Life After Death: Random LA Shots

My mom was 93 and we've been able to spend a lot of time with her over the last two years as she lost her mobility, but not her wit.  She never wanted to be 'kept alive' and she was able to stay in her home with the help of a full time caregiver and our monthly visits.  She flunked the hospice test twice - including last May.  But this time she qualified as her body was starting to shut down and she stopped eating and drinking.  And even though it's expected, and it's at the end of a long, interesting, and very productive life of service to others, it's still the final, irrevocable cutting of ties to the past.

So we're doing our best to enjoy the memories as we start cleaning up things she wouldn't let us throw away while she was alive.  I understand.  She knew where things were.  Really, she'd tell me exactly where to find things.  But there were also way too many old plastic containers, pens, old papers, dried pussy willows, and bars of soap.  And so now we're trying to take stock of what there is.  What needs to go, what's still good.  We're reading old letters and the deed to the house, finding little surprises everywhere.

The rest of this post is just some pictures I've taken as we run our errands around LA with a little bit of commentary.

I was coming back from a bike ride to the beach to clear my head.  I couldn't imagine how this car got squeezed between the wall and the light post.  Someone told me another car, removed already, had been speeding down Pacific.  I'm guessing it clipped the front of this one and pushed it into there.  It was only a little later that I realized that I'd been right there on my bike not more than 30 minutes before this happened on the way to the beach.  And people think riding in the street isn't safe.

This iris was blooming outside my mom's window the day she died.

I was so relieved to learn I could get gluten free vodka!

I remember being impressed with the irony of this sign when I was a young kid.  It's still up in the garage 50 some years later.

We had to go downtown to get death certificates.  It took less time to fill out the application, wait in the short line, and have them printed, than it did to listen to the whole taped message on the phone so I could talk to an actual person to see if they were ready to be picked up.  Phone service - moderate.  In person service - excellent.  LA County Health Department.

After passing a parking lot where you could park for $4 for the first ten minutes, finding a meter that cost only fifty cents per hour seemed like a deal.  Plus it was right next to Mexicali restaurant, a modest but delicious lunch spot.  Here's the array of salsas. 

Korea Times - click to read more clearly

Since things went so much faster than expected at the health department, we took a leisurely ride along Wilshire Blvd to the attorney's office.  We passed the old Ambassador Hotel where Robert Kennedy was shot.  It now has a Robert Kennedy park in front and what looked like a school where the hotel was.  Across the street was a sign for the old Brown Derby, but the derby shaped building was gone.  The magnificent art deco Bullocks Wilshire department store now houses Southewestern Law school.

Korea Town edges into Wilshire as well and this sign for the Korea Times seemed a good reminder of how cities evolve.  

Here's an unfinished metro station near the LA County Museum of Art, as the subway is finally reaching west after years of opposition from Beverly Hills folks who didn't want to give the riffraff an easy way to their neighborhoods. 

And here's a lantana that I grew up with and is still blooming after so long.  But I didn't know that it was poisonous.  From the Illinois Veterinarian Medicine Library:

"Lantana (yellow sage) is a native of tropical Americas and West Africa. In the northern states including Illinois, it is grown as a garden annual reaching 12-18 inches tall . In the south, from Florida to California, it grows as a perennial shrub of 3-6 feet tall. In the tropics, it may grow even taller. Leaves are opposite, ovate, 1-5 inches long and 1-2 inches wide, with very small rounded teeth, somewhat rough and hairy. Leaves are aromatic when crushed. Flowers are borne in dense clusters 1-2 inches across on the axils near the top of the stem. Each flower is tubular with 4 lobes flaring to about 1/4 inch, initially yellow or pink gradually changing to orange and deep red. Often, the different colored flowers are present on the same cluster. Fruit is fleshy, greenish-blue to black, and berry-like with each containing one seed."

