1. What is Brent crude? When they talk about the price of oil, they mention West Texas Intermediate (WTI), and Alaska North Slope (ANS), they also mention Brent Crude. What does that mean? This Wikipedia post spells it out. There's even a goose involved.
2. Here's a good discussion on American science ignorance at Quartz, or put another way matching this blog's underlying theme, the American way of not knowing. This physician begins by pointing out that the US as a country is one of the very best in science, but as individuals we've got a lot of ignorance. She picks out a study that defines scientific literacy in terms of whether subjects could identify 'correct' scientific facts. She writes,
Scientific literacy has little to do with memorizing information and a lot to do with a rational approach to problems.
And she gives three reasons the fact based approach to scientific literacy is problematic.
Facts change. That may come as sacrilege to some, but she points out that old ideas get modified by newer experiments.
It encourages people to dig in their heels about what they think they know.
The interpretation of data requires critical thinking.
Actually, I don't think Americans have a monopoly on scientific ignorance, but I suspect we market ignorance in a more sophisticated way than most other places.
3. The Quartz page also had an article about El Chapo and Sean Penn and mentioned burner phones. That led me to a post that explains the evolution of burner phones. The Wire is mentioned as where many people first heard the term. I watched The Wire but didn't remember that word. So here's the burner phone post on PureTalk.
'Federal Overreach' is a conservative pejorative meant to convey the idea that the federal government is meddling with state matters and overriding state autonomy. During desegregation they used the term 'states' rights' to fight the federal dismantling of Jim Crow in the South.
Then states' rights was about keeping the status quo that allowed whites to legislate their power over blacks.
Often today, federal overreach, at least in Alaska, really means the feds interfere when a state rolls over for corporate interests. After all, Koch sponsored Sen. Dan Sullivan was one of the folks who first championed the idea of federal overreach in Alaska. At his confirmation hearings to be attorney general in 2010 he talked about how he would be joining with other attorneys general to fight in court against the Endangered Species Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Act to protect 'economic opportunity.
This is not to say that there aren't legitimate states' rights issues - as when the federal government tries to nullify strong state laws designed to protect the voting rights and the health and safety and of state residents.
And now that the Anchorage Assembly has finally passed and gotten a mayor to sign an ordinance that has added lgbt folks to our anti-discrimination law, Micciche has submitted a bill to have the state void a big chunk of it. He and others just aren't content to give Anchorage the autonomy from the state that they claim the state should have from the feds.
Basically, this bill is to allow people to refuse to marry or provide any services (food, photos, location, flowers, etc.) for a wedding of a same-sex couple.
Principles are a good thing. But often they are just makeup to hide a the raw exercise of power.
This bill truly has the state fighting what they'd say is federal overreach in approving same sex marriage and then turning around and exercising state overreach to nullify a good chunk of Anchorage's newly amended anti-discrimination ordinance.
"An Act relating to marriage solemnization."
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:
* Section 1. AS 25.05.261 is amended by adding new subsections to read:
(c) Nothing in this section creates or implies a duty on a person authorized to
solemnize a marriage under (a)(1) or (3) of this section to
(1) solemnize a marriage; or
(2) provide services, accommodations, facilities, goods, or privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, formation, or celebration of a marriage.
(d) A person permitted to solemnize a marriage under (a)(1) or (3) of this section is not subject to criminal or civil liability for refusing to solemnize a marriage or refusing to provide services, accommodations, facilities, goods, or privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, formation, or celebration of a marriage.
(e) The state or a municipality may not penalize a person who is permitted to solemnize a marriage under (a)(1) or (3) of this section for refusing to solemnize a marriage or refusing to provide services, accommodations, facilities, goods, or municipal contract, grant, or license.
privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, formation, or celebration of a marriage. In this subsection, "penalize" means to take an action affecting a benefit or privilege guaranteed to the person by law, including a tax exemption or state or municipal contract, grant, or license.
The Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage would not require any religious authority to perform a same sex marriage if same-sex marriage were against the tenets of that religion. So the part about solemnizing a marriage seems moot to me. However, people who provide commercial services to the public are now required to provide services for a same-sex marriage as they would for any marriage - a Jewish, or Catholic, or Hindu, or Muslim, or a marriage of two Asians, two African-Americans, two Russians, two Koreans, and any combination of two people from any of those groups. [UPDATE January 27, 2016: After reading Micciche's January 24 commentary and rereading the bill and the statute it amends, I see that commercial businesses are not exempted, but non-profits do seem to be exempted if they are connected to a clergyman who can solemnize a marriage. I have a call in to Sen. Micciche to clarify some of the other claims he makes in the article about this having nothing to do with same-sex marriage, the Anchorage ordinance, or that "It does not protect anyone refusing services to interracial or special needs marriages." I don't see anything in his bill that says clergy may refuse based on their religious doctrine. It just says they can't be held liable for refusing, period.] And if this law were passed, it would put a kink in things for gay and lesbian folks. But I suspect only for as long as it would take to get to the state supreme court.
Our legislature has huge fiscal challenges ahead. This seems a mean-spirited, divisive, and ultimately futile way to spend the little time our legislators have to settle the state's finances so that our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren can live in a socially and economically and environmentally healthy Alaska.
It's January 9, 2016 and there's no snow in our backyard.
In the 38 years we've lived here, we've never even been close to snow free in January.
This alone doesn't prove global warming. But given all the other evidence that is piling up, we don't need my snowfree backyard to prove it. There's more than enough other evidence.
When I read the book, I kept being surprised at the level of detail author Andy Weir took me through. He didn't just say that Mark Watney created water using the oxygen and hydrogen he had, but he went through very specific details about how he did it. I was amazed that he was doing it and also that I didn't get bored. I got a general idea of what he was actually doing.
So the movie's glossing over the details was unsatisfying in the beginning. I kept wondering how those in the audience who hadn't read the book knew what was going on. Would they understand why he was doing this or that. They didn't know why the MAV blew up or why he cut off the roof of the rover and stuck a bubble of plastic on it.
In the interview afterward screenwriter Drew Goddard said that he didn't understand all that Weir had explained in the book and that the audience didn't need to know exactly how he created water, just that he needed the water to survive. And, of course, the movie doesn't have time for that kind of detail. They even left out the huge storm that almost wipes things out toward the end. But actually, in the book, that seemed like a plot device to add to the tension, and really wasn't necessary. But then a number of the disasters, individually, weren't necessary. But collectively they were needed to demonstrate how difficult surviving would have been.
In fact, after the film, the first question from the LA Times writer Meredith Woerner asked each of the panelists was how long they thought they could survive on Mars. Production designer Arthur Max said, after a pause, "About a minute." The others didn't give a lot longer. Radiation would do you in they said and a suit strong enough to protect you would be way too bulky to be able to do anything in. I think it was good to get that out of the way - hey, this is fiction and despite all the science used to get Mark out of each problem, the book and movie never deal with the fundamental problem of radiation.
In the end I was marveling at how manipulatable humans are, as we get emotionally involved in this
set of images on a screen that we know is made up. In a situation that couldn't have happened. Yet we go with it anyway.
Sorry about the quality of the picture, but it gives you a little sense of the four panelists and the interviewer. From left to right: interviewer, Meredith Woerner; screenwriter Drew Goddard; composer Harry Gregson-Williams; director of photography Dariusz Wolski; and production designer Arthur Max.
I'd like to add more about the discussion, but it's late and we fly home tomorrow and still have to get the house a bit more presentable for our friends who will be staying here. Though I'd like to add that I didn't catch all their names at the time and had to check when I got home. It was only then that the screenwriter's comment about having grown up around scientists in Los Alamos, New Mexico clicked. But after checking on Robert H. Goddard,
"American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, which he successfully launched on March 16, 1926"
I could find no mention of him having any children. Maybe there's a connection that I just didn't find, but it seems fitting for a Goddard to do the screenplay of The Martian.
Both the book and movie were worth watching. I found the book much more compelling, but I think the movie would have been better if I hadn't read the book.
[UPDATE Jan 7, 2016 7:15am: I forgot to mention that the credits went on forever, but apparently didn't list everyone involved. At the very end the credits said something like "Over 15,000 people were employed to make this movie." That's a good thing in and of itself I guess, but just think if we could mobilize whatever it takes to make school a positive experience for every child.]
A shorty today as we realize we don't have much time left here and there's still so much to clean up. Not that we'll finish, but at least the house won't look like someone's trashed it.
Rain was falling when we got up, Got harder during the day. But it's let up now and there's sunshine breaking through the clouds.
