Al Jolson is nearby in the opposite direction.
Hank Greenberg is also there.
And then there's Dinah Shore.
A lesser luminary, very close by, is David Janssen.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
In Good Company
We went to the cemetery again to observe my mom's urn being placed in the crypt next to my brother, step-father, and my in-laws. As we walked around nearby, we noticed a few more well known inhabitants, including one of the more recent - Leonard Nimoy, not too far away.
Hank Greenberg is also there.
And then there's Dinah Shore.
A lesser luminary, very close by, is David Janssen.
Hank Greenberg is also there.
And then there's Dinah Shore.
A lesser luminary, very close by, is David Janssen.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
"Even one inch of rain in Los Angeles can generate more than 10 billion gallons of runoff."
One of the most important ideas I've encountered in recent years, was in E.O. Wilson's The Future of Life. He talks about how the earth naturally cleans the water and the air and how when humans cut trees, fill in wetlands, and pave the earth, we interfere with that natural infrastructure. Then when we try to replicate what nature did for free, it costs us a fortune. Wilson cites a 1997 study that estimated the annual value at $33 trillion.
So when I read this LA Times piece, I thought I should note it as one more example of how humans have unknowingly tampered with the natural regeneration and cleansing system that the earth provides. In this case replenishing the aquifers.
Up to now, our capitalist system hasn't applied the cost of such externalities of our economic activities. (For a graphic economics explanation of externalities, see this Khan Academy video.) So when contractors bulldoze trees and replace them with a building and parking, the cost of the lost air cleansing and water retention those trees did is not not reflected in the price of the new building. Instead the cost is born by society as a whole. This means that businesses have an incentive to destroy the environment, because doing so doesn't affect them.
Unless there are strict environmental protections in place and/or government imposes some way to charge for the externality. A revenue neutral fee on carbon is, for example, seen by many as a way to put the cost of global warming into the price of carbon based products. Here's an example of how a carbon fee would work.
Meanwhile what I'd like lots of people to understand is this concept of the natural recycling the earth does and how messing with those processes really is damaging a very important natural infrastructure that has great impacts on the earth and the humans that live on earth. The pavement in California is just one example. By the way, the author calls for replacing it with more porous material that will allow rainwater to percolate down to the aquifers.
Ecosystems services are defined as the flow of materials, energy, and information from the biosphere that support human existence. They include the regulation of the atmosphere and climate; the purification and retention of fresh water; the formation and enrichment of the soil; nutrient cycling; the detoxification and recirculation of water; the pollination of crops; and the production of lumber, fodder, and biomass fuel. [p. 106]
 |
| Flying into LA |
"As we have paved our cities, covering the land with impervious concrete and asphalt, less and less rain is recharging urban groundwater; it’s running off all those hard surfaces into storm sewers and out to the ocean. Every year, hundreds of billions of gallons of storm water wash into Santa Monica Bay, Long Beach Harbor and the San Francisco Bay. Even one inch of rain in Los Angeles can generate more than 10 billion gallons of runoff."Think about the costs of building desalination plants, while LA is pouring hundreds of billions of gallons of fresh water into the ocean. I don't know if that total is all the water that goes into the ocean or just the amount that would have stayed in the soil and/or drained down into the aquifers.
Up to now, our capitalist system hasn't applied the cost of such externalities of our economic activities. (For a graphic economics explanation of externalities, see this Khan Academy video.) So when contractors bulldoze trees and replace them with a building and parking, the cost of the lost air cleansing and water retention those trees did is not not reflected in the price of the new building. Instead the cost is born by society as a whole. This means that businesses have an incentive to destroy the environment, because doing so doesn't affect them.
Unless there are strict environmental protections in place and/or government imposes some way to charge for the externality. A revenue neutral fee on carbon is, for example, seen by many as a way to put the cost of global warming into the price of carbon based products. Here's an example of how a carbon fee would work.
Meanwhile what I'd like lots of people to understand is this concept of the natural recycling the earth does and how messing with those processes really is damaging a very important natural infrastructure that has great impacts on the earth and the humans that live on earth. The pavement in California is just one example. By the way, the author calls for replacing it with more porous material that will allow rainwater to percolate down to the aquifers.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
From Ashes To Ashes And Flowers
 |
| Al Jolson's grave |
The day ended at a film showing sponsored by the LA Times of Loreak (Flowers), the Spanish entry for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. In one scene a key character's casket is put into the crematorium, burned up, and then the ashes are collected and put into a plastic bag, and slipped into an urn. I don't think I've ever taken an urn full of ashes to a cemetery before (though I did go pick them up from the mortuary) and I've never seen such a detailed depiction of a cremation before in a movie. Or maybe I have and I've forgotten, and this one caught my attention because of this morning's task.
Watching the film I began to wonder why I couldn't catch a single word of the Spanish. Nada. Is Spanish Spanish that different from Mexican Spanish? No, I've understood bits and pieces of other Spanish movies. This sounded totally strange. At the end, I thought it could be Catalan or Basque. I thought Catalan was more related to Spanish and so picked Basque.
Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga and more gentleman with the film whose name I didn't catch. And the first question he asked was about having a Basque language film submitted for an Oscar. (It's still got a long way to go since 81 countries have submitted films in this category.)
I enjoyed the movie. It had a much slower pace than American films, but that was ok, and the filmmakers said afterward that was deliberate, because the film was about what was in the characters' heads and that takes time to understand. The story line included a very clever intertwining of events. It wasn't dense or obscure and if one takes a bit of time to think it through, one can get it, but it was nice to hear from the filmmakers themselves what they tried to do and why.
This was a good warm up for the Anchorage International Film Festival. By the way, my last posts never got Feedburned to other blogrolls. I did a post on the documentaries in competition at AIFF this year. If you missed that post, it's here.
AIFF 2015: Documentaries In Competition - Intro
I think my original post was just too long for Feedburner to send out to blogrolls. So I'm going to give you the list of films in competition here, and a link to more details about these films in the original post.