I didn't know it was poisonous:

"Animals in pastures with sufficient forage will often avoid Lantana, perhaps because of its pungent aroma and taste, but animals unfamiliar to the plant may ingest enough to affect them. Fifty to ninety percent of animals newly exposed may be affected. Foliage and ripe berries contain the toxic substances with the toxins being in higher concentrations in the green berries. Species affected include cattle, sheep, horses, dogs, guinea pigs, and rabbits (Ross, Ivan A. Medicial plants of the world. Totowa, N.J.: Humana. 1999. p. 187.)"

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Alaska is now the 30th state to accept Medicaid expansion

An email this afternoon from my Alaska State Rep, Andy Josephson says:

"Today, Alaska Governor Bill Walker announced plans to take advantage of federal funding to expand eligibility for Medicaid in Alaska. This action is supported by the Alaska Independent Democratic Coalition, which made Medicaid expansion a priority during the First Session of the 29th Alaska Legislature. Medicaid expansion comes with tremendous benefits including over a billion dollars in new federal revenue over the next six year, the creation of 4,000 jobs, and $1.2 billion in additional wages and salaries. Studies suggest Medicaid expansion would result in $2.49 billion in increased economic activity across Alaska.

There are multiple legal opinions showing that the Governor has the authority to expand Medicaid. Medicaid expansion is supported by the public and, I believe, a majority of lawmakers but that did not sway the Majority leadership, which refused to allow an up or down vote on the matter. I believe the Governor’s decision is justified based on the merits of the argument and the inaction of the Alaska Legislature. . . ."

The Republican leadership in the House and Senate in Juneau refused to pass this and fortunately Walker has found a way to do this administratively.  They have been and still are wrong on so many issues:  climate change, medicaid expansion, oil taxes, big construction projects, passing budgets that ignored warnings about declining oil revenues year after year, etc, etc. etc.  Influence from major donors/lobbyists (oil and construction particularly) or national far right wing pressure like the Koch's ALEC keep them from getting it right, from making decisions that benefit Alaska in the long term.   One can make micro-level arguments for many of the things they did or didn't do, but the long term evolution of things has proved their blindness to the larger issues.  

I make that fairly sweeping statement in light of this example of the Alaska Republicans who spearheaded the move for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman and who fought the addition of lgbt folks to Anchorage's anti-discrimination ordinance:

"On Thursday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unanimously ruled that sexual orientation discrimination is already illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner reports, the EEOC's groundbreaking decision effectively declares that employment discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers is unlawful in all 50 states."  [From Slate]

I guess the Anchorage ordinance has been effectively amended, at least in employment.  

And in light of Obama's visit to the Federal Correctional Institution El Reno near Oklahoma City to highlight the horrendous outcomes of the simplistic War on Drugs and Three Strikes You're Out programs which gave non-violent drug offenders long prison sentences.  This resulted in (Obama's stats) the US, with 5% of the world's population having 25% of the world's prisoners.  In ripping apart families, huge costs of prisons, and so many lives wasted behind bars.  And the Right's solution of privatizing governmental functions including prisons, meant there was now a new industry with a vested interest in expanding the prison population.  This is also in light of the legalization of marijuana in a number of states - both medical marijuana in many states and recreational marijuana in a few. 

El Chapo Prison Break Background

I ran across a documentary on the Mexican drug trade a while back that will give you some background on El Chapo, who broke out of prison the other day. 

Here's the post with the video "Narco Bling" (at the bottom).  Well worth a look. 

Will try to get back to regular blogging soon. 

 [Trying again to get Feedburner to work.]

February 27, 1922 - July 11, 2015

An eventful two days.  Our kids and grandkids got here yesterday. My mom was well along, but she clearly knew we were here.  And then we all said good bye.   She left at noon today.  At home. 





This picture with her brother was on the dresser.  I think this would have been about age 3 - 90 years ago. 


















And this was in May of this year, playing with her great grandson. 





I don't put much family stuff up but this is an important day in my life.  She had a long, interesting, and mostly good life, with some big tragedies as well.  She was ready, but those of us left behind are never really ready. 

