in my head that haven't gotten into writing even.

And it's essentially summer in Alaska and Denali calls for a visit before the buses are taking the tourists in.

Self Identity And How Your Life Would Change If Key Characteristics Changed

What aspects about yourself do you take for granted and which ones would have the biggest impact on your life if it changed?  Let's look at some key ways we categorize people.

Sex - If you're male, how would your life be different if you were female?  And if you're female, if you were male? 

Race - Pick a different set of physical characteristic that we tend to call race.

Nationality - Here's a world map.  Close your eyes and let the mouse find you a new nationality.

Map from Geology.com   Click to enlarge and focus

Religion - Here's a list of 79 spiritual options.  Note Christianity is lumped pretty much into one category

Job/Profession - Here's a list of 1183 job titles.  Or no job at all.  Have fun.

Health Status -  This would be some sort of identified illness or physical characteristic from healthy and fit  to some labeled condition that identifies you as not completely healthy and fit.  Names of diseases and/or loss of abilities that most people take for granted.  I'll include mental illnesses here too.  You don't need a list of things that could go wrong.  For some, the change might just be moving to healthy. 

Sexuality -  Who are you sexually attracted to?  What things turn you on? 

Educational Status - How much schooling do you have?  Pick something several levels different from yours. 

Economic Status -  From homeless to billionaire.  This could also include what economic class you were born into, not just where you ended up. 

Questions to ask yourself and others:

• So, which of these are most significant to your self identity and are they different from what others think are important about you? 
• How would suddenly becoming a different economic class, sexuality, gender, health status most affect your life and your self identity?  And how others see you?  
• Which things are obvious to others when you walk down the street, which are not?
• Which of these changes would be difficult because of your own self identity and which because of how others expect you to be?  
• Which are easier and which harder to change?

I'm going somewhere with this, but I'd like to let folks play with these questions first. I'll pick up this theme in a future post.  In the meantime, ponder the questions when you're in bed and can't sleep.  Talk to your family and house mates about them.  Use them as ice-breakers at a party or reception or waiting at the post office or the airport. 

Be honest with yourself.  Try on a few identities and imagine going about your daily routine that way.  How would things be different?  Why? Would some make your life better and others worse?  Which ones? 

Is this hard?  Why?  

Did I miss one of your important identifiers? 

Incredible Story - 3 Minutes of 1938 Film And Glenn Kurtz' Quest To Find Out More

A talk in the UAA library, Sunday afternoon.  When J asked what it was, I said what I knew.  "Some guy went to Poland to discover his relatives." 

How little I knew that I was to be transported on an amazing story of perseverance, history, and discovery. 

Glenn Kurtz finds a cache of old movies in his parents' home.  He seeks out the oldest one.  He could smell the vinegar of the decomposing film.   It's a short film, partly in black and white and partly in color. 

On the right is the opening scene of the movie.






Then there is this shot.

His grandmother is on the far left and the other three people are their traveling companions for this adventure. 

His grandparents had come to the US from Poland in the 1880's.  Kurtz never met his grandfather, but he did know his grandmother.  They had done well in the US and all he knew about this trip was this film. 

There's typical tourist footage of the travelers in the countries they visited. 

Men with beards

But then, there is three minutes filmed in a small town, more a village, in Poland.  A Jewish community a year before the Germans invaded.  Kurtz knew immediately this was important footage - probably the only film of this town, of these people, before  most of them were swept up by the Nazis and sent to die.  People crowd before the camera - lots of people.  Kids hamming it up, no different from kids today.  But who are they?  What happened to them?

But  he didn't know anything more than the film.  He knew 1938 because it was on the film.  But when?  What ship?










An aunt, moving to a nursing home, later discovered a box of post cards from the trip, including the one below.

Kurtz went in search for names of the people in the film.  But how do you find them.  He donated the film to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and a woman recognized her grandfather - he was 13 in the film - and called Kurtz.  He visited the grandfather Maurice Chandler (his American name) in Florida and he was able to identify a lot of people in the film.  This led to others.