Again, you can find much more information about each film and when and where they are playing here. Here are a few visual teasers:
Note: This list is only the documentaries in competition. There are a lot more, and this category has been strong at AIFF in the past. Here's a post with a bit more on some docs not in competition.
| Docs in Competition | Director | Country | Length |
| Children of the Arctic | Nick Brandestini | Switzerland | 93 min |
| Lost & Found | Nicolina Lanni, John Choi | Canada | 82 min |
| Love Between the Covers | Laurie Kahn | Australia, United States | 83 min |
| Circus Without Borders | Susan Gray, Linda Matchan | United States | 69 min |
| Madina’s Dream | Andrew Berends | United States | 80 min |
| Bihttoš | Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers | Canada | 14 min |
| Man in the Can | Noessa Higa | United States | 38 min |
| Superjednostka | Teresa Czepiec | Poland | 20 min |
| The House is Innocent | Nicholas Coles | United States | 12 min |
Again, you can find much more information about each film and when and where they are playing here. Here are a few visual teasers:
 |
| Children of the Arctic Director Brandestini |
Note: This list is only the documentaries in competition. There are a lot more, and this category has been strong at AIFF in the past. Here's a post with a bit more on some docs not in competition.
AIFF 2015: Documentaries In Competition -Tsunami, Circus, Whales, Murder, Genocide, Poland, Family, And More
AIFF 2015: Documentaries In Competition
The Documentaries have been one of the strongest parts of the Anchorage International Film Festival and this year looks like no exception. I've been working on this post on and off for two weeks now and I need to move on to other parts of the festival.
"In competition" means these films were selected by the screeners to be eligible for awards at the festival. "Features" are 'stories' that are full length. While there are always other features which different folks like better than those in competition, it's a good bet these are among the best features at the festival. This year's picks are all from outside the US.
The point of this post isn't to tell you what each of the features in competition are about, but rather to just give you a glimpse of something about the film I found interesting.
I've added when the films play with the overview of each film. (Let me know if you catch any errors.) If you have to make hard decisions, I'd recommend going to the films where the filmmakers will be present, which I've marked in red. When you're using the festivals schedule program - you need to put the name of the film into search to be sure you're seeing all the times it's playing (usually two.)
Here's the whole list and below I look at each film.
Children of the Arctic
Nick Brandestini
Switzerland √
99 min
1. Sun Dec. 6:00-7:00 pm
5pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth
2. Wed Dec. 9
6:00- 8:00pm Filmmakers Attending
Museum
Outsiders coming to a place are often derided by people who live there. They don't really understand what is happening. They don't know the history. But outsiders also see things that insiders take for granted. Last year's Shield and Spear was a wonderful film by a Swede, Petter Ringbom, who spent a relatively short time in South Africa looking at the fringe art scene. Children of the Arctic is a
Below is a Santa Barbara tv interview with director Nick Brandestini that includes the trailer. Having a Santa Barbara perspective gives it an extra twist.
I'm sure the filmmakers are sick of hearing about Ruth Ozeki's book, A Tale For The Time Being
about a Canadian woman who finds a diary on the beach that has come over from Japan along with other tsunami debris. But it's what I thought of as I saw the trailer of this film, which tells the story of people finding the debris in the US and Canada and getting some of it back to the people it belonged to. But the novel and this film appear to treat these events very differently. Looks like a film worth watching.
Lost & Found Official Trailer from Frank Films on Vimeo.
Lost & Found Official Trailer from Frank Films on Vimeo.
Circus Without Borders
Susan Gray, Linda Matchan
United States √
69 min
1. Sunday, Dec. 6
12:00pm - 2:00pm
Bear Tooth
2. Thursday, December 10
7:00pm – 8:45pm
AK Experience Small
Love Between the Covers
Laurie Kahn
Australia, United States √
83 min
1. Sat Dec. 5
2:30pm – 4:30pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth
2. Sat Dec 12
8:00 - 9:45
AK Experience Small
This is the story of the women who write romance novels. From a USA today interview with film maker Laurie Kahn:
Here's the trailer:
From Indiewire:
Short Docs - colors show which programs they're in
Bihttoš
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Canada √
14 min
Short Docs Program Tuesday, Dec. 8
7:00pm – 9:00pm
AK Experience Small
Warning: This is the only showing I see for this one.
This film about a father/daughter relationship has been called 'unconventional' and is both live and animated. It won the GRAND JURY PRIZE | Best Short: Documentary. at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Everywhere I look they have the same description of the film. So I'm going with a bit of description about the film maker from her website.
"Bihttoš" Trailer from Elle-Maija A. Tailfeathers on Vimeo.
Superjednostka
Teresa Czepiec
Poland √
20 min
1. Short Docs Program Tuesday, Dec. 8
7:00pm – 9:00pm
AK Experience Small
2. Martini Matinee Friday Dec 11
2:30 - 4:30 pm
Bear Tooth
If you're like me, as you wander the world, you wonder about things like, "who lives in this town, in this building, in this house?" Well this film answers that question, apparently, for a large block of apartments in Poland.
From an interview with the film maker at Polish Docs:
SUPER-UNIT/ (Superjednostka) - trailer for documentary film by Teresa Czepiec, 2014' from Wajda Studio on Vimeo.
The House is Innocent
Nicholas Coles
United States √
12 min
1. Short Docs Program - Sun. Dec. 6
5:30pm – 7:30pm
AK Experience Large
2. Martini Matinee Friday Dec 11
2:30 - 4:30 pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth
Here's another film that explores who lives in the house you pass walking down the street. This house was owned by a serial killer and now there are new owners trying to make it their home. They'll be on the same program at the Martini Matinee, Friday at 2:30 at the Bear Tooth.
The House is Innocent - Trailer from Blackburn Pictures on Vimeo.
Man in the Can
Noessa Higa
United States √
38 min
Short Docs Program - Sun. Dec. 6
5:30pm – 7:30pm
AK Experience Large
Warning: This is the only showing I see for this one.
This film took the award for the Best Texas Film at the Hill Country Film Festival
From Wrangler Network:
According to Ronald Burton's website, he performed at a rodeo in Anchorage SEPTEMBER 5 & 6. State Fair maybe? Anyone see him there?
[Once again, reposting because of Feedburner problems, sorry. But there's lots in this post so if you saw it already, I bet there's stuff you skipped the first time.]
The Documentaries have been one of the strongest parts of the Anchorage International Film Festival and this year looks like no exception. I've been working on this post on and off for two weeks now and I need to move on to other parts of the festival.