Early Morning Departure

5am at the Anchorage Airport. 



 





Rachel Dowdy's jaunty geese. 

And the gift shop in the Anchorage Airport has T-shirts poking fun at gun rights folks. 



Heading south.  Mom's taken a turn for the worse. 

U Of Alaska President Search Part 4: Finalist Johnsen Meets With Community (and me) At UAA

My blogger identity and my human identity came together yesterday afternoon when I went to the newish sports center at UAA for the community forum with president finalist Jim Johnsen.  Fortunately, I thought it was at 4pm so, while I didn't get there until 4:10, I was early for the real time of 4:30.  I checked out the view from the Sports Grill looking through the glass wall down to the

arena floor.  (Someone later asked Johnsen whether more student residences wouldn't have been a better use of the money than this slick arena.  He diplomatically said he tried not to second guess past leaders' decisions, knowing that various factors come together in a way that make some decisions right in the context.)




Anyway,  I used my extra time to call my mom who went back on hospice earlier that day, and I waited for the tv interview to end, before I went over to talk to the finalist, knowing that neither of us were probably too excited about meeting given that I'd posted the day before my belief that he had padded his resume over publications.  He said, "Hi Steve" as I walked over and we shook hands as I acknowledged the awkwardness, he thanked me for at least giving him a heads up email before posting, and we got past it and chatted amiably.  If he would have preferred to make me vanish, it wasn't obvious, and I sincerely told him that if he becomes president that I would support him however I could.  I'm not a confrontational person and coming face-to-face with the man I'd just written about was uncomfortable, but we both worked to put each other at ease.

It wasn't til after the event that I thought back to several weeks ago when I asked if I could interview him then and he said the search committee had told him not to talk to folks before the campus visits.  I think my inability to talk to him (other than brief emails) prior to posting put us both at a disadvantage.  It set me up to wonder why the regents didn't trust him (or the media) enough to let us talk and made him less of a person and more of a character in a story where I had to fill in the details.  The email exchange we had over the publications was cordial but factual and we didn't discuss why he characterized them as he did in the resume.  If we had met and talked, I know we would have gone into more depth that would have given him a chance to give his view of the resume.   As I think about all this now, I realize that in our former interactions back in the late 1990's, we were cast in adversarial roles - he was labor relations director and I was grievance coordinator for the union.  And with him based in Fairbanks and me in Anchorage, when we met it was basically over business. 

There were appetizers out and people found their way up to the grill and by the time Chancellor Case introduced him there were about 40 people in the room.  He gave his introductory comments - which he's repeated maybe ten times in the last two days first in Juneau and yesterday in Anchorage [Fairbanks]- articulately.  He went on to answer people's questions - about graduation rates, how the university can participate in the state discussions about the economy, about tuition and other student fees, the residence halls v. the sports center - knowledgeably.  He spoke in detail revealing a good grasp of the Alaska situation and awareness about what's done Outside in similar situations.

He doesn't have the commanding presence of the generals - past president Hamilton, current president Gamble - which is not a bad thing.  Nor does he have the nice guy presence of the third general - Chancellor Case - who introduced him at the gathering.  He said he's used to thinking about himself as a bit of an introvert, but that he really has enjoyed the past two days getting to talk to so many people.  And perhaps that's a good description of his manner - the introvert working hard to pass in an extrovert role.  That's an observation, not a criticism; I can relate to that myself.

University of Alaska Presidential Search Part 3: Resume Padding -Or- When Is A Publication Not A Publication?

It's with a heavy heart that I have to conclude that UA President finalist Jim Johnsen has padded his resume.  In a section labeled "Selected Publications"  there are three items listed.  None of them can be legitimately called a 'publication.'  While this may seem trivial to some, in the academic world where he has spent a good part of his career and where this job would be, publications make or break a faculty career.

