A Meditation On Lying and Liars

This is sort of an addendum to an earlier post that looked at different roles that legislators can play in committee meetings.  Trying to figure out the specific roles any legislator plays is made difficult because they may be, are you ready? - lying.  I know.  Our responses to reports that politicians are lying ranges from "Oh how terrible!" to "What did you expect?" 

I don't want to accuse all politicians of regularly lying though.  The word "to lie" is sort of like the word 'blue.'  There are lots of different blues and there are lots of different lies.  But while artists and paint companies have come up with words to identify different shades of blue, our vocabulary of lies is impoverished.

We make the word the one word 'lie' cover a variety of different behaviors - some inexcusable and some so common that all of us engage in them.  In fact, if we didn't tell our sweethearts they look good, when they ask, we'd be considered rude.  

In her book Lying, Sisela Bok, asks readers to consider a world where no one told the truth.  One couldn't believe anything and would have to verify everything oneself.  But that would be impossible because you couldn't trust what people said or wrote.  Thus a system where people tell the truth benefits us all.  It makes our lives much easier.  But suppose you wanted to enjoy those benefits plus a little more.

"The fact that a system of truth-telling benefits you enormously doesn’t by itself justify your adhering to the Principle of Veracity. After all, if personal benefit is all that counts for you, then why not reap all the benefits that a system of truth-telling brings, and then reap a little bit more by lying for personal gain?
Of course, you couldn’t announce your policy to the public; it would have to remain your secret. You don’t want to undermine the practice of telling the truth. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to gain anything from your lies. And you don’t want people to distrust you. A lie is advantageous only in circumstances where people will believe it – only where a practice of truth-telling generally prevails. Such a practice prevails only when most people are doing their part to support it – that is, when most people are telling the truth. The liar, then, wants to be a free rider. She wants others to do their part to maintain a system, while she skips doing her part. She reaps the benefits of the system without investing the reciprocal sacrifice of supporting it." [From Infed]

Let's say there's a continuum of liars:  from whoppers are normal to only tell little white lies. 

Whoppers Are  Normal   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Only Little White Lies

Whoppers are things like, "I didn't have sexual intercourse with that woman."  Or “We found the weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq]. We found biological laboratories.”

Little white lies are more like, "Thanks for the tie, it's just what I wanted."  And there's a wide range in between.  


We all tend to think that others behave roughly like we do.  I'd argue that people on the whopper side of the continuum lie so often they think it's normal and that everyone lies.  And maybe they grew up in families where that was true.  Thus they don't trust anyone.  That's a little different from what Bok argues.  She's talking about a theoretical model where everyone benefits from truth-telling.  But I don't think people think this out so logically.  I suspect some liars know that most people are more truthful and take advantage of that. 

On the white lie end are people who wouldn't think of telling a lie any more egregious than answering a questions more positively than they actually feel. "It's delicious."  "I'll call you."   They believe in honesty, but also believe you can soften it a little to avoid upsetting people.  They are slow at recognizing big liars because it's hard to believe that people lie so blatantly. 

I tend to be on the white lie end.  For me, leaving out something important is akin to lying.  I'm not good at spotting liars, unless it's a situation I know well.  I don't notice the little body language tips.  I have to listen carefully to what they say and weigh the logic.  Only when people's stories are full of inconsistencies or at odds with what I know, do I start to consider the possibility that they are lying.

I've been reminded of the importance and the destructiveness of liars in the last week because we've been watching the old FX series Damages.  Glenn Close plays Patty Hewes, a high stakes lawyer, who in one episode actually asks a witness she's questioning, "When did you start lying?"  The witness protests she's not lying.  Patty Hewes goes on, "I was seven when I started lying regularly."  She's lies so shamelessly and to the people closest to her, people whose loyalty she demands.  We like to think that liars get found out and lose their positions of power.  But when enough of the other players are also liars, they don't out each other.  It's part of the game, even makes it more interesting for them, I guess - figuring out when someone is telling the truth and when they're lying.  Certainly in Damages, the lies pile up on each other.  Even when Patty Hughes starts to level with someone, she tends to add new lies.  (Oh, and yeah, it turns out that witness she was questioning was leaving out the cocaine addiction.)

It drives white lie folks crazy.  It's against our rules.  And while the liars may continue in their positions of power, there are costs.  In Patty Hewes' case, her 17 year old son despises her and causes her no end of frustration.

We've all seen these people lie and lie and lie, until they are caught.  Lance Armstrong insisted he hadn't doped.  Richard Nixon said he wasn't a crook.  Bill Clinton swore he didn't have sex with that woman.  Bernie Madoff lied $50 billion dollars from his friends and family even. If we look at a Tim Shipman's Atlantic Monthly article on Madoff, we can find some of the reasons people trusted him:

1.  susceptibility to his charm
2.  greed 

"charmer whose hedge fund ensnared wealthy Americans with the promise of record dividends."

3. he was seen by many investors as a tribe member

"what cuts deepest is Madoff’s betrayal of his fellow Jews"

Writer Tim Shipman goes on to ask how Madoff got away with it for so long.  Various people had raised questions starting as far back as the 1970s, but it wasn't until 2008 that he was finally busted.

"In 1995, [independent investigator, Harry Markopolos] sent the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the financial watchdog, a 17-page statement: “The World’s Largest Hedge Fund Is a Fraud”.
Two years later, the commission found no evidence of fraud after an investigation that seems to have involved little more than asking Madoff whether he was a crook, and accepting his answers.
SEC boss Christopher Cox last week denounced multiple failures at his agency and launched an internal investigation of the relationships between his officials and Madoff, including Eric Swanson, who had at one point been involved in monitoring Madoff’s firm and later married his niece, Shana Madoff"

So, we see a lot of deference to a well known, wealthy and connected man.  In Damages there are corrupt police officers and government officials who quash investigations or even set them up to intimidate enemies.