"In competition" means these films were selected by the screeners to be eligible for awards at the festival. "Features" are 'stories' that are full length. While there are always other features which different folks like better than those in competition, it's a good bet these are among the best features at the festival. This year's picks are all from outside the US.
The point of this post isn't to tell you what each of the features in competition are about, but rather to just give you a glimpse of something about the film I found interesting.
I've added when the films play with the overview of each film. (Let me know if you catch any errors.) If you have to make hard decisions, I'd recommend going to the films where the filmmakers will be present, which I've marked in red. When you're using the festivals schedule program - you need to put the name of the film into search to be sure you're seeing all the times it's playing (usually two.)
Here's the whole list and below I look at each film.
| Docs in Competition | Director | Country | Length |
| Children of the Arctic | Nick Brandestini | Switzerland | 93 min |
| Lost & Found | Nicolina Lanni, John Choi | Canada | 82 min |
| Love Between the Covers | Laurie Kahn | Australia, United States | 83 min |
| Circus Without Borders | Susan Gray, Linda Matchan | United States | 69 min |
| Madina’s Dream | Andrew Berends | United States | 80 min |
| Bihttoš | Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers | Canada | 14 min |
| Man in the Can | Noessa Higa | United States | 38 min |
| Superjednostka | Teresa Czepiec | Poland | 20 min |
| The House is Innocent | Nicholas Coles | United States | 12 min |
 |
| Director Brandestini from film's press kit photos |
Nick Brandestini
Switzerland √
99 min
1. Sun Dec. 6:00-7:00 pm
5pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth
2. Wed Dec. 9
6:00- 8:00pm Filmmakers Attending
Museum
Outsiders coming to a place are often derided by people who live there. They don't really understand what is happening. They don't know the history. But outsiders also see things that insiders take for granted. Last year's Shield and Spear was a wonderful film by a Swede, Petter Ringbom, who spent a relatively short time in South Africa looking at the fringe art scene. Children of the Arctic is a
" is a year-in-the-life portrait of Native Alaskan teenagers coming of age in Barrow"
Below is a Santa Barbara tv interview with director Nick Brandestini that includes the trailer. Having a Santa Barbara perspective gives it an extra twist.
Lost & Found
Nicolina Lannie, John Choi
Canada √
82 min
1. Wed. Dec 9
5:30am – 7:30pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth
2. Sun Dec. 13
11:30 am - 1:30 pm
AK Experience Small
I'm sure the filmmakers are sick of hearing about Ruth Ozeki's book, A Tale For The Time Being
about a Canadian woman who finds a diary on the beach that has come over from Japan along with other tsunami debris. But it's what I thought of as I saw the trailer of this film, which tells the story of people finding the debris in the US and Canada and getting some of it back to the people it belonged to. But the novel and this film appear to treat these events very differently. Looks like a film worth watching.
Lost & Found Official Trailer from Frank Films on Vimeo.
Lost & Found Official Trailer from Frank Films on Vimeo.
 |
| From Circus w/o Borders website |
Susan Gray, Linda Matchan
United States √
69 min
1. Sunday, Dec. 6
12:00pm - 2:00pm
Bear Tooth
2. Thursday, December 10
7:00pm – 8:45pm
AK Experience Small
"CIRCUS WITHOUT BORDERS is a documentary about Guillaume Saladin and Yamoussa Bangoura, best friends and world-class acrobats from remote corners of the globe who share the same dream: To bring hope and change to their struggling communities through circus. Their dream unfolds in the Canadian Arctic and Guinea, West Africa, where they help Inuit and Guinean youth achieve unimaginable success while confronting suicide, poverty and despair.
Seven years in the making, this tale of two circuses — Artcirq and Kalabante — is a culture-crossing performance piece that offers a portal into two remote communities, and an inspiring story of resilience and joy." [from CWB website]
Love Between the CoversLaurie Kahn
Australia, United States √
83 min
1. Sat Dec. 5
2:30pm – 4:30pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth
2. Sat Dec 12
8:00 - 9:45
AK Experience Small
This is the story of the women who write romance novels. From a USA today interview with film maker Laurie Kahn:
"Christyna: What prompted you to make the documentary Love Between the Covers?I'd note today's (Nov 14) LA Times story about a romance novel cover model that says,
Laurie: I want to bring the lives and work of compelling women to the screen, because any industry dominated by women is typically dismissed as trivial and “merely domestic.” My previous films — A Midwife’s Tale and Tupperware! – are very different from one another, but they were both shaped by my desire to look honestly at communities of women who haven’t been taken seriously (but should be), who deserve to be heard without being mocked.
I think there’s a lot to be learned by looking at the communities that women build. As you and your readers know better than I do, the romance community has been dismissed for decades, even though romance fiction is the behemoth of the publishing industry."
"The debate over the relative merits of the romance genre is so tired it’s not even worth having anymore. The market is huge, generating an estimated $1.4 billion, making it by far the top-selling literary genre, outperforming mysteries, inspirational books, science fiction and fantasy, and horror. Romance has spawned an academic discipline with its own forum, 'The Journal of Popular Romance Studies,' which describes itself as 'a double-blind peer reviewed interdisciplinary journal exploring popular romance fiction and the logics, institutions, and social practices of romantic love in global popular culture.'”I'm guessing these showings will be packed.
Here's the trailer:
|
| Screenshot from trailer |
Madina’s Dream
Andrew Berends
United States √
80 min
1. Sat. Dec. 5
4:00pm – 6:00pm
AK Experience Small
2. Wednesday, December 9
AK Experience Large
6-8pm
AK Experience Large
6-8pm
From Indiewire:
"Berend's film follows the inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains, who are under a constant barrage of attacks from the Sudanese government (the instruments of war are so commonplace, that the children even mold toy models of RPGs and machine gun-mounted tanks out of clay). This unflinching look at a war-torn group of people focuses on Madina and her fervent dream to return home -- if only a pair of ruby slippers could do some magic here.
Short Docs - colors show which programs they're in
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Canada √
14 min
Short Docs Program Tuesday, Dec. 8
7:00pm – 9:00pm
AK Experience Small
Warning: This is the only showing I see for this one.