Dr. Johnsen, according to his resume, has never been in a tenure track position, so actually having publications is not something that would have been required of him.  Sure, having some publications might enhance his standing, but they aren't necessary.  My concern is that he padded his resume to make his accomplishments look like more than they were.  And while this section was labeled 'Selected Publications,' implying that there are other works that would be legitimately called publications in an academic setting, there aren't.  The rest of this post will give the details of the documents identified in the resume and discuss the issues of academic publications and resume padding.


Finalist Announcement

When the one finalist for the UA president was announced, I was partly surprised by who it was - someone I had interacted with in my role as a faculty union grievance representative - but even more so by the fact that there was only one candidate.  There was a search in 1998 that resulted in only two candidates, but the 1990 and 2010 searches had four and three respectively.

The Board of Regents webpage had a link to the resume.  As I looked through it I saw there were three items listed under "Selected Publications."  They were all topics that related to University of Alaska labor relations, my connection to Johnsen.

Screen shot from Jim Johnsen resume

So I googled to find them.  I got nothing.

The 'Publications'

I called the UAA Consortium library reference desk and the librarian said she had been looking unsuccessfully herself.  She suggested I contact the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education, where  "The Restructuring . . ." piece was supposed to be in their 2000 proceedings.  (I had already been to their website, but hadn't done more.)  So I called and asked if they had a copy. Michelle told me that they had copies of all the proceedings online, but that the organization had been in turmoil for about five years and their collection went from 1972-1999 and then 2006-the present.  The years 2000 - 2005 are listed as unavailable.

The next day my inbox had two copies of that paper.  Both the people I'd talked to had contacted Jim Johnsen.  The National Center sent me a copy they got from Johnsen and Johnsen himself sent me a copy with a promise to send the other two when he got home over the weekend, which he promptly did.

The first one - "The Restructuring . . ." -  looked like a rough draft, partially in outline.  Something that one might use as notes for a presentation.  I called the National Center for the Study of  Collective Bargaining in Higher Education back and asked about their proceedings; were they refereed or edited?  I was told they were, at best, loosely edited for typos, but were basically presenters' papers printed out for conference attendees.  Some conferences publish peer reviewed and edited conference proceedings.  That wasn't the case here.  And, the year that Johnsen presented this paper, the organization was in turmoil.  The Center didn't have any copies of proceedings for that year.  I later emailed Johnsen to see if he had a copy of the proceedings and he didn't.  That doesn't mean something wasn't printed up that year, but neither the Center nor Johnsen has copies.

Then I got the other two papers.

The Essential Elements of a Faculty Collective Bargaining Agreement in Higher Education  says "30 September 2008 draft" at the bottom of each page.  In the text it says, "In this chapter . . ." but the citation didn't include the name of a book.  This was clearly not a publication.

Innovation in Faculty Collective Bargaining  is another conference presentation, but not a publication.

So I emailed Jim Johnsen and asked:

1.  “The Essential Elements of A Faculty Collective Bargaining Agreement in Higher Education”  Is there an actual published version of this?  It says Chapter and it says “draft” so I was wondering.

2.  "Innovation in Faculty Collective Bargaining"  - This says “Presented at” and begins, Thank you.  Good morning.  Is there a published version of this somewhere?

3.  “The Restructuring of the University of Alaska System”  - This mentions Proceedings.   Given the nature of the paper - lots of outline - I’m assuming this was not peer reviewed?  Was this anything more than all the papers at the conference were bound for attendees?  Do you have a copy of the proceedings?

4.  Your resume has these documents in a section called “Selected Publications.”  Are there additional publications as that suggests?  Can you give me links to them?

Jim Johnsen replied quickly:

"Happy to clarify, Steve.

"Elements" was written for a book, edited by Dan Julius, in faculty bargaining. Last I heard (several years ago) it was published by some academic press. Not sure of its status.

"innovations" was a presentation at the CUNY higher education collective bargaining conference that I was told would be included in the proceedings of the conference. I refer you to CUNY for those papers I presented there over the years that were in the conference proceedings.