And eventually, many of the nameless faces came to life.  They got names, the birth and death dates and little bits of curious details.   For example, in the picture above that I labeled men with beards, he learned that the man with the dark beard had been the headstone carver at the cemetery and kids would come by his shop after school and start throwing the chipped stone around.  He would kick them out by threatening that the Angel of Death, whom they assumed he had some connection with, would get them.  This story, if I recall, came from Maurice Chandler. 

from the book's jacket

It's an incredible story of sleuthing and bringing to life an almost vanished piece of film that is a unique documentation of a lost world.  And, fortunately, Kurtz has written a book about both the people in the town and how he found out who they were.  A great afternoon adventure to hear from the author's mouth this story. 







Here's the book.  

 I was so wrapped up in the story, I forgot to take pictures until it was mostly over.  And even then I didn't take a picture of Glenn Kurtz.  And J bought a copy of the book, so it was easier to take pictures from the book for this post.  I look forward to reading the book. 


 

Coming Home To The Sweet Smell Of Cottonwood

I still can't share fragrances with you here on the blog.  Pictures and sound, yes, but not smells.  Too bad, because when we got to the front door last night, the powerful and sweet smell of the cottonwoods filled the air.  It doesn't smell like cinnamon, but it tickles the nose in a similar strong seductive way.


I've written about cottonwoods before - they're a big presence, and lots of folks hate them.  The sticky sweet buds attach to the bottom of your shoes and later the cotton catkins strewn all over test even my patience.  But the sweet (English is really deficient in words for odors - I'll have to start making a list of types of smells that need words) smell and the big leafy green trees are worth it in my book.







We left LA under clouds last night. 

And it seemed cloudy below the whole way up.  But since it's May, the northern horizon eventually got light again as we got north, though below was solid dark cloud.

Coke Studio Pakistan - Do You Know Saeen Zahoor Or Noori?

Given what we hear in the news, one might wonder about an American's reception in Pakistan these days.  But you could turn that around.  Pakistanis might wonder about their reception in the US.  Here's something I haven't seen in the news.  And just listen to the music below. From Wikipedia:

Coke Studio is a Pakistani music television series which features live studio-recorded music performances by various artists. The show was produced by Rohail Hyatt up until Season 6 and is now produced by the Pakistani duo Strings. It is sponsored by Coca Cola. Starting in 2008, Coke Studio has been popular throughout the country, receiving critical acclaim and frequently being rebroadcast on numerous television and radio stations. It is one of the most popular music programmes in South Asia and is a local brand product of Coca-Cola.
The program focuses on a fusion of the diverse musical influences in Pakistan, including eastern classical, folk, qawwali, bhangra, Sufi and contemporary hip hop, rock and pop music. The show provides a platform for renowned as well as upcoming and less mainstream artists, of various genres, regions and languages, to collaborate musically in live studio recording sessions.

For those of you who don’t about Noori, its a Rock band from Pakistan, started by two brothers – Ali Noor and Ali Hamza. The band are known for being one of the pioneers of the Pakistani rock music scene.
Listen to this great music from Noori & Saeen Zahoor.




Saeen Zahoor was a 2006 World Music award winner as reported by the BBC:  (The link has a lot more about Pakistani music.  What we have here is fusion of old and new.)

"Zahoor was born and raised in a rural peasant family and for decades he performed exclusively at dargahs and melas in his native Ojara district of Pakistan. In 1989 he was invited to the All Pakistan Music Conference to give his first ever performance on a concert stage and, by all accounts, he transported the 2000 audience members present to heights of emotion which were deemed almost dangerously intense. He now tours the world, often accompanied by harmonium and dholak drum side-players, wreaking the same blissful havoc on devotees and newcomers alike. His piercing chiselled features are a regular sight on Pakistani TV and he has been the subject of at least one documentary."