This film about a father/daughter relationship has been called 'unconventional' and is both live and animated. It won the GRAND JURY PRIZE | Best Short: Documentary. at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Everywhere I look they have the same description of the film. So I'm going with a bit of description about the film maker from her website.
"Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is an emerging filmmaker, writer, and actor. She is both Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation as well as Sámi from Norway. After studying acting at Vancouver Film School in 2006, she went on to work in film and TV with credits in Not Indian Enough, White Indians Walking, The Guard, The Reaper, Shattered, and Another Cinderella Story. In 2009, she appeared onstage in the Presentation House Theatre’s production of Where the River Meets the Sea."From what I got out of reading that same description over and over again. I can tell you it's short, about a woman and her father, And there's animation.
"Bihttoš" Trailer from Elle-Maija A. Tailfeathers on Vimeo.
 |
| Czepiec winning Special Mention at GoShort Festival |
Superjednostka
Teresa Czepiec
Poland √
20 min
1. Short Docs Program Tuesday, Dec. 8
7:00pm – 9:00pm
AK Experience Small
2. Martini Matinee Friday Dec 11
2:30 - 4:30 pm
Bear Tooth
If you're like me, as you wander the world, you wonder about things like, "who lives in this town, in this building, in this house?" Well this film answers that question, apparently, for a large block of apartments in Poland.
Superjednostka to ogromny blok mieszkalny zaprojektowany zgodnie z ideą Le Corbusiera jako "maszyna do mieszkania". Na 15 kondygnacjach budynku może mieszkać nawet 3 tysiące ludzi. Winda zatrzymuje się co 3. piętro więc mieszkańcy, żeby dojść do swoich mieszkań, muszą pokonać prawdziwy labirynt korytarzy i schodów. Głównymi bohaterami filmu dokumentalnego są ludzie zamieszkujący wnętrze Superjednostki i przeżywający w niej ważne chwile swojego życia. Tu pulsują ich emocje, rodzą się oczekiwania i spełniają się - lub nie spełniają- ich pragnienia.Here's what google translate does with that:
"Superjednostka a huge block of flats designed in the spirit of Le Corbusier as a "machine for living" . At 15 floors of the building can accommodate up to 3000 people. The elevator stops at the third floor so the inhabitants to come to their homes , they must overcome a maze of corridors and stairs. The main characters of the documentary are people living in the interior Superjednostka and surviving in the important moments of your life . Here are flashing their emotions , raise expectations and meet - or not fulfilling their desires ."
From an interview with the film maker at Polish Docs:
Before shooting the film, I spent a year meeting the inhabitants. The formal assumptions behind the film were already agreed upon. I knew that we were looking for interesting people of various ages, from children to the elderly. What worked was chance and methodical actions. The first person I met was Zbigniew, one of the conservators, who was busy closing the window of his workshop. At first he was reluctant, but in the end he was persuaded to allow us to shoot here for the documentation. We were also looking for the protagonists by going from door to door. Sometimes it happened that we had already arranged to meet someone, and they changed their plans and declined. But going to the corridor or to the lift, we met someone else, an equally interesting person, who wanted to participate in the documentary film. I know that I did not include some of the stories, but it was impossible to do so, taking into account the huge number of them. What is in the film is the result of months of preparations and of chance, of what we managed to observe on location and during editing. Paradoxically, it seems to me that it reflects the substance of the case rather faithfully.
SUPER-UNIT/ (Superjednostka) - trailer for documentary film by Teresa Czepiec, 2014' from Wajda Studio on Vimeo.
The House is Innocent
Nicholas Coles
United States √
12 min
1. Short Docs Program - Sun. Dec. 6
5:30pm – 7:30pm
AK Experience Large
2. Martini Matinee Friday Dec 11
2:30 - 4:30 pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth
Here's another film that explores who lives in the house you pass walking down the street. This house was owned by a serial killer and now there are new owners trying to make it their home. They'll be on the same program at the Martini Matinee, Friday at 2:30 at the Bear Tooth.
The House is Innocent - Trailer from Blackburn Pictures on Vimeo.
Noessa Higa
United States √
38 min
Short Docs Program - Sun. Dec. 6
5:30pm – 7:30pm
AK Experience Large
Warning: This is the only showing I see for this one.
This film took the award for the Best Texas Film at the Hill Country Film Festival
From Wrangler Network:
"While the film focuses on the tight-knit rodeo community and small-town America, it tells a more universal story about following your dream, second chances and the sacrifices that can come from following your passion.
“Ronald was really open to the process of being filmed,” Higa said. “He gives people a glimpse into rodeo culture, which is fascinating and wildly entertaining. Everyone can relate to having a dream, and I think audiences will be pulling for him to get into the PRCA.”
According to Ronald Burton's website, he performed at a rodeo in Anchorage SEPTEMBER 5 & 6. State Fair maybe? Anyone see him there?
[Once again, reposting because of Feedburner problems, sorry. But there's lots in this post so if you saw it already, I bet there's stuff you skipped the first time.]
Sunday, November 15, 2015
". . . she would work to serve those who 'don’t fit our CMC mold.'”
From the LA Times:
But at this Claremont McKenna College (CMC), a very well regarded small private liberal arts college, the racism was less overt. It was subtle enough to many that they might not understand why it's a problem.
So what is wrong with the email that the president sent to the student?
Dean Spellman articulated what she was thinking: We have a mold here, an expectation for the kind of students that belong, and you don't fit the mold, meet the expectations. You are different. We don't know what to do with you. You really don't fit here, but we're indulging you. Some may even hear, 'because it doesn't look good if we don't have a few people like you, so we take a few for appearance sake.'
Years ago, I was aware of a form of this in Anchorage classes - where a teacher would talk about Alaska Natives. They would talk in terms of 'they' and 'we.' Even if the observations were 100% factually true (which they often weren't), the teachers were distinguishing between the outsiders ('them') and the insiders ('us') Any Native students in the classroom would understand clearly that they were not part of 'us.' That they were outsiders to the class, outsiders to the University of Alaska Anchorage.
There are lots of people who loudly declare that they are not racists, they don't have a racist bone in their body, but say things like this. It may be true they don't have a racist bone, but racism does reside in their gray matter. It's part of how they take in and then project the world they see.
Isn't this natural?