I'd also mention the movie Merchants of Doubt which we saw last night.  They delve into a group of 'scientists' who started by attacking tobacco industry critics.  They developed a tool chest for raising doubt when, in fact, no scientific doubt actually existed.  They'd attack the messenger, which is much easier than attacking the science.  Many of the tobacco companies'  'merchants of doubt' adapted these tools to protect other industries as they fought off regulation - like the fire retardant companies who had persuaded law makers to require putting tons of toxic chemicals in all sorts of products.  Then they moved on to fight climate change which, around 2008, the movie says, was accepted by key Republican politicians including George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and others.  But they quickly back tracked when these merchants of doubt 'educated' on them.  Rep. Inglis, Republican from South Carolina, was educated at the polls when he started saying that climate change was real. 

Truth is not an important commodity for these merchants of doubt, whose sole goal is to postpone government action as long as possible while their client corporations made as much money as they can, usually at the expense of the environment and the health of Americans.  

I raise this issue of lying as one more issue to consider when you watch our legislature.  Who are today's merchants of doubt and which of our legislators are responding to their influence?  We know, for instance, that Americans for Prosperity have opened offices in many states, including Alaska, to fight various issues, including Medicaid expansion.  And we know that the Republican majorities in the Alaska House and Senate refuse to compromise on Medicaid expansion even though a majority of Alaskans want it passed, even though it will add health care for 40,000 Alaskans, and bring lots of federal dollars to Alaska.   Without the merchants of doubt deliberately poisoning the public discourse, this legislation would have passed long ago. 

Thinking about lying, about specific liars who famously lied, about how long we let liars get away with lying, about what evidence we need to finally realize they're lying, are all good exercises so that we can spot today's merchants of doubt and the politicians who help them block legislation everyone wants.

I'd add two more points to consider:

1.  Not all politicians lie.  There are honest politicians.  They may not always volunteer everything, but they are clearly much closer to the white lies end of the scale.  This is important.  I would wager that the current ice jam in the legislature is due to no more than 10-20% of the legislators.  But the merchants of doubt make sure they're in key positions.

2.  Some liars have lied so often, they believe their own lies.  Unless you know the facts, they would convince you too.  And they clearly have convinced enough of their constituents to get elected. 

That's the case of another character in Damages, Arthur Frobisher (played by Ted Danson).  He's a billionaire businessman who told all his employees to buy the company stock as he was selling his own, just before his company went bust.  Now they are Patty Hewes' clients as they try get their lives back.  Frobisher believes he's a good guy and he did nothing wrong.  His wiping out of his employees' retirement savings is just a blip on his screen.  Unfortunate.  He even tries to hire a ghost writer to tell his story to the world, because he's sure that if people just knew him, they would like him.  Possibly Madoff was a model for this character.  [I just checked and Wikipedia says that in season 3 Frobisher is based on the Madoff scandal.  We've only seen seasons one and two, but it was clear enough for me to make that connection already.][UPDATE 8:15pm:  Decided to start season 3 and it's not Frobisher, but a new character who's based on Madoff]

I suspect a lot of our worst lying legislators have convinced themselves they're good guys.  And they are so not. 

"For the tomatoes, the clock is ticking" And Other Inspiring Stories From Fledge

Fledge is an accelerator for startups that not only hope to make money, but also to make the world a better place.  I need to say right at the beginning, that I'm related to the creator of Fledge through marriage.  But I think if you look at these videos, you can see for yourself what a great concept it is and how well it's being executed.

A few startups are chosen for each session.  They're given $20,000 and six weeks of extensive training on how to make their business work.  All aspects from financing to marketing to production to human resources.  The fledgelings get mentors and get to meet with investors.  At the end of the six [10] weeks, they have Fledge Demo Day, which was last week in Seattle.  The videos are from Demo Day. I got to go to the first Fledge Demo day about 18 months ago.  It was an exciting event. 

This round's fledgelings are all international - from Africa and Argentina.  I'm particularly impressed by this group because the entrepreneurs are all local folks, not foreigners, who have already started businesses and they'll return to grow those companies.  Several of them talk about how they came to see the problems they're solving as children, watching their moms and grandmothers getting sick from the charcoal fires they cooked on every day.  Or, in another case, how Mom could only cultivate two of her ten acres because she couldn't afford to plant the rest of the land. 



Tom Osborn  Kenya Green Char

Tom is concerned about the health and financial costs of charcoal stoves in Kenya.  And charcoal requires the cutting of 125,000 acres of trees per year.  His answer is to make charcoal from sugar cane waste.  The charcoal is the traditional cooking heating material in his country.  His sugar cane charcoal has no smoke, is cheaper than traditional charcoal, burns longer, and provides jobs for women who act as distributors.  It also, of course, recycles the sugar cane wastes and leaves all those trees standing.




Sebastian Sajoux - Argentina, ArqLite  (the links go to the Youtube vidoes - or you can just let each one take you to the next)

Has a process to turn non-recyclable plastic into little rocks that can be used make concrete.  It produces a cement that is lighter, better thermal insulation, and quieter than traditional cement and also gets rid of the plastic that would go to landfills. 


Paul Nyambe - Zambia - Zamgoat

Buying goats from villagers and getting them to market where there is a big demand for goat meat.  This gives remote villagers extra money for something they already do and meets a demand for goat meat.


Femi Oye - Nigeria  SME Funds, Go Solar Africa, Green Energy Bio Fuel and Cooking Stove

Femi has several companies to bring cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable energy to Nigeria.  There's the alcohol based cooking fuel made of agricultural wastes and the solar panels.

David Opio - Uganda - Ensibuuko 'Germinate'

This is a financial tool - Mobis - that helps SACCO's (cooperative banking groups in Uganda) be more accountable and gives customers access to their accounts on their cell phones.

Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu   Nigeria Cold Hubs

Nnaemeka tells the story "For the tomatoes, the clock is ticking."  He traces the path of the tomatoes from Chibueze's farm, to Eugene's truck, to Alex's stand at the market.  He shows how many tomatoes - about 40% - have to be thrown away because they spoil in the Nigerian heat.  His solution is a solar powered refrigerator.

The market can be the solution to a lot of problems.  An entrepreneur who doesn't pay attention to the needs of the customers won't succeed.  But the market model doesn't require business owners to  pay attention to the needs of the community, or to people's health,  or to the environment's health.  These companies do that. 

Corrected Post - Chris Dixon is NEXT Monday - Merchants of Doubt Today

I mistakenly posted that Chris would be talking today.  It's next Monday.  So I'm reposting this with the changes. 