More from Wikipedia:

Noori (Urdu:نوری, literal English translation: “light”) is a rock band from Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, formed in 1996. The group was formed by songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist, Ali Noor, along with his younger brother Ali Hamza, who were soon joined by bassist Muhammad Ali Jafri and drummer Salman Albert as well as by DJ Junaid Shams (known for JoNi). Since the inception of the band, there had been many changes in the line-up the only consistent members being, brothers, Ali Noor and Ali Hamza. The band are considered as one of the pioneering forces behind what is dubbed at the "21st Century pop revolution of Pakistan".

Viral Khabar adds;

"Noori is a Persian word which means “light” and the concept behind the band was the light which shows you things with a different perspective."

Which is something I try to do here on this blog.

Technology of the Heart offers a translation of the music in the video, which begins:

1.
Parh parh ilm te faazil hoya
Te kaday apnay aap nu parhya ee na

(You read to become
all knowledgeable
But you never read yourself)

You can actually hear the words clearly after the ooooooooooooooooo in the beginning. 

And here are a bunch of videos from these Coke Studio concerts.

Before The Rain

The weather news has been thunderstorms coming to the LA area for the last two days.  But I managed to get the laundry off the line and get in a bike ride along the beach first.  This shot is just north of Santa Monica about 4pm.  The rain came down for about 20 minutes at 8pm accompanied by a little thunder.  Not enough to stave off the drought, but better than nothing. 

And I took this a little earlier.  I think it's a type of iris.  Don't know about the spider.  

Can't wait to get back home tonight.  

Ethical Issues Rasied By Electronic Media - Part 2

At the Alaska Press Club Conference two weeks ago, I hosted a breakout session to talk about ethical issues raised by electronic media.  I did a brief post outlining the issues I had in mind before we met.  The breakout session was small.  It was during lunch and the other session was on the open meetings law.  I'm going to jot down my notes here before I forget them. 

We had a diverse group - a small town online newspaper publisher, a free lance photographer, a blogger (me), and two broadcast folks.

We started with me giving an overview of the topic and then we added some other interesting twists.

The basic issue is how is/will the nature of electronic media open new and troubling issues?  And how should we address them?

1.  Changing History

Here are a few issues we discussed here:

A.     Changing Names of News Outlets.  The previous post began with my concern that an Anchorage Daily News article I found from 2011, was under the banner of Alaska Dispatch News.  The Dispatch didn't buy the Daily News until 2014.  While on the surface, not a significant issue, it symbolizes the problem of retroactively changing things.

Rather than leave pre-Dispatch articles under a Daily News banner, it now looks like the Dispatch has always been the paper in Anchorage.  With fewer and fewer libraries keeping hard copies of newspapers and journals, we are vulnerable to having the past altered like this.   For historians and other academics citing sources based on changed names of newspapers, there will be lots of errors and misleading historical references.  People will think, from the website and the citations based on it, that the Dispatch has been around for much longer than it has.  And the Anchorage Daily News' existence will be extinguished.  That does change the history of Anchorage and of the evolution of media in Alaska.

B.  The Potential Loss of Archives.  Steve Heimal related in our session how tapes of his shows had been given to the state archives (I think that was where), but they had given them to someplace else.  He was scrambling to find out where they ended up and if they would be publicly available or even survive at all.  Of course, the internet makes preserving audio archives far easier and more accessible to the public than what existed before.  But what gets saved and what disappears?  This brought up the question,  "What happens if the Dispatch goes belly-up and doesn't sell, who would keep up the website?  With libraries cutting costs by going digital, all the history recorded in the newspaper would vanish.

C.  Simply Changing History.  Once a newspaper is printed and ends up in the library's archives, it's preserved.  Someone could steal it or cut out parts, but a reader would know something was missing.  With online archives, what's to stop someone from going back and changing the story?  It could be to make the author look better (such as getting rid of a prediction that turned out wrong).  It could also involve getting rid of other news that  over time has become politically or economically compromising.   The recent Anchorage mayoral election involved two audio tapes that were alluded to but 'missing' and then appeared in ways that were intended to hurt opposition candidates. Web-caching exists, but doesn't seem to be universal, and many people don't know how to use it. 