We all do that. We all categorize. It's part of how the brains work. We distinguish between things that are safe and things that are dangerous - whether we should be afraid or welcoming. We tend to respond differently to a toy poodle than to a snarling rottweiler. We distinguish between the smell of freshly barbecued salmon and a salmon that's been sitting dead in the sun for three days. And we distinguish between family members and strangers. (And as we are learning from child molestation studies, family isn't as safe as we think.)
It's normal to be more comfortable with people with whom we share lots of experiences. People whose parents had the same way of raising us, who went to the same schools at the same time, who are nostalgic about the same old songs, and have the same political beliefs. My parents' closest friends in Los Angeles were fellow refugees from Nazi Germany. They all shared similar stories of fleeing from their homeland and, in many cases, leaving their parents behind. They didn't have to explain themselves to each other. They all understood. They didn't agree on everything, but on the most fundamental issues of their identity, they did.
This is natural. And treating people who don't have that shared identity as 'others' is also natural. The less we actually know individuals from other groups, the more we know them as stereotypes, as representatives of the whole class they represent to us. It's not just race or religion or nationality. It could be based on disability or on profession or regional accent, or any number of things.
Stereotypes are reinforced by family stories and comments, by media, by school and by church. Many are economically convenient - thinking of the indigenous peoples of North America as savages, made it easy to justify killing them and taking their land. Thinking of Africans as a lower form of human being made it was easier to justify enslaving them.
The notion of insider and outsider is part of how humans are hard-wired. It's possible to expand the insider group as we expand our knowledge of other groups. That's why I think the chance I had to spend a year as a student in Germany, learning German well enough to take classes in German, was critical to my development. And the same is true for my time as a Peace Corps volunteer where I lived in a small town in Thailand and had to communicate to most everyone in their language.
So, if, as I claim, this insider-outsider distinction is normal, what was wrong with what the Claremont president emailed?
Personally, Mary Spellman's mind makes distinctions between her group and other groups. That's fine.
The problem is that she did that in her role as president of the college. The students in the college should all be considered insiders in this place they spend four years at college. They will all eventually be bonded together as Claremont graduates. Yes, students come in with differences and go to class and live in dorms with people who are, initially, outsiders to themselves. But the goal of a college, particularly a small, expensive, private liberal arts college, should be to help the students bridge those differences and overcome their stereotypes. No group of students, in the college should be considered 'our mold' and no group should be looked at as having to be still be molded to fit. At least not on ethnic or cultural grounds. If there is a mold a college is trying to fit students into, it would be a 'student' mold - curious about new ideas, with tools for thinking rationally and emotionally and an ability to overcome challenges including understanding people from different backgrounds..
So Spellman's mistake was taking her personal ideas of insider and outsider and making them the school's model of insider and outsider. As president, she should consider all the students who made it through the admissions process as insiders, as 'our mold.'
Dean Mary Spellman at Claremont McKenna stepped down after she sparked a campus protest and hunger strikes by two students this week over her email to a Latina student saying she would work to serve those who “don’t fit our CMC mold.”At the University of Missouri there were unambiguous acts of racism that led to students protesting and the president resigning.
But at this Claremont McKenna College (CMC), a very well regarded small private liberal arts college, the racism was less overt. It was subtle enough to many that they might not understand why it's a problem.
So what is wrong with the email that the president sent to the student?
Dean Spellman articulated what she was thinking: We have a mold here, an expectation for the kind of students that belong, and you don't fit the mold, meet the expectations. You are different. We don't know what to do with you. You really don't fit here, but we're indulging you. Some may even hear, 'because it doesn't look good if we don't have a few people like you, so we take a few for appearance sake.'
Years ago, I was aware of a form of this in Anchorage classes - where a teacher would talk about Alaska Natives. They would talk in terms of 'they' and 'we.' Even if the observations were 100% factually true (which they often weren't), the teachers were distinguishing between the outsiders ('them') and the insiders ('us') Any Native students in the classroom would understand clearly that they were not part of 'us.' That they were outsiders to the class, outsiders to the University of Alaska Anchorage.
There are lots of people who loudly declare that they are not racists, they don't have a racist bone in their body, but say things like this. It may be true they don't have a racist bone, but racism does reside in their gray matter. It's part of how they take in and then project the world they see.
Isn't this natural?
We all do that. We all categorize. It's part of how the brains work. We distinguish between things that are safe and things that are dangerous - whether we should be afraid or welcoming. We tend to respond differently to a toy poodle than to a snarling rottweiler. We distinguish between the smell of freshly barbecued salmon and a salmon that's been sitting dead in the sun for three days. And we distinguish between family members and strangers. (And as we are learning from child molestation studies, family isn't as safe as we think.)
It's normal to be more comfortable with people with whom we share lots of experiences. People whose parents had the same way of raising us, who went to the same schools at the same time, who are nostalgic about the same old songs, and have the same political beliefs. My parents' closest friends in Los Angeles were fellow refugees from Nazi Germany. They all shared similar stories of fleeing from their homeland and, in many cases, leaving their parents behind. They didn't have to explain themselves to each other. They all understood. They didn't agree on everything, but on the most fundamental issues of their identity, they did.
This is natural. And treating people who don't have that shared identity as 'others' is also natural. The less we actually know individuals from other groups, the more we know them as stereotypes, as representatives of the whole class they represent to us. It's not just race or religion or nationality. It could be based on disability or on profession or regional accent, or any number of things.
Stereotypes are reinforced by family stories and comments, by media, by school and by church. Many are economically convenient - thinking of the indigenous peoples of North America as savages, made it easy to justify killing them and taking their land. Thinking of Africans as a lower form of human being made it was easier to justify enslaving them.
The notion of insider and outsider is part of how humans are hard-wired. It's possible to expand the insider group as we expand our knowledge of other groups. That's why I think the chance I had to spend a year as a student in Germany, learning German well enough to take classes in German, was critical to my development. And the same is true for my time as a Peace Corps volunteer where I lived in a small town in Thailand and had to communicate to most everyone in their language.
So, if, as I claim, this insider-outsider distinction is normal, what was wrong with what the Claremont president emailed?
Personally, Mary Spellman's mind makes distinctions between her group and other groups. That's fine.