Chris Dixon - UAA  NEXT Monday   Bookstore  - 4pm-6pm  Free Parking (just park, don't worry)

Merchants of Doubt - Bear Tooth - 5:45pm TODAY

Here's the online bio you find about Chris:

Chris Dixon, originally from Anchorage, is a longtime community organizer, writer, and educator with a PhD from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He serves on the board of the Institute for Anarchist Studies and the advisory board for the activist journal Upping the Anti. He currently lives in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Algonquin Territory. His new book is Another Politics: Talking Across Today's Transformative Movements and is published by University of California Press.

I'd add that I've known Chris since he was a classmate of my daughter's at Steller.  Though I haven't seen him for years. This guy was special as a teenager and has stayed special. More than special. He didn't give up his young idealism and vision to become an adult.  He's found a way to live his values.


Here's some YouTube of him talking in Winnepeg in January of this year. It's long, but at least look at the first few minutes after the intro. Oh, yeah, the intro was written by Angela Davis.





The other must see event today is the showing of Merchants of Doubt at the Bear Tooth at 5:45.

This movie looks at the cadre of 'experts' who are paid to attack public belief in things like toxic chemicals and climate change.  It's close to what this blog, at base, is about. 

Inspired by the acclaimed book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt takes audiences on a satirically comedic, yet illuminating ride into the heart of conjuring American spin. Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the curtain on a secretive group of highly charismatic, silver-tongued pundits-for-hire who present themselves in the media as scientific authorities – yet have the contrary aim of spreading maximum confusion about well-studied public threats ranging from toxic chemicals to pharmaceuticals to climate change.

Here's the trailer:




Here's the author of the book the movie is based on talking about the book. 

Perpetuating Our Myths of History

I saw this tweet today and started to wonder:

"To the thousands of young men who gave so much - Thank you. "The 6th June is not a day like others: it is not... http://fb.me/7PJQbr22W "

My first thought was, "Were they all young men?"  When I googled average age of D-Day soldiers I  got things like this (from The National WW II Museum):

"Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of America's 26th president and, at age 56, the oldest member of the assault forces, was with the first wave. He and other officers assessed the situation, then quickly made a decision, they changed the landing site to their location." 

 A 2009 story has the average age of vets at that year's D-Day memorial at nearly 85.  That would make their average age on D-Day 20.  But then these were the guys still alive and fit enough to attend the memorial 65 years later. 

A discussion board at onesixthnet had this:

The average age of an US GI in World War II was 26. In Vietnam it was 19. (the link to the statistics page didn't work)

Histclo had this to add:

"Congress after Pearl Harbor passed a new Selective Service Act which removed restrictions and extended the draft to men aged 18-38 years of age (briefly to 45 years). All men between 18-65 had to register. "

I guess if you're over 50, any guy under 40 is a young man.  In that sense, the tweet wasn't inaccurate.  But if the average age was 26, then a lot of them were over 30 as well.  And there was one who was 56.  The tweet would seem to leave them out.

And then there is this post at Huff Post today:  about the woman who landed on the beaches with the men.

Each news outlet could send only one person, and the Collier's nod went to a guy named Ernest Hemingway, who didn't work for the magazine but had a famous name. He also happened to be the estranged husband of Martha Gellhorn. When Hemingway asked for her slot, he got it. The boys in charge turned down all the women who applied, forcing them to take "no" for an answer.
But not Gellhorn. She took action -- or more specifically took to the toilet. She stowed away in a hospital ship bathroom. The 5000-vessel armada stretched as far as the eye could see, transporting the men and nearly 30,000 vehicles across the English channel to the French shoreline. When it came time to land, Gellhorn hit the beach disguised as a stretcher bearer. In the confusion, no one noticed she was a girl. (And just incidentally, she got there ahead of Hemingway.)

'Young men' captures a lot of the people who landed on the beaches on D-Day but it also perpetuates the myths we have.  Adding the nuances often makes for a less catchy tweet.  It also takes someone who will check his facts before just tweeting.  And

"To the thousands of men and the woman who gave so much - Thank you."  isn't particularly clumsy prose.  

University of Alaska President Search Part 1: The Cultural Conflict

The members of the Board of Regents spend countless hours of their lives reading documents and going to meetings.  They make decisions that will affect the future of Alaska in all kinds of ways.  I'm sure that all of the board members are deeply committed to helping shape the University of Alaska into a great institution.

The faculty and staff have dedicated themselves to the same goal.  Faculty have spent more time getting an education than most people.  Tenured track faculty have gone beyond a bachelors degree, beyond a masters, to get a doctorate of one sort or another.  For most that doctorate represents a full time pursuit of knowledge and skills for three to seven years.  For some more.

Students, too, have a giant stake in the quality of the University of Alaska.  While most will only be there for four to eight years (many students have families and full time jobs while they are pursuing their degrees so it takes them a little longer to graduate), the better the faculty, the smaller the class sizes, the more efficient the administration, the more they get out of the time spent on their education.

All the various constituents of the university - this includes agencies and businesses that benefit from faculty research and expertise and from a well educated work force; it includes all the businesses that university employees and students patronize;  it includes all the people who take advantage of the sports events, theater and music productions, the book store and other speaker programs - have unique perspectives on what it takes to have a great university.


The Impact Of Corporate Thinking On American Life

But the university, like all other parts of American life these days, is split into different cultures.  One of the most profound conflicts in our country and the world these days pits the notion of management and the market against traditional ways of doing things.  We see corporate fishing fleets gaining control over small local commercial and sports fishers.  Corporate agriculture putting the family farm out of business.  Corporate sports putting profit over fun, health, and sportsmanship. We watch the disappearance of personal, private doctors' offices as doctors become employees of large impersonal, health care systems.   Unique locally owned businesses - book stores, hardware stores, gardening stores, bakeries, restaurants - are going out of business in the face of national and multinational big box stores and chains.   Americans have lost lots of jobs because corporate calculators see cheaper labor and lax safety and environmental laws overseas.