As to other papers, I gave UA all the papers I managed to hold onto through numerous personal and job moves over the years."

I don't know of any faculty member who doesn't know if the chapter he wrote got published or not.  Maybe if they've got 30 chapters in various books they might not remember about one or two of them, but if it's your only publication, I'd think you'd remember for sure.  So I checked further.

I quickly found an email address for Dan Julius and asked him if the book had ever been published.  He also wrote back quickly:

"Good day. What Dr. Johnsen says is true. He did write that chapter and it was accepted for the book. The book has not yet been published due to a variety of reasons having to do with the editors, one of whom is myself. So the book has not been published yet, if it is, Jim's chapter will be included. I hope this helps.

Dan Julius"

So, it hasn't been published and 'if it is' Jim's chapter will be in it.


Does it matter? Publications

The tenure and promotion process in universities is excruciating for most faculty.  The worklife of a college professor these days is much more stressful than it was in the recent past even, and for many, particularly mothers, it can be impossible. (For example or example 2)  In UAA tenure reviews all the documents are scrutinized by the chair, by the college promotion and tenure committee, by the dean, by the campus wide committee, the provost, and then the chancellor.  The decisions can end someone's career.  Of the three parts of the faculty workload - teaching, research, and service - the most difficult for the majority of faculty, in teaching institutions like UAA, is research because research involves long-term projects that have to be squeezed out on top of the short term demands of teaching and service activities.  In some departments the criteria are vague and in other departments they are listed fairly clearly, such as "at least X peer reviewed articles or book chapters and Y  presentations." 

From Wikipedia:

Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal article, book or thesis form. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted on the Internet is often called "grey literature". Most scientific and scholarly journals, and many academic and scholarly books, though not all, are based on some form of peer review or editorial refereeing to qualify texts for publication. Peer review quality and selectivity standards vary greatly from journal to journal, publisher to publisher, and field to field.

While different disciplines define their publications differently, by no stretch of my imagination, do the documents listed under 'Selected Publications' fall into the category of publications.  These are conference presentations, the first of many steps toward publication.

Does It Matter?  Enhancing One's Resume

From CNN article  "Resume Padding: Inconsequential or Inexcusable?":

"It may sound crazy.  Why would a high-ranking executive lie about his or her credentials, especially now, when all it takes is a quick phone call or Internet search to verify information?

Yet it happens more often than you might think. From a white lie about time spent as a customer service rep to a whopper about earning an MBA, résumé padding occurs regularly across industries, experts say. In a 2010 survey of 1,818 organizations, 69% reported catching a job candidate lying on his or her résumé, according to employment screening service HireRight."

The 2012 article goes on to ask readers what they think should happen to the then newly hired Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson.   A dissident shareholder had pointed out that Thompson's resume said he had BA degrees in computer science and accounting. Many called for his resignation, others defended him.

"Thompson has a degree in accounting, not computer science, but frankly at this point in his career does it really matter what he studied as an undergraduate?" Newsweek technology editor Dan "Fake Steve Jobs" Lyons asked in a Daily Beast column.

"(Thompson is) 54 years old, has been CEO of PayPal, and before that held high positions at Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa, and Barclays Global Investors. He's qualified to run Yahoo."

A 2014 BBC Capital article finishes the Scott Thompson/Yahoo story:

Remember Scott Thompson? He was the chief executive who had to leave Yahoo in 2012 for misstating his educational credentials on his resume. Thompson had said that he graduated with a computer-science degree, but it turned out that the university he attended didn’t offer such a degree until he had completed school. When this fact came to light, he left after just four months in the job.

In Scott Thompson's case, it probably didn't matter if he had a second degree in computer science.  He'd proven himself on the job since he graduated from college.

The real issue is integrity, honesty.  Is this someone who is straightforward?  If he lies in little things like this, when else might he sugarcoat the facts?

The same applies to Jim Johnsen.  Johnsen hasn't been in a tenure track position or any other job that required he have publications.  It's good that he has some conference presentations.  What's not good is that he felt the need to enhance his record by calling those papers, 'publications.'