The problem is that she did that in her role as president of the college. The students in the college should all be considered insiders in this place they spend four years at college. They will all eventually be bonded together as Claremont graduates. Yes, students come in with differences and go to class and live in dorms with people who are, initially, outsiders to themselves. But the goal of a college, particularly a small, expensive, private liberal arts college, should be to help the students bridge those differences and overcome their stereotypes. No group of students, in the college should be considered 'our mold' and no group should be looked at as having to be still be molded to fit. At least not on ethnic or cultural grounds. If there is a mold a college is trying to fit students into, it would be a 'student' mold - curious about new ideas, with tools for thinking rationally and emotionally and an ability to overcome challenges including understanding people from different backgrounds..
So Spellman's mistake was taking her personal ideas of insider and outsider and making them the school's model of insider and outsider. As president, she should consider all the students who made it through the admissions process as insiders, as 'our mold.'
Saturday, November 14, 2015
The A, B, C's . . . Y, and Z's of the Farmer's Market
We're back in LA trying to do more work on my mom's house. Despite
all we've given and thrown away, it still looks packed with things.
But we have to eat, so we biked up to the Virginia Park Saturday market in Santa Monica. It was cool in the shade and warm in the sun.
My alphabet isn't going to start with A. There's a technical blogging problem. When other blog rolls include a photo from the latest post of the blogs they list, it's always the first photo in the post. Often that's not going to be the best or most interesting. (I know, I should only put up 'best' photos.) So I have to decide if I should sneak in a better picture on top or keep the order the story would dictate. So I'm giving you these Root vegies, mostly strange carrots I think, instead of the apple butter which isn't as interesting, though maybe it is to you. (What's a blog roll? If you look in the column to the right I have several, starting with Alaska Blogs. But I only include the title, not a picture. Maybe I should add pictures too.)
OK, now the Apple Butter. (See not a bad picture, but I guess I like the jumble better than the order.)
and the Cabbage.
And Daikon. I like the daikon's sharp radish flavor and since they're much bigger than a radish, you can cut them up into little chips more easily and they're munch healthier than, say, chips or crackers. I took this, and a couple other pictures, at home, after I'd thought of this alphabet theme. But don't worry, we won't do the whole alphabet.
And then we found the Longan! I actually remember these from Thailand as Lamyai or ลำไย.
Tricky, I can't enlarge the ล
in the word because it's written with the vowel attached. ำ ('um' )
(the broken circle indicates where a consonant has to be typed in) gets
attached to the consonant, so in this word we have ลำ (lum). I know I
spelled it lam, but it really sounds like 'um' and not 'am' as in 'I
am.' In Thai vowels can go before, after, over, or under the consonant,
or a combination for one vowel sound. The second syllabus (yai) has
the 'ai' (ไ) vowel sound before the 'y' (ย) consonant sound.
The folks at this stand said they grow the lamyai near San Diego. Note, two similar fruit (with a skin you peel and a skinned grape-like fruit and pit inside) are the Lychee which is more commonly known, and one of my favorite Thai fruits the Rambutan, or in Thai, gno.
I found a video that will show you more about the longan or lamyai - what the trees look like, how to eat them, ways to use them, the seed, and the nutrients.
Lots of Persimmons for sale today.
The highlight of this market for me is getting to eat Bertha's jalapeno vegie Tamales. So good fresh and hot. We got a half dozen, two to eat at the market, and the rest to take home.
And finally the Yams and the Zucchini.
[More Feedburner issues, so reposting and deleting the original. Sorry]
But we have to eat, so we biked up to the Virginia Park Saturday market in Santa Monica. It was cool in the shade and warm in the sun.
My alphabet isn't going to start with A. There's a technical blogging problem. When other blog rolls include a photo from the latest post of the blogs they list, it's always the first photo in the post. Often that's not going to be the best or most interesting. (I know, I should only put up 'best' photos.) So I have to decide if I should sneak in a better picture on top or keep the order the story would dictate. So I'm giving you these Root vegies, mostly strange carrots I think, instead of the apple butter which isn't as interesting, though maybe it is to you. (What's a blog roll? If you look in the column to the right I have several, starting with Alaska Blogs. But I only include the title, not a picture. Maybe I should add pictures too.)
OK, now the Apple Butter. (See not a bad picture, but I guess I like the jumble better than the order.)
And the Bitter melons.
and the Cabbage.
And Daikon. I like the daikon's sharp radish flavor and since they're much bigger than a radish, you can cut them up into little chips more easily and they're munch healthier than, say, chips or crackers. I took this, and a couple other pictures, at home, after I'd thought of this alphabet theme. But don't worry, we won't do the whole alphabet.
Grapes.
And then we found the Longan! I actually remember these from Thailand as Lamyai or ลำไย.
The folks at this stand said they grow the lamyai near San Diego. Note, two similar fruit (with a skin you peel and a skinned grape-like fruit and pit inside) are the Lychee which is more commonly known, and one of my favorite Thai fruits the Rambutan, or in Thai, gno.
I found a video that will show you more about the longan or lamyai - what the trees look like, how to eat them, ways to use them, the seed, and the nutrients.
Lots of Persimmons for sale today.
The highlight of this market for me is getting to eat Bertha's jalapeno vegie Tamales. So good fresh and hot. We got a half dozen, two to eat at the market, and the rest to take home.
And here's one of the rows of Vendors. (Is it cheating, if it's not food?)
And finally the Yams and the Zucchini.
[More Feedburner issues, so reposting and deleting the original. Sorry]
Friday, November 13, 2015
"In all, 140 foundations funneled $558 million to almost 100 climate denial organizations from 2003 to 2010."
This quote comes from a Scientific American article about Drexel University environmental sociologist Robert Brulle's study. That two year old article went on to say
I'm still surprised at how few people seem to know that the massive tide of refugees from Syria to Europe (not to mention the Syrian civil war) are the result, in part, of long term drought that forced impoverished farmers into the cities and eventually to join rebel movements. Of course, Bashar al-Assad played a big role too, but without a population of desperate farmers, the uprising might not have occurred.
My point is that while we can all think of examples of climate change, most people have not faced the massive upheavals it's already causing and that will get worse unless we do something serious soon.
COP2 is coming this December in Paris and if you don't know about it, you should check the link.