There's often a good reason for this.  Larger organizations can take advantage of economies of scale.  They can bargain better prices from suppliers.  They put everything under one roof surrounded by two or three football fields of parking lot. But it comes at a cost that consumers only slowly begin to realize.  Services - like expert advice about product selection; like warm greetings from store owners who know your name and that your son's birthday is coming up and who set aside a few of his favorite cookies;  one of a kind stores; specialty products the owner takes a personal interest in - are part of the extra cost you pay at the local merchants.  We only miss these when the stores close down, often because people used them for their expertise and helpfulness, but went to the big box stores to get the product cheaper.

Banks are another example.  Bankers were part of the community and you could resolve disputes with the manager.  Now you often have to call some 800 number, navigate the virtual menu before you even talk to someone to plead for reason on a $20 late fee (on top of the interest charge).   Corporate bank employees are under heavy pressure to lower costs and sell more services to the detriment of the customer.

We even see this idea of applying the business model in what should be the least business part of society:  places of worship.

Not all local shops were terrific, especially if they were the only store of their kind in town.  Or if you weren't white.   And technology - such as internet shopping and comparison shopping on one's phone - has changed how retail works.

But the concentration on the bottom line and quarterly profits has radically changed how Americans shop, live, and work.   And that bottom line mentality which is only concerned with things that can be measured, where every employee minute is monitored, where customers get smiles before they buy, but nasty collection agencies if they are late on paying for those purchases, has spread everywhere including universities.

This corporate mentality is so pervasive, that even raising issues with it, causes some to question one's loyalty to the United States, even though free speech and exchange of ideas is the essence of what makes democracy work.
 

Substantive Rationality versus Instrumental Rationality

One of my graduate professors wrote a book called The New Science of Organizations, which chronicled how the original Greek notion of rationality (seeking knowledge and understanding of the bigger issues of life, to overly simplify it) gradually became replaced by a new, instrumental (sometimes called technical) rationality.  This instrumental rationality was aimed at getting things done (without questioning whether they should get done.)  Over time, the original meaning of rationality was replaced by the second meaning.  People didn't even realize what was happening - that there were, in fact, two very different concepts and that one had replaced the other in our lives.  I still have a whole box of articles written from the time of ancient Greece to the present with which Dr. Guerreiro-Ramos traced this evolution.

He argued that both rationalities had their legitimate place in human society, but that the instrumental rationality that drives much of science and business was rapidly replacing the older substantive rationality so important to understanding what's important in human life.  In fact, as the more abstract substantive rationality was used less, people thought instrumental rationality was rationality.  They began using the business model to measure everything.   Ultimately dollars became the basic evaluator of everything as this way of thinking invaded other parts of life beyond the corporation.  Courts measured the value of a life in terms of how much a person would have earned had the person not died.  So a well paid SOB's life was worth more than a modestly paid saint's.   Universities are measured the same way - by how much financial value they add to a graduate's life, not by what students learn.   Ramos argued that our lives in the non-business realm - family, play, school, hobbies, sports, spiritual activities - should be measured by other standards, things like happiness, morality, decency, wisdom.

Applying this to the university

It is precisely this conflict between the business model's use of instrumental rationality and traditional academic use of the substantive rationality model - in this case scholarship and learning and truth and even the meaning of life - that is raging around universities everywhere.   Faculty are told to be more productive, which translated first into "more students per class" which would mean less expenditure for each tuition dollar.  It assumes a large lecture model as the ideal, the larger the better.  In fact, why not just do internet courses with thousands of students?  For certain students learning certain topics, this can work.  But this model ignores the possibility that education (as opposed to training) is about self examination, about learning to think critically, about exploring the moral implications of one's actions, about learning to write and learning to recognize the legitimacy of others' knowledge.  It ignores that this kind of learning  requires an intense interaction between a student and a teacher, among students, and among a teacher and a group of students.  The value of that interaction is diluted as more students are added beyond an ideal size. You can get a certain amount from reading a book.  You learn even more from discussing it with others.

Universities are being asked to do too many things

There are lots of things problematic with large modern universities.  For one thing, we decided, as a nation, that everyone needed a college degree, because that is the ticket to earning more money over one's lifetime.  (See how that technical rationality gets into everything, making, in this case, the purpose of a college degree, earning more money?)   A degree rather than an education has become the goal of many students.   Some online schools offer those degrees,  quickly, while the student works full time.  Just send in your money.  There are good online programs that serve students who otherwise couldn't get an education.  And there are schools that essentially sell degrees.

I do think that everyone would be better off learning to do the things I listed above - gaining self knowledge, critical and ethical thinking abilities, etc. - but I  know that not everyone has the aptitude or interest to pursue traditional college level academic studies.  There are lots of other important skills that society needs, but most have been sacrificed in K-12 to focus everyone into a college (translation:  academic, STEM, etc.) track.  We don't have tracks for less academic but still important vocational education which could also be more than technical training.  They could also include self awareness, critical and ethical thinking, but in areas that involve building, growing, and creating in more tangible disciplines than in academic disciplines.  Skilled craftsmen used to have a reasonable status in life and learning one's craft well involves learning the various sciences related to it as well as the social and political and economic realms in which a craftsperson lives.  Why not use carpentry or culinary arts or music or electrical work, or health care as the focus rather than history or math or political science?  Then bring in the other fields as they relate to one's focus.  Carpenters, nurses, cooks all need to know chemistry and biology.  Understanding the humanities, ethics, history, and government are also valuable to a craftsperson making a living.   People with different aptitudes would learn what they need much more easily when it's tied to doing what they really want to do, rather than some isolated, abstract academic subject.

But we've created an educational monster that forces everyone into an academic track starting in first grade.  And if you aren't ready to read or add and subtract when the curriculum guide says you should be,  you acquire a negative label like  'slow learner' and you (and others) start seeing you as less capable than everyone else.  School becomes increasingly oppressive as you're forced to perform in areas you don't like and aren't particularly good at. 

Did you forget about the president search?

This is a long introduction to my sense that there is a significant cultural divide at the university that separates the higher administration and everyone else.  The higher in the administrative scheme, the more you are expected to talk and think in the language of technical rationality - objectives, productivity, cost per credit hour, bottom line, work measures.  And the higher you get, the greater your salary, which is exacerbated because those folks are on 12 month contracts compared to faculty who are on nine month contracts.