Let me put this into context.  I was a grievance representative when Jim Johnsen was the university labor relations officer.  If I had had a faculty member whose resume had the same sort of 'Selected Publications" section, he would have been turned down for tenure and required to leave the university.  And if that employee would have appealed and it got up to the statewide appeal level, I have absolutely no doubt that Jim Johnsen would have had no mercy in his rejection of those publications.  And rightfully so.  I probably would have done my best to talk the faculty member out of making an appeal in the first place because there would have been no way he could have won.

I challenge the Board of Regents to take this issue seriously.  I know they are in a hard spot.  They've spent time and resources on this search since President Gamble announced his retirement last December.  They felt at the end that there was only one candidate who was worthy to be sent out to the campuses to meet with the university community. 

But I would argue that it doesn't bode well for the University of Alaska to hire a president who would pad his resume to make his record look better than it is.  Yahoo's board knew it probably didn't matter whether Scott Thompson had one or two degrees.  But he still had to leave.  It was about integrity. 

When Dennis McMillian retired recently as CEO of the Foraker Group, he wrote some parting thoughts in their newsletter, including some "Dennisisms" on hiring.  Here are three of the six:

Hiring:

• Stop hiring people based on superficial qualities — it’s easy to put lipstick on a pig. Rather, hire the person with the right values and attitude.
• Skills can be taught, attitude cannot.
• Obviously, some positions require credentials, but even in those situations, rate values and attitudes higher than degrees or experience, then you will minimize turnover and maximize your organization’s capacity.

People with the right values don't embellish their resumes. 

The Board of Regent has posted a Leadership Profile for the UA President (in part):

"The next president should continue to elevate UA’s national visibility and be effective with relevant agencies of the federal government. He or she should work effectively with University of Alaska Foundation leaders. He or she must be a coach for chancellors, a wise counselor for the board and trustworthy resource for the legislature."

I doubt that a person who has padded his resume would positively elevate UA's national visibility.  And the chancellors, the board, and the legislature would be constantly wondering whether his coaching and counseling was trustworthy.

This sort of post is troubling to publish.  It does not make me happy.  I'd rather this search were over and the university could move along to find creative responses its many challenges.  But I don't see that I have a choice.  It's better we know this before anyone is hired than afterward as in the Yahoo case.

Who Am I? Who Are You?

The term motorist has been used over and over again to describe Rodney King. 

"Rodney King, the black motorist . . ."

"charged with using excessive force in arresting black motorist Rodney King  . . ."

 I don't think I've ever actually said the word 'motorist' in a sentence, but somehow King will be forever known as 'motorist Rodney King.'

I mention this because we are all victims of labels - labels others use about us and labels we use about others.  I suspect that categorizing things we see is part of our DNA.  It is an important survival tool to quickly determine whether something approaching us is dangerous or not.  But once we've labeled another person, we no longer have to figure them out.   The label(s) we connect them to allows us to stop thinking about who they are.  She's a doctor.  He's homeless.  A convict.  Each of those labels carries a huge amount of extraneous baggage that may or may not fit any particular individual we've so labeled.  Our understanding of other people is trapped in the labels we use as much as those others are trapped by others' labels of them. 

When I started this blog, I didn't want readers to look at my profile and get a convenient label that would allow them to judge what I wrote based on who they thought I was, derived from a few labels in the profile.   Instead I wanted people to evaluate what I had to say based on what I wrote.  And I figured if someone read enough posts, they'd start 'knowing' me in a far more meaningful way.

I know.  It's really frustrating.  You want to know if I'm young or old or in-between.  What work I do.  You want labels to capture who I am, to help you figure out what my writing means.   My name (Steve) reveals my sex.  And I do disclose where I live.  Since I started blogging, other bloggers and websites have identified my full name and profession.  And my posts, on occasion, reveal other tidbits about who I am.  I do acknowledge that the labels can be helpful.  And that my leaving them out makes you work harder to understand who I am, and more importantly, what I'm writing.  But I don't think hard work is a bad thing and that it gives us more authentic knowledge of people and ideas.   