But you don't have to go to Paris. Anyone in the US can contact any number of local groups working to slow down climate change. The group that most impresses me - Citizens Climate Lobby - now has chapters in almost every Congressional district and you can find your local group here. Just go to one meeting. That was all it took to convince me this was an incredibly competent, politically savvy, and socially positive group. By socially positive I mean that their methods are NOT focused on conflict and confrontation, but on building relationships, using the best available science, and educating Congress on the realities of climate change.
In the meantime, if you live in or near Anchorage, tomorrow (SATURDAY Nov 14) there's a great opportunity to learn more about climate change and what you can do about it. The forum will be put on by Alaska Common Ground - the same people who put on the fiscal forum last spring. It starts at nine, but if you show up at any time, they'll let you in and you'll learn something.
Here's more information I got by email the other day:
[More Feedburner issues, so reposting and deleting the original. Sorr
"Meanwhile the traceable cash flow from more traditional sources, such as Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, has disappeared."But more recently, the ExxonMobil role has reappeared and the implication that it had gone to hidden money seems to have been correct. From a Media Matters article that cites different articles on this story:
"InsideClimate News published a six-part investigation in September and October detailing "how Exxon conducted cutting-edge climate research decades ago and then, without revealing all that it had learned, worked at the forefront of climate denial, manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed." InsideClimate's eight-month investigation was "based on primary sources including internal company files dating back to the late 1970s, interviews with former company employees, and other evidence." [InsideClimate News, Exxon: The Road Not Taken, accessed 11/13/15]"Just as the tobacco industry funded campaigns to deny smoking's health threats, Exxon and other fossil fuel related corporations have been funding climate change denial campaigns. But while smoking threatened the life of the smoker and those near him or her, climate change threatens people and animals all over the planet.
I'm still surprised at how few people seem to know that the massive tide of refugees from Syria to Europe (not to mention the Syrian civil war) are the result, in part, of long term drought that forced impoverished farmers into the cities and eventually to join rebel movements. Of course, Bashar al-Assad played a big role too, but without a population of desperate farmers, the uprising might not have occurred.
My point is that while we can all think of examples of climate change, most people have not faced the massive upheavals it's already causing and that will get worse unless we do something serious soon.
COP2 is coming this December in Paris and if you don't know about it, you should check the link.
But you don't have to go to Paris. Anyone in the US can contact any number of local groups working to slow down climate change. The group that most impresses me - Citizens Climate Lobby - now has chapters in almost every Congressional district and you can find your local group here. Just go to one meeting. That was all it took to convince me this was an incredibly competent, politically savvy, and socially positive group. By socially positive I mean that their methods are NOT focused on conflict and confrontation, but on building relationships, using the best available science, and educating Congress on the realities of climate change.
In the meantime, if you live in or near Anchorage, tomorrow (SATURDAY Nov 14) there's a great opportunity to learn more about climate change and what you can do about it. The forum will be put on by Alaska Common Ground - the same people who put on the fiscal forum last spring. It starts at nine, but if you show up at any time, they'll let you in and you'll learn something.
Here's more information I got by email the other day:
Alaska’s Changing Climate:
Impacts, Policy and Action
Impacts, Policy and Action
Are you concerned about climate change and wondering what to do about it? Join us at a free, public forum discussing Alaska's Changing Climate: Impacts, Policy and Action. The agenda is attached and pasted below.Saturday, November 14th
UAA Student Union (downstairs from the Bookstore)
9 am to 4 pm
This forum aims to move the conversation forward by understanding the impacts from climate change to Alaska and what the state and community policy makers can do about them as well as actions for individuals to take. Public Administration graduate students from UAA will present policy actions both during the afternoon sessions and during lunch.
The event will be recorded and broadcast on 360 North, tentative broadcast date of November 21st. Info will be posted on our website.
These forums are expensive to host. We appreciate all the support from our sponsors and partners. Please consider adding your name to our supporters by making a donation at www.akcommonground.org or sending us a check to PO Box 241672, Anchorage, 99524.
Questions? Please contact info@akcommonground.org. Hope to see you on Saturday.
[More Feedburner issues, so reposting and deleting the original. Sorr
Thursday, November 12, 2015
"My mother's family hadn't been ethnic in hundreds, possibly thousands of years."
I found this quote on page 3 of the introduction of a Grove Press book by Holly Hughes called Clit Notes:
She was nine, and after the specialists make her walk around the office naked for an hour, there's a conference.
And if more people read books or watched movies by and about 'abnormal' people, maybe they'd be more understanding. Maybe they'd feel free to acknowledge their own peculiarities. Maybe they'd drink less, take fewer drugs, be happier.
"I remember my parents telling the doctors they worried that the way I spoke made me look "ethnic."
And, of course, we weren't. My mother's family hadn't been ethnic in hundreds, possibly thousands of years. My father had a few drops of ethnic in him, but he had learned to dress so no one could guess he or anyone he ever met was the least bit ethnic."
She was nine, and after the specialists make her walk around the office naked for an hour, there's a conference.
"The doctors encouraged us to look on the bright side. Why dwell on the fact that I was not and would never be normal when I could still have a perfectly normal life? My parents should realize how common my problem was. The doctors assured them that even if I was abnormal, at least I wasn't unusual, and they went on to add we would be surprised to know how many people were not normal but appeared to be, because they had chosen to have completely normal lives."I think this is noteworthy, but I'm not sure I can articulate why. Probably because being 'normal' is an obsession and so many people successfully pass. What would happen if people didn't think they'd have to be 'normal' and could express themselves as they felt, naturally? Maybe this helps explain those folks who try to force everyone to fit their definition of 'normal.'
And if more people read books or watched movies by and about 'abnormal' people, maybe they'd be more understanding. Maybe they'd feel free to acknowledge their own peculiarities. Maybe they'd drink less, take fewer drugs, be happier.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Some Personal University of Missouri History
In the summer of 1967 I was returning to the second summer of Peace Corps training in DeKalb, Illinois. Friends had moved from LA to Minneapolis and asked if I could drive their second car; so I got a chance to drive across the US before heading for Thailand for several years.