Faculty, particularly those with doctoral degrees, are not in teaching for the money.  The cost of tuition, the foregone earnings while they kept studying, and the modest salaries of faculty are not a rational choice for someone who values money highly.  For their educational efforts, most could earn a lot more in other careers.  Faculty teach and pursue research because they are passionate about their subject matter and/or about teaching and research.  (Of course, there are exceptions to all such generalizations.)

When I look at the list of people on the Board of Regents, I see mostly people involved in the corporate world.  People trained at school and at work to think in terms of technical rationality.  Faculty are trained to think in terms of substantive rationality.  There's a huge cultural divide.

Imagine a corporate board filled with actors, historians, and musicians, and maybe one business person.  People would say, that's preposterous, even though one could point out that corporate products and services are sold to all those people.  But in our corporate driven society, few people see anything peculiar with loading the Board of Regents with corporate vice presidents and CEOs and just one retired faculty member appointed just this year.    

This leads us to a big conflict in people's vision of what a university should be.  Everyone's goal is a better university, but they have widely different ideas of what that would look like.  And that couldn't be more apparent in the search process that the Board of Regents put together to select a new president for the University of Alaska.

I'll try to get out another post with a  detailed look at the search process to demonstrate what I mean.  I'm using this post as an introduction because I think it's important to step back and discuss some of  larger issues that put the search process into context.  To try to understand how we got here.  There are good people on all sides.  (And maybe a few not so good ones too.)  Because they see things so differently, it's easy to dismiss the other groups' views as unimportant or wrong headed.  Faculty and staff are so closely involved in teaching and research and making things run, that they often don't step back and see the larger picture.   And the board members come into their positions with special knowledge and skills that lead them to apply their specialties to the problems they see at the university.  All sides have a lot to learn about each other and from each other. 

Roles Legislators Play: You Can't Tell the Players Without A Program

Having spent a fair amount of my life at university committee meetings gives me a certain insight in how people behave at meetings.  There are lots of ways I could cut this, but I'm trying to keep it simple.   So let me spotlight some types of people who make meetings longer and unproductive.  And a few that make things actually work.

While I'm naming distinct types of players and their motivations and behaviors, living flesh and blood people often play multiple roles at different times or even the same time.  And legislators can play these roles for noble or less noble reasons.  I've also spent a session in Juneau blogging the legislature, so I've worded my examples to apply more to the legislature.


Power - The motivation for this group is power.  Power is important.  Without it a legislator can't get anything done.  The current leadership, while seemingly consumed by power issues, have been unable to finish business, which is the legitimate use of power.    We're seeing some very unproductive uses of power this session, even more so than normal; games, like "I've got bigger balls than you."

The Bulldozer - comes to the committee meeting to get his pet project approved.  He'll do or say whatever it takes from persuasion to threats.  He tries to smile and be polite, but when things get tight and people get in his way, he can lose it and get nasty.  Truth is a tool to use only if it works.  The importance of the project (say an important assist for a key constituent) determines the pressure to get it passed.
Strategy:  There's no strategy that will deter the bulldozer except superior power or covert sabotage.  The advice  “Never strike a king unless you are sure you shall kill him” is apt here.

The Ego - Getting something passed or blocked is not the key motivator here.  Rather, power for the Ego is used to remind people the Ego has power and not to cross her.  She needs others in the committee to regularly acknowledge her importance and if they don't, she'll punish them, even if it means blocking an important and non-controversial piece of legislation.
Strategy:  Regular acknowledgements of her position of power will generally protect one from her wrath.  This won't necessarily get one's bill passed.

The Game Player - The GP doesn't really care about the content of the legislation.  For him all human interaction is a competitive sport;  he's there to win.  Winning is the purpose of life and he's honed his skills to win as often as possible.
Strategy:  Get the GP to bet on your cause before the game starts.

The Turf Protector -  The TP is playing a defensive game.  He's making sure he's not losing something - some power, some ideal, some respect.  He weighs each new proposal against its impact on him.   If there is any perception of intrusion on the TP's turf, he will fight it tooth and nail.
Strategy:  If there is a chance that the TP's turf will be infringed upon in any way, add in some offsetting benefit the TP wants. 

Order, Rules, Tradition - The motivation here is security, stability, order.  Change disturbs these folks, who tend to have at least a touch of OCD in them.

The Rule Stickler - For some people, the rules must never be broken.  While Non-sticklers also consider whether the potential consequences meet the spirit of the law, the RS, ignoring consequences, clings to the letter of the law.  Maybe this represents a personal struggle to find security in a rapidly changing world.  This conflict between rigidity and flexibility with rules is not something new to humans.  I've discussed this conflict  in more depth at  Let Justice Be Done Though The World Perish.   The RS would let the world perish before deviating from the rule.
Strategy:  Find a contradictory rule, better yet two.

The Typo Tyrant -  The TT loses all track of time while pointing out typos, spelling errors, and deviations from what the form specifically asks for.  The TT can argue over a single comma for 45 minutes. Typos cause the TT an actual physical irritation, like a bug bite, and they'll scratch it red while the rest of the committee waits to move on.
Strategy:  Spell check and grammar check aren't enough, but be sure to use them.  Ideally the chair will cut the TT off by putting her on a subcommittee to work things out with the bill's sponsor after the meeting.

The Ideological Virgin - IVs have some inviolable value that they will never compromise.  It could be preventing abortions, even if the fetus has no brain and the twelve year old mother was raped by her father.  Or it could be protecting ethnic minorities or the disabled from offensive language, even if the language is constitutionally protected.  Some legislators think cutting government is a sacred duty.   This form of ideological purity has been linked to Emanuel Kant whom I discuss in the "...world perish" link. 
Strategy:  Reason plays no role here.  Sometimes you can change words.  I heard one legislator who had pledged to vote against any tax, but who thought he might be able to vote for it if it were called a fee.  Best strategy is to get the Bulldozer and Game Player on your side. 

Image - Substance doesn't matter to these folks, they just want to look good in any number of ways.  Often the Power types have significant image issues - particularly the Ego.