Think about the labels you use to tell others who you are.  They give people a short cut to knowing who you are.  But does 'nurse' or 'pilot' or 'fast food cook' really convey who you are?  Do you ever hide labels or choose a more favorable version?  I suspect mostly labels tell us where in the societal pecking order you are.  They tell me how much deference I should or shouldn't give you.  They don't really tell me who you are.

I'm particularly fond of, and influenced by, anthropologist Clifford Geertz' concept of 'thick description.'  Here's a take on it from historian Dr. Christopher Knowles' blog How It Really Was*:

‘Thick Description’ is a term used by the distinguished anthropologist Clifford Geertz. In an essay on: ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’, he explained that his understanding of the culture of a people was not their "total way of life" or "a storehouse of learning", let alone their art, music or literature, but ‘webs of significance’, writing that:

"Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning."

Geertz described how he had taken the term ‘Thick Description’ from the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, who distinguished between a ‘thin description’ of, for example, a physical action, and a ‘thick description’ which includes the context: when and where the action took place, who performed it and their intentions in doing so. For example, the same physical act of someone "rapidly raising and lowering their right eyelid" could be a nervous twitch, a deliberate wink to attract attention or communicate with someone, or an imitation or mockery of someone else with a nervous twitch or winking. It all depends on the context, the aims of the person performing the action, and how these were understood by others.

 I want you to dig a little deeper than simple labels.  Look at the webs I weave.  Who I am is really not all that important.  This, some might say, perverse, exercise I'm asking of you is also related to the underlying theme of this blog:  how do you know what you know?  I'm asking you to resist the easy path to a conclusion and to reexamine how you know things, know people, know yourself.  To turn over your assumptions and see what's lurking underneath.   

*Dr. Knowles, in his blog profile, also offers some advice that would contradict what I'm writing here:

"Before you study the history study the historian' as E H Carr said in his classic work 'What is History.' (Macmillan 1961). 'When we take up a work of history, our first concern should be not with the facts which it contains, but with the historian who wrote it.'"

And this advice is good too.  But I'm asking you  to find the blogger, if you must, by studying the blog.  

[This post is part of an attempt on my part, as this blog approaches its ninth anniversary, to update some of my descriptions of what this blog is about and who the blogger is.]

July 4 Anchorage Symphony In The Park - Even Maestro Berkowitz

It was grey.  Micro-droplets were floating down.  The grass was damp, but once the music started the moisture abated and we had a great old fashioned concert in the park.  It wasn't exactly a white round wooden bandstand, but it kept the orchestra assured of having dry instruments.

Maestros Berkowitz and Fleischer

It wasn't til near the end that they introduced Maestro Berkowitz.  Based on my junior high school orchestra days, I'd say this was proof again that orchestras can do fine without a conductor.  But he had a good time with the baton.

click to enlarge and focus

I took these pictures before it got crowded. 

These traveling members of the UW marching band added a lot of enthusiasm to the afternoon.

And I don't expect there are too many 4th of July concerts that include Alaska Native* dancers.  I wonder how many others include any Native American performances. 

There were lots of dogs and kids.  The little ones  - who were awake - were having a great time moving to the music. 






















I find something disturbing about these giant blow up creatures, but can't quite put my finger on it yet. 

Mayor's Inauguration Part 2: A Few More Shots

There were a lot of folks at the inaugural the other day.  I did an earlier post of all the past mayors who were there.  Here are some other images to show who some others in attendance. 






























Andrew Halcro, who was third in the original election and then threw his support behind Berkowitz in the runoff was there to watch the new mayor sworn in.















Noah Berkowitz-Kimmel introduced the new mayor. 

Former borough mayor Jack Roderick talking later to Willie Hensley

And there were a few dogs in attendance too.  I guess they want to make sure dog parks are a priority.