On the way I stopped to visit my roommate from the previous summer's training He was, in the language back then, a Negro. While I went to a demographer's dream of a high school and had many interactions with black students there, this was the first time I got to have a close friend who was black. (He's still my close friend all these years later.) But he didn't make it through that first summer of training. At the end, he was told to pack up and leave, as were others. In hindsight, it was obviously racism. He was the only black in our group. It wasn't til much later that I learned it was his first time in an all white setting. Thais have a thing about light skin, so it may have been the influence of the language teachers that got him kicked out.
Why do I say it was racism? Because he did get into a Philippine group later where he served histwo [three] years well. And because there were so few volunteers of color and because he has an infectious smile, he ended up on a Peace Corps recruiting poster that was used for years and years.
[UPDATE July 9, 2016: rereading this I realize this is not a good explanation of why I feel he was deselected (the term they used) because of racism. He and I were a team in training (and still are when we get together now) and there's no reason that our foolishness should have gotten him deselected and left me in the program. I'd been labeled 'high risk-high gain' by our shrink, Dr. Feldman. My sins? In hindsight, I realize it was the first time I'd been discriminated for being from California. What Feldman said was, "You wear cutoff shorts, a silly hat, and go barefoot everywhere." Well, that was my native dress and we trained in DeKalb, Illinois where it never got below 90˚ F, and we didn't have air conditioning. My dress was entirely appropriate to the weather. (My hat was just a normal little hat the gave me some shade, not particularly silly.) I could ditch the hat and wear long pants and shoes - which I did for the rest of the summer - but my friend couldn't change his skin color. I think my pointing out that he served well in the Philippines was to show that he eventually did become a successful volunteer, good enough to be used in recruiting posters.]
He lived in St. Louis and he was a student at the University of Missouri, which was still in session as I drove to Minneapolis. I stopped in Columbia to visit him. What I remember from that day was that he saw things I never saw before. As we walked around campus he showed me escape routes, little paths he could use to disappear, if say, a threatening looking group of white students was approaching him, or if a campus police car was nearby, or any number of things that would make a black student at the University of Missouri nervous. This was only ten years after the Little Rock Nine, four years after the University of Mississippi took black students, and three years after Governor Wallace blocked the entrance of the University of Alabama in an attempt to keep black students from enrolling. The University of Missouri, through a court order, had integrated 'way back' in 1950.
But only for students in the nearby black college who wanted majors not available at their school.
I had lunch that day with my friend at a campus restaurant with his friends (all black.) I was very conscious of all the people staring at me from other tables. And later I learned that my friend was chewed out by his friends for having me eat with them.
I got the message that day, that Missouri was a southern state.
So it's with a mix of sadness and awe that I watch the news now of the University of Missouri's black football players standing up to the crap that's apparently still going on after all these years. Football players threatening to boycott the game means people risking their scholarships and their education for their principles.
It says something about American universities that the threat of a cancelled football game can get a president and a provost to resign in a couple of days. These aren't issues that are confined to Missouri or even the south. These are issues on every campus. And what will it take to get campuses safe and comfortable for women?
Lewis, do you have anything to add? I was only there a day or so, you spentfour [two] years in the mid 1960s at the University of Missouri. You must have lots of stories to tell and lots of thoughts as you watch your alma mater today. [UPDATE July 9, 2016: Lewis emailed me after this was posted to say that he didn't comment here because it was still - over 40 years later - too painful to dredge up other memories of those days.]
On the way I stopped to visit my roommate from the previous summer's training He was, in the language back then, a Negro. While I went to a demographer's dream of a high school and had many interactions with black students there, this was the first time I got to have a close friend who was black. (He's still my close friend all these years later.) But he didn't make it through that first summer of training. At the end, he was told to pack up and leave, as were others. In hindsight, it was obviously racism. He was the only black in our group. It wasn't til much later that I learned it was his first time in an all white setting. Thais have a thing about light skin, so it may have been the influence of the language teachers that got him kicked out.
Why do I say it was racism? Because he did get into a Philippine group later where he served his
[UPDATE July 9, 2016: rereading this I realize this is not a good explanation of why I feel he was deselected (the term they used) because of racism. He and I were a team in training (and still are when we get together now) and there's no reason that our foolishness should have gotten him deselected and left me in the program. I'd been labeled 'high risk-high gain' by our shrink, Dr. Feldman. My sins? In hindsight, I realize it was the first time I'd been discriminated for being from California. What Feldman said was, "You wear cutoff shorts, a silly hat, and go barefoot everywhere." Well, that was my native dress and we trained in DeKalb, Illinois where it never got below 90˚ F, and we didn't have air conditioning. My dress was entirely appropriate to the weather. (My hat was just a normal little hat the gave me some shade, not particularly silly.) I could ditch the hat and wear long pants and shoes - which I did for the rest of the summer - but my friend couldn't change his skin color. I think my pointing out that he served well in the Philippines was to show that he eventually did become a successful volunteer, good enough to be used in recruiting posters.]
He lived in St. Louis and he was a student at the University of Missouri, which was still in session as I drove to Minneapolis. I stopped in Columbia to visit him. What I remember from that day was that he saw things I never saw before. As we walked around campus he showed me escape routes, little paths he could use to disappear, if say, a threatening looking group of white students was approaching him, or if a campus police car was nearby, or any number of things that would make a black student at the University of Missouri nervous. This was only ten years after the Little Rock Nine, four years after the University of Mississippi took black students, and three years after Governor Wallace blocked the entrance of the University of Alabama in an attempt to keep black students from enrolling. The University of Missouri, through a court order, had integrated 'way back' in 1950.
But only for students in the nearby black college who wanted majors not available at their school.
I had lunch that day with my friend at a campus restaurant with his friends (all black.) I was very conscious of all the people staring at me from other tables. And later I learned that my friend was chewed out by his friends for having me eat with them.
I got the message that day, that Missouri was a southern state.
So it's with a mix of sadness and awe that I watch the news now of the University of Missouri's black football players standing up to the crap that's apparently still going on after all these years. Football players threatening to boycott the game means people risking their scholarships and their education for their principles.
It says something about American universities that the threat of a cancelled football game can get a president and a provost to resign in a couple of days. These aren't issues that are confined to Missouri or even the south. These are issues on every campus. And what will it take to get campuses safe and comfortable for women?
Lewis, do you have anything to add? I was only there a day or so, you spent
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