The Slacker -   They come to meetings unprepared.  They didn't come to Juneau to work for crying out loud.  Yet they want to look like a real legislator so they feel compelled to comment on things they know nothing about.   They might randomly pick a sentence in a bill and ask a question about it.  It doesn't matter that it's already answered in the next line or it was just discussed.  They want to show they've done their homework, even if it was at the bar and the bill never got out of their briefcase. 
Strategy:  Tell them the bill protects their pet issue.  It doesn't matter if it's not true because they won't read the bill anyway. 

The Poseur -  The P is someone who feels like a loser and has copied the style, language, habits, and beliefs of people they consider the winners.  Being in the legislature is part of the disguise.  It gives them a sense of respectability.  Their makeover has fooled enough voters to get them elected.  In Juneau their biggest job is to avoid detection as a fraud.  They tend to be among the better dressed and better coiffed legislators and are particularly disparaging of people who remind them of their real selves.  Their vote is based on how they think it will impact their fake identity.
Strategy:  Compliment them on their tie or shoes, make them feel like insiders, and convince them their vote for your bill will improve their winner status. 

Public Service   These are the legislators who go to Juneau for the right reason - to make government work well to serve Alaskans.  Party isn't a big issue. Legislators motivated by a commitment to public service get past party labels and work things out.

The Do Gooder - Although this phrase is often used sarcastically,  I think it should be proudly reclaimed by those who are in the legislature to serve the public good and who are smart enough to recognize 'the public good' most of the time.  And I believe that most legislators think of themselves this way.  DGs aren't limited to one party or the other.   DGs  judge bills using rationality and empathy,  enriched by a value system based on the rule of law, the constitution, and the belief that humans can collectively improve their lot in life.   They may also take on some of the other roles at times.  They could act as Bulldozers to get an important law passed or become a Rule Stickler to block a bad bill. DGs are human beings and can get caught with image and ego problems just like all of us.  And they certainly get labeled as Game Players and Ideological Virgins by their opponents. 
Strategy:  Use reason, logic, appeals to fairness, justice, and the other values in the constitutions of the US and Alaska.  

The Leader - This rare bird uses her power to pass legislation that gets the state's business accomplished efficiently and effectively.  She understands all the various types of legislators and how to appeal to each to keep everyone moving fast enough to get things done, but slow enough to get them done well.  She takes advantage of the Rule Stickler's knowledge, but cuts him off when he's wandering from the task at hand.  She helps the Poseurs and Slackers become Do Gooders.  And she doesn't let Ideological Virgins prevent necessary compromise.  And she gets agreement on a balanced budget by the end of the legislative session.  She's helped by various Process Facilitators who are skilled at cutting through the bullshit, clarifying issues, and constructively outing  obstructionists. 

My guess is that this year we have more of the problem types in the legislature, fewer Process Facilitators, and no Leaders in leadership positions.


I hope this list is helpful in identifying behaviors of legislators, but be careful not to label too hastily or to assume that any of these roles is always bad.  The trick is to figure out a) which role is any particular legislator playing at any particular time, and b) to understand the legislator's general underlying motivation. 

Using power is NOT necessarily a bad thing. A Do Gooder who can't get legislation passed doesn't actually get any good done.  There are times when being a Rule Stickler is important - either to prevent unintended future problems (was moving the special session to Anchorage actually legal?) or to strategically prevent a bad bill from passing.  Even the Poseur may be an important role to play.  If you're in the minority, you have very little power and may have to pose a bit for the majority to get anything done.  And just because someone is well-dressed doesn't make them a Poseur. Be careful. 

I'd add one more type to consider:  Liars.  I was going to include them in this post, but it's already long enough.  I'll talk about this dimension in another post soon.

One last note.  I've written this using my experience on university committees as well as watching the Anchorage Assembly over the years and a session blogging the Alaska Legislature.  Lots of people have worked on lists like this.  I did not look at what others have written, though I'm sure ideas I've read in the past have resurfaced here.  But I'd argue similarities to other lists like this result from the fact that human behavior repeats itself around the world. 
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Spring Flowers And Bugs

The thalictrum tends to attract aphid larvae (at least that's what I've thought they were but I'm having trouble finding online confirmation) every year.  It's relatively easy to just clean them off.  But I was hoping that the blue damsel flies nearby might find them tasty.  But they didn't seem interested.

Our first iris is budding. 

Some of the dandelions have gone to seed already. 

I'm probably most excited about the lilac, which after 10 or fifteen years has a bunch of flowers.  Last year was the first it had any at all. 

And the tiny phlox flowers cover their green with a profusion of pink.

Dream Thoughts

I had amazingly real dreams yesterday morning - well I only remember the last one before waking - but I know there were more.  I attribute this having had a dish with lots of (store bought) mushrooms the previous night.

I can see everything vividly still, though the images are fading.  The colors were rich and I could see every detail.  But when I was telling my wife about the dream I realized that while there were conversations in the dream, I couldn't recollect voices the way I could the visuals.  As I think back to other dreams, I know I generally do see in color (and I've heard that not everyone does), but I don't remember hearing sounds they way I see things.  I know they were there, I know that people spoke or that there was music, but it's more like telepathy in my memory that actual hearing of sounds.

I have to pay attention in future dreams.  Do I actually hear sounds but they fade faster than the visuals?  What about smells?  (And I realize as I write this that I can say, "I can't hear sounds" but I can't find the equivalent word for this sentence, "I can see ______."  'Sights' doesn't fit as well as 'sounds' does in the first sentence. Nor 'images.'   Is there an English word that fits there that I'm just blanking on?

As I think about this, there is one exception to the absence of sounds.  There have been times when the clock radio has gone off while I'm still sleeping/dreaming and the voices on the radio mingle with my dreaming and actually redirect my dreams until I wake up and realize the sounds were from the radio.  But those are actual, external sounds I'm hearing in my dreams, not dream sounds in the way that I see the dreams.



OK, now that I've said what's on my mind, let me see what the internet can add to this.

My first search term was:  "Hearing sounds in dreams like seeing things"  resulted in titles related to simply hearing voices, in real life, not in dreams.

Then, 'Dream Sounds' had music for dreaming, but also this from dreamwell which matches my experience:

"Sounds are one of the most invasive things into our dreams.  But rather than wake us up, sounds often become incorporated into our dream, the external sound woven into the fabric of the dream as though it really belonged there."