And as I was going through this stuff, I realized that lots of people probably have no idea about bank books. Those little books we had to take to the bank and they'd write in the amount we deposited or withdrew. Makes me feel like a Neanderthal.
OK, a little more. I opened one envelope and found these pictures.
OK, that's it. Back to work.
[Sorry for those seeing this reposted - Feedburner problems again. This seems to be getting all too common.]
Here's the garage yesterday. I'm sure it looks hopeless to most of you. But I have to tell you that since August, we've gotten probably 50-60% of the stuff in the garage (by volume) out. To anyone who was in the garage a year ago, this is an enormous improvement. But this is also why I feel like for every bag of stuff we take to the thrift shop, throw out, or give away, it feels like two more reappear in the garage.
Here's just one of many car fulls of stuff headed for the nearby thrift shop.
And here's the line up waiting for Monday trash day. Fortunately, my mom's neighbors don't fill up their garbage cans very much and they are more than happy to let me use them. In LA, I found out that styrofoam and shredded paper can go in the recycling bin. The latter if it's in a plastic bag so it doesn't fly all over when they dump it all into the truck.
And then there are all the interesting things we've been finding. Some are treasures like my brothers old record albums. These and a bunch of others have been in a box on an upper shelf in the back in the garage for probably almost 40 years. I'm looking forward to getting them home to the turntable.
And this chess table was stored in a box with the legs detached. And yes, I've done some photoshopping with a few of the images in this post.
Or this 1930 school photo of my step-father's class in Germany. The photo is getting a little funky, but it's really sharp - at least in the original. If you click the photo it will get bigger and sharper, but still not as good as the original.
This one is 13 years later after he's immigrated to the US and getting ready to go back to Europe, but this time in a US military uniform. It says on the picture, in part, "the 8th Medical Training Regiment in Camp Grant, Illinois, August 1943." I could even find him in the picture. This is a small portion of the long panorama shot and the sharpness in the original is amazing.
I found other photos of his time in the army and letters commending him for his work. Since he spoke fluent English, German, and French, I'm sure he was useful when the US got into France and then Germany.
And then there are the stranger things like this bathrobe I found. At least that's what I thought it was at first, though it seemed pretty heavy for a bathrobe. Then I looked at the label.
It says:
COVERALLS, COOLING, ROCKET FUEL HANDLER'S
WEAR OVER COVERALLS, ROCKET FUEL HANDLERS, VINYL COATED, TO PREVENT OVERHEATING OF BODY. DO NOT SHORTEN LEGS OR SLEEVES BY CUFFING. KEEP SOAKED WITH WATER TO GET MAXIMUM EVAPORATION FOR COOLING PUT ON OVER PROTECTIVE FOOTWEAR. IF CORROSIVE AGENTS ARE SPILLED OVER SUIT GET UNDER SHOWER IMMEDIATELY. USE LARGE QUANTITIES OF WATER, IF SUIT IS DAMAGED EXCHANGE FOR NEW SUIT. AFTER USING RINSE SUIT THOROUGHLY AND HANG UP TO DRY.
I couldn't tell you how it got into my mom's garage. I don't know of any rocket fuel handlers in the family.
We have Anchorage friends who will stay in the house for the next three months - they have a new grandchild who lives a few miles away and will play Mary Poppins for a while. So we'll get as much done as we can in the next few days, and then tackle it again in the spring.
Republican tongues let slip "tax and spend" the way normal people say 'um.' I'd like to point out an alternative view of government - "cut and spend." As when the cuts you make cost you more than what you save. This catalyst for this discussion came from this Tweet I saw:
Click to enlarge and focus
For those approaching elder status, it says,
"Cost of Chicago police brutality settlements in 2013: $84.6 million Savings from closing half the city's mental health clinics: $1.7 million"
The savings in the police department in training, inadequate supervision and accountability systems, from hiring officers with poor education, poor empathy, and poor ethics, lead to high lawsuit costs that then cause some to justify closing mental health clinics that will lead to more conflicts between the mentally ill and the police.
But before writing this post I had to check on the numbers. They fit what my personal models of the world would predict, which is all the more reason to double check them rather than assume they are accurate.