D.  Editing Mistakes.   The Alaska Press Club contest rules say:

"All entries must be submitted as they were published or broadcast."

I know on my blog I can easily go back and make whatever changes I want.  And after talking to others, both bloggers and traditional media, it's clear they do too.  But there don't seem to be any clear rules for how to do this, no common guidelines for what is reasonable and what's not.  It doesn't make sense to me to leave up typos or even graceless prose when I can easily fix them.  So I've come up with my own rules.  Transparency is the underlying principle:  If people know about the changes, what was erased and what was added, then it's ok.

Rule 1:  If it is a minor grammatical or spelling correction that doesn't affect the content, then I can change it and not mark the change.  In the session someone mentioned a time factor - you can fix it within the first 24 hours that way.  He said that was practice at his station, but not a written policy. Not marking the change isn't intended to hide it, but it just gets messy with a lot of little notes about this and that.
Rule 2:  If the change is substantive, then I have to strikeout the old  [and bracket the new].  I try to note when the update was made, but I haven't been consistent unless I'm adding totally new information.   Changes can come from comments to the post, new developments, or just rereading a post and realizing there is an error.

Again, transparency is critical - letting the reader know what you are doing, and if it's not obvious, why. 

2.  Other Issues

We had a photographer in our session and he raised the issues of digital doctoring of photos.  Photographers have always enhanced their pictures in the dark room, but new technologies allow for making it possible to blatantly lie with photos.  Again, I try to always mention when a picture has been changed - more than cropping, contrast, and exposure.  And if I significantly change the look with contrast or exposure I'll mention that too.  But when I mentioned I've added someone to a picture - just to get them all in - the group was pretty down on that.  Even when I said I tell readers exactly what I've done and why.  (I think I may have done it once. Not even sure of that.)  And I've taken to posting pictures that are chopped up with some aspects more prominently featured. Often these are nature pictures.  For example see the last picture on this post.  No one is being fooled here.  The photographer in our group cited a well known (he said, I didn't know him) photographer who basically said that with current technology making it easier for everyone to take technically great pictures, it was necessary for 'photographers' to go further, to enhance the craft.  I think I'm in that camp, but again, transparency is required. 

Recommendations

These are a few things our session thought the Alaska Press Club should consider.

1.  Check out what others are doing on this. People I've talked to say things are changing so fast they haven't developed policies. For example,  Management of Electronic and Digital Media  By Alan Albarran has a section on ethics, but it doesn't seem to deal specifically with these issues.  It's more general and follows a legal ethics model of defining obligations to different constituencies. But I'm sure someone, somewhere is addressing this.  I just haven't found it or talked to anyone else up on these issues. 

2.  Change the Alaska Press Club contest rules to reflect the reality of online media being changed.  For example - what is the original story at the Alaska Dispatch News?  The first go at the story online.  The printed version that comes out later?  The updated online stories which get edited as the story unfolds?  I'm sure the rules were written before this was common.  It's time to revise the rules to reflect reality and have everyone competing by the same rules.

3.  Consider developing standards for archiving the news.  What kinds of protections can be put in place to prevent changes in old stories and to alert readers to the changes when they happen?  For example, I think the Alaska Dispatch News should either revert old Anchorage Daily News heading on stories or at the very least have a prominent note that says, "This was published originally in the Anchorage Daily News."

When I search journals through the library online indexes, I usually get - it seems - to the original website of the journal.  Separate backup sites or other ways of story data should be found.  This one is bigger than just the Alaska Press Club.

4.  Develop standards for changing stories after the fact and supporting efforts to preserving original work as it was published.  How and when is it ok to do this?  How should readers be notified?  Are there time limits? 

For preserving the original work, Web-caching already exists, but I'm not sure how comprehensive or organized it is.

That's all I have for now on this - some notes.