This person writes, not as though these are her first person experiences, but as though this is a general rule, but she offers no references or evidence of this.  But it does match my experience.  And does 'Dreamwell' refer, as I first thought, to a well from which you get dreams?  Or is it meant more like the term "Sleep Well"?



Next:  "Do People Hear In Dreams?"  At Experience Project people answer the question, "In your dreams (night), do you see/hear/smell/feel/taste?  [This site has those disgusting ads with pictures and tabloid questions, so beware.]  Some commenters say yes, they see, hear, feel, smell.  Not much on taste.  One person wrote:

"There were scents, colors, people talking, and I could remember what they said quite often. The only thing I don't remember is taste. "

I know there was talking and other sounds in my dream, but I don't remember 'hearing' the sounds in the way I saw things.  I just know they were there.  But I still have visual memories of the dream, but not aural ones  By that I mean, I can remember what was said, but I can't hear it, while the images I can both still remember and see. 

Related to all this is a book I've just finished reading A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki in which dreams play a major role.  While there were provocative ideas in the book, overall I found myself impatient for it to end.  If it weren't for my book club, I might not have finished it.  I'll try to put more up about it because there were lots of interesting ideas.  It was an ambitious project, but I don't think she quite pulled it off.  Just mentioning it now because of the importance of dreams in it.  In one case she seems to use a dream to change what is happening in another part of the world.  It didn't work for me. 

Hiring A Mediator: Is Alaska's Governor Trying To Be The Adult?

Governor Walker has hired a mediator to try to get the two houses of the Alaska legislature to resolve their differences and pass a budget.

The governor has already had to send out layoff notices to state employees and if the budget isn't resolved by, well the new fiscal year this budget is supposed to cover begins July 1.   Below is my rough sense of what is happening in Alaska policy unmaking. 

Overview of Sticking Points

1.  Last year the legislature passed a $2 billion a year tax break for oil companies which includes big tax credits - to the tune of $700 million this year.  The Republican majorities in the House and Senate tell us this is contractual and can't be changed.  Though they have no problem breaking other contracts such as labor agreements. 

2.  The price of oil plummeted,  sharply cutting the state's basic revenue source.

3.  The budget passed by the legislature had a $3 billion gap between expenditures and revenue. 

4.  The state has a lot of money in different funds - mainly the Alaska Permanent Fund and the Constitutional Budget Reserve (CBR).  But the legislature needs a 3/4 majority to get into the CBR.  Democrats were needed to get to the CBR and they wouldn't go along with the budget unless the Majority approved Medicaid expansion, union contracts whose raises the legislature had previously approved, and a version of Erin's Law to teach kids how to protect themselves from sexual abuse.

5.  The majority talked about moving money around in the Permanent Fund which on technical grounds would let them tap the CBR with a simple majority.  This move only needed a majority, but six of their own, sensing political suicide (even talking about messing with the Permanent Fund Dividend Checks everyone gets has been taboo) and severe limitations on future budget options, refused to go along. 

6.  The governor refused to sign a budget that was $3 billion in the red and sent it back to the legislature, set up a special session in Juneau (the state capital), and told them to fund union contracts, pass Medicaid expansion, Erin's Law, and a balanced budget.  (The governor is a former Republican who ran as an Independent because he didn't think he could get through a Republican primary.  During the campaign, he teamed up with the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who became his Lt. Gov running mate.  A major National Guard scandal for the sitting Republican governor helped Walker become governor.)

7.  The Republican majorities in the House and Senate threw a hissy fit and refused to meet in Juneau.  They held ten and 15 minute meetings - long enough to open and adjourn - and then called their own special session in the newly, and luxuriously, refurbished Legislative Information Office in Anchorage.

8.  The House majority and minority caucuses finally came up with a compromise budget - which got a few things the Democrats wanted (no Erin's Law, no Medicaid) along with a promise to vote for access to the CBR, but only IF the senate went along. 

9.  The Senate rejected the House compromise and sent back their own new budget.

10.  This budget was rejected by both the Democrats and the Republicans unanimously in the House.

So that gets us to now.  The governor announced that he'd hired a man who mediates business disputes.  The governor is an attorney who is used to working through business deals with mediators if nothing else works.  

This seems to me like a logical and reasonable approach.  The governor says the legislature is squabbling over 1% of the budget and seemingly is willing to risk shutting down the government over what he thinks are really tiny differences.  I would guess that while the financial differences are small, the ego differences are still pretty big.

My main question when I heard about the mediation offer was about separation of powers.  I would suspect given the already mentioned bruised egos, having the governor meddle with the legislature by hiring a mediator would add even more capsaicin to an already fiery stew.

But it is the kind of thing an adult would do.  I think of something I heard during the Alaska political corruption trials in 2007 -2008.  I believe it was someone working with the prosecution who observed that the businessmen (there were no women indicted) all quickly came to settlement agreements while the politicians were the ones who tended to go to trial.   The businessmen, he hypothesized, knew how to assess their situation and cut their losses while the politicians protested to the end that they didn't do anything wrong.

The governor tends to take more of a business approach than the Republican politicians in power in Juneau (well, in Anchorage at the moment), despite their non-stop pro-business rhetoric.  And lest I be accused of picking on the Republicans, let me say in my defense, that they are, and pretty much have been, the folks who call the shots in Juneau.  The Democrats are relegated to scraps that fall from the Republican table.  They haven't had any power over anything until their votes were needed for the CBR.  The Democrats, from my perspective, have still been meek in their demands (maybe requests is a more accurate term) but the Senate seems galled that they have to acknowledge their existence at all. 

Anchorage Mayor Election - Review Of The Numbers And What They May Portend

As the Republican majority caucuses in the state house and senate act [fill in the blank], it's probably useful to look back at the April general election  and the May runoff in Anchorage, and consider what they might mean for future elections.

There are some interesting numbers to ponder.

First,  more people voted in the runoff than in the general election.  I thought that this was a first, though I'm not sure now.  The Municipal election results page which goes back to 1991, shows two runoff elections prior to 2015.  In 2009 there were a lot fewer voters in the runoff.  But 2000 isn't as clear.  The runoff election tally on the Muni website lists two different sets of totals.  One is less than the general election total (62,406) and one is more. 