"Brutality-related lawsuits have cost Chicago taxpayers $521 million over the last decade — that’s more than half a billion dollars. . . In 2013 alone, the city paid out $84.6 million in settlements, judgments, legal fees and other expenses, more than triple the budgeted amount.
That’s a huge expenditure for a city with billions of dollars in unfunded pension obligations, and a budget crisis severe enough to force mental health clinic shutdowns, reduced library hours and higher fees for water, parking and other services.
We’re not suggesting victims of police brutality don’t deserve to be compensated — in some cases no amount of money can make up for ruined lives and lost loved ones — but at a time when Mayor Rahm Emanuel is contemplating painful tax and fee increases to deal with the pension crisis, the budget impact of police misconduct is huge.
The half-billion spent on these cases could have built five state-of-the-art high schools and more than 30 libraries, repaved 500 miles of arterial streets, or paid off a big chunk of the pension bill." (emphasis added)
And I found the mental health numbers (for 2013, the same year as the police lawsuits) at Chicago Reader:
"The mayor says he saved an estimated $2.2 million with the closings. But as the activists point out, he doled out $500,000 to private mental health providers to help pick up the slack. So he really only saved $1.7 million—in a budget of more than $6 billion—while firing 33 employees. They were among 125 medical employees, most of them black or Hispanic, who got the ax in Mayor Emanuel's first budget."
(I would note, for the record, that the mayor in question here is a Democrat and was Obama's chief of staff when he first became president. A smart guy, but the danger for smart folks is that they think they understand everything. And Emanuel clearly doesn't. Or, these issues aren't his key agenda and he thinks he can let them slide while he pursues whatever he's trying to get out of being mayor.)
The cost of municipal payouts is often hard to figure out. The Municipality of Anchorage, at least in the past, used to require a non-disclosure clause in their settlements, so the person who wins the lawsuits cannot tell people how much they got paid. The Municipality spokespeople would then say, "I'm sorry, for privacy reasons, we cannot disclose the amount of the settlement." They'd make it sound like the privacy of the employee or the citizen was being protected, when in fact it was to avoid embarrassing the the Municipality the way Sean's tweet does.
Cutting doesn't just lead, in many cases, to higher costs for the city. It can also lead to higher costs for citizens. Cuts in police may lead to more crime and more vehicle crashes, both of which also lead to higher insurance costs. Cuts in teachers may lead parents to hire private tutors for their kids.
The spinoff costs are harder to track down and people who only think one-step-at-a-time, have trouble seeing these impacts. And the spatial equivalent to one-step-at-a time is seeing each detail separately, in isolation, and not seeing all the details linked together in the big picture. Or, in this case, not seeing how the mental health cuts were tiny compared to the cost of the police brutality settlements. Another reason that everyone should be required to play chess. OK, I hope I've made my point. Rambling on surely won't make it any better.
I'm going to do this one a little differently this year. Rather than wait until it is all 'done' I thought I'd build it slowly and let you see it grow to completion. I think I have everyone up. There are other sites that list people born in 1916. For instance this biography website. Some seem like they have everyone born that year. Other sites have fewer. I used several loose criteria:
Had I heard of them?
Were they significant in the world or their culture when they lived?
Did they make an important contribution to humanity?
What were my feelings about them and did I have any kind of connection to them?
Most I've heard of. Most had some significant role to play. Adriana Caselotti was the voice of Snow White in the Disney movie and Ruth Handler had a significant role in creating Barbie - for better or worse, a major influence in 20th Century United States. Iva Tigori was better known as Tokyo Rose. I figure the Nobel Prize winners, though unknown to most of us, made an important contribution. And I've read Herbert Simon and C. Wright Mills' work. I've stopped worrying about whether I cover everyone I should. It's my blog, so it's my choice.
My goal is to get people's information up at least by their birthdays. So I've put up Maxene Andrews - one of the Andrews Sisters - up today because her birthday is January 3, making her the oldest of this year's cohorts.
I'm also trying out grouping them by their professions. I may or may not have a lot about any individual. With Maxene Andrews, I've just got a link to her obituary and a video that probably tells essentials for people who don't know her.
The only other people I've got done are Ruth Handler and John Burnside. I didn't know who they were and so when I looked them up, I took some notes, and it seemed the best place to keep the notes was in the post.