You'd think the higher one might include absentee ballots, but election totals have lots of strange numbers so I'm not jumping to any conclusions.  Amanda Moser runs the Municipal Elections. She also believed that the prior runoffs had lower turnouts when I talked to her earlier today.  In fact, she pointed out that the Municipal Code only requires there to be as many ballots as in the regular election. 

“28.40.010 - Form.
B2
For each runoff election the municipal clerk shall ensure that the number of ballots prepared equals at least the number of voters who cast ballots in the election requiring the runoff election.”

Fortunately she didn't stick with the minimum and ordered more for the May election. 

The table below shows the results of the general runoff elections.

	Gen Election April 5, 2015		Runoff May 5, 2015
Candidate	# of Votes	Percent	# of Votes	Percent
KERN,	62	0.11%
SPEZIALE,	36	0.06%
AHERN	406	0.71%
BAUER	223	0.39%
BERKOWITZ	21,189	37.03%	42,869	60,75%
COFFEY	8261	14.44%
DARDEN	609	1.06%
DEMBOSKI	13,796	24.11%	27,705	39.25%
HALCRO	12,340	21.57%
HUIT	124	0.22%
JAMISON	48	0.08%
WRITE-IN	128	0.22%
Totals	57,222		70,574	+13,352

Second,  there were 13,352 MORE votes in the runoff than in the general election.

Third,  Berkowitz won by 15,164 votes in the runoff.

Fourth,  if you subtract the additional 13,352 votes in the runoff from Berkowitz' total, he would have had 29,164 votes, only 2,212 more votes than Demboski.  The percentages would have been
Berkowitz 51.5% to Dembosky 48.5%.  A much closer vote. 


So, what does this all mean? 

We have to be careful about reaching conclusions.  I'm speculating here.  But my sense of elections for the last ten years or so, has been that there is very low turnout and the only way Democrats have a chance to win when there are more Republicans is to get more people to vote. People who have just given up on the process or don't think their vote counts.

While we don't know how people who voted in the general election voted in the runoff, we do know that there were  13,352 more of them in the runoff than the general and that Berkowitz won by 15,164 votes.

Conservative v Liberal Showdown?
The runoff pitted a 30 something female candidate against a 50 something male.  She identified herself as the most conservative candidate in the general election and he identified himself as socially liberal and fiscally conservative.  She promised to veto a gay rights addition to the Municipal anti-discrimination ordinance and was strongly opposed to abortion.  He was pro-gay rights and pro-choice.  Gay rights hadn't done well in prior elections in Anchorage.  (But then again times are changing.)

We don't know if it was the ideological stands, the name recognition, past experience, preference for a male candidate, or personality, or campaign styles that made the difference here.  Probably different things for different voters.  But we do know that a liberal trounced a conservative in the biggest city in a generally red state.

My guess is that the extra voters who came out in the runoff made all the difference.  And if the Left can get them out again in the future,  the state could see big changes.

November 2016 Election Implications

My sense is that the House and Senate Republicans, who have been acting like the trolls who lived under the bridge during our current budget crisis special session,  exist in a giant echo chamber.  The leaders are told by the oil and construction and other major industry lobbyists how wise and powerful they are.  They're told they're doing the right thing and to stand tall because the people of Alaska are behind them despite what the biased media report.  And they apparently believe that.  Or the lobbyists are making them offers that the public simply can't match. 

Now, the 2000 Census redistricting resulted in enough gerrymandering that a number of districts are safely Republican (and safely Democratic.)  But in Anchorage, all but sixteen precincts went for Berkowitz, most of those in Demboski territory in Eagle River or Chugiak.  That means most Anchorage precincts voted for the more liberal (and also well known candidate).  I think this election tells us that with strong candidates, Democrats can win in most of Anchorage, just not the Eagle River/Chugiak area.

Despite the gerrymandering, there are 23 Republicans, 16 Democrats, and one non-affiliated who caucuses with the Democrats.  Rural Democrats have traditionally been lured into majority Republican caucus with the promise of pork for their districts if they join and the threat of legislative castration if they don't. Three of the current rural Democrats are part of the current Majority Caucus.

But given this Anchorage election, and the anger that the Republican majorities in the House and Senate are stirring up now, the Democrats could pick enough seats House seats to tie the Republicans.  If this happened the three renegade Dems along with the non-affiliated representative from Ketchikan, would likely join.  It won't be easy, but if the Democrats had three strong candidates in marginally Republican districts, and could get people who normally don't vote to vote, they could do it.  Of course, they would also have keep all the seats they presently have.

People think 2016 is too far away for people to remember, but I doubt next year's legislative session will be much prettier, even if the price of oil shoots back up.  And people need health care and they want good schools for their kids.  And they see the oil companies being protected in the budget fights while Alaskans are being told "it's time to make hard decisions." 

Just some thoughts I had after renewing the Anchorage mayoral election numbers.  

[NOTE:   When I first went to get the numbers from the Muni election site, I had some questions.    I talked to the MOA elections official Amanda Moser, but the numbers she was looking at were different from the ones I had on my screen.  It turned out there were different pages on their website linking to different (but very similar) results.  They've made some changes since this morning to fix that, but after the phone call, I found other inconsistencies in the numbers and emailed that information.  The runoff information I had originally found is now (as I write) gone.  Amanda emailed me the numbers and said she'll get the website fixed in the next couple of days.  As a blogger, I recognize how hard it is to keep updating old pages and how easy it is to miss bad links, so I'm not too concerned.  My dealings with that office over the last few elections have convinced me they're working really hard to keep things as accurate and transparent as possible.  You can get the general election (April) numbers at the Municipal Election Results site.  Here are some others tallies which may not be linked any longer (or may not be linked yet):

• Runoff Results (May 15, 2015)
• April General Election Results (May 15, 2015)
• The most recent runoff summary result (May 22, 2015)
• The most recent runoff statement of votes (by precinct) (May 22, 2015)]

[June 2, 9am Update:  I found the original Municipal page with the 2015 election results (it showed up in my history):  http://www.muni.org/departments/assembly/clerk/elections/pages/electionresults.aspx]