Still Alive
There are three on the list who are still alive: Actors Olivia de Havilland and Kirk Douglas, and author Beverly Cleary. Beverly turns 100 on April 12, Olivia on July 1, 2016, and Kirk has almost a year left until December 9, 2016
Two people on the list - Betty Grable and Harry James - were married to each other for a time.
So, enjoy, learn some history, and watch this post evolve in the next few months.
Music
Harry James March 15, 1916 -July 5, 1983 67
Dinah Shore Feb 29, 1916 - Feb 24, 1994 78
A popular singer of the mid 20th century, a bit
too sweet for me. Pearl Bailey helps with this rendition
of Mack the Knife.
Francis Crick June 8 - July 28, 2004 88 Nobel Prize
Herbert Simon June 15 - Feb 9, 2001
84 Nobel Prize
Alexander Prokhorov July 11, - Jan 8 2002 85 Nobel Prize
Edward C. Banfield Nov 19 - Sept. 30, 1999 82
C. Wright Mills August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962
Shelby Foote Nov 17 - June 27 2005 88 Historian
Politicians
Aldo Moro Sept. 23 - May 9, 1978 61
Edward Heath July 9 - July 17 2005 89
François Mitterrand Oct 26-Jan 8 1996 79
Gough Whitlam July 11 - Oct. 21, 2014 98
Harold Wilson March 11- May 23, 1995 79
Eugene McCarthy March 29 - Dec 10, 2006
Actors
Gregory Peck April 5, 1916 - June 12, 2003 87 Jackie Gleason Feb 28, 1916 - June 24, 1987 71
"His penchant for fine food, generously poured scotch and beautiful women; his ability to dominate a room, a stage or the screen; his taste for custom-made suits, monogrammed shirts and the ubiquitous red carnation; his appetite for the biggest, the best and just a dollar more than the other guy made, all became a part of the Gleason legend which began on Brooklyn’s Herkimer Street in 1916."(from his website.)
Glenn Ford May 1- Aug 30, 2006 90
Dorothy McGuire June 14 - Sept 14, 2001 85
Betty Grable - Dec, 18, 1916 - July 2, 1973 56
Olivia deHaviland July 1, 1916 (born in Tokyo) Still Alive at 99
Sterling Hayden March 26 - May 23 1996 80 Kirk Douglas Dec. 9, 1916 - Still Alive at99
Adriana Caselotti May 6 - Jan 19, 1997 80
Business/Creators
Ferruccio Lamborghini April 28, 1916- Feb 20, 1993 76
"Ruth and Elliot Handler founded Mattel Creations in 1945, and 14 years later, Ruth Handler gave the world the Barbie doll. When asked her relationship to Barbie, Ruth simply replied, "I'm Barbie's mom."
The inspiration for Barbie came as Ruth watched her daughter Barbara playing with paper dolls. Barbara and her friends used them to play adult or teenage make-believe, imagining roles as college students, cheerleaders and adults with careers. Ruth immediately recognized that experimenting with the future from a safe distance through pretend play was an important part of growing up. She also noticed a product void and was determined to fill that niche with a three-dimensional fashion doll.
Several years and many designs later, Mattel introduced Barbie, the Teen-Age Fashion Model, to skeptical toy buyers at the annual Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. Never before had they seen a doll so completely unlike the baby and toddler dolls popular at the time."
News
Walter Cronkite Nov. 4, 1916 - July 17, 2009 92
Daniel Schorr Aug 31 - July 23, 2010 93
Writers
Irving Wallace March 19 0 June 20 1980 74
Harold Robbins May 21 - October 14, 1997 81
Roald Dahl Sept 13, 1916- Nov 23, 1990 74
Beverly Cleary April 12, 1916 - Still Alive at 99
Other
Iva Toguri July 4, 1916 - Sept 26, 2006 90
Inventor/Activist
From LA Times: John Burnside November 2, 1916 – September 14, 2008
From LA Times: "A onetime staff scientist at Lockheed, Burnside had an interest in optical engineering that led to his inventing the teleidoscope, a variation on the kaleidoscope that works without the use of colored glass chips and instead uses a lens to transform whatever is in front of it into a colorful design. In 1958, he launched California Kalidoscopes, which became a successful Los Angeles design and manufacturing plant. In the 1970s, Burnside created the Symetricon, a large mechanical kaleidoscopic device that projects colorful patterns; it was used in a number of movies, including the 1976 science fiction film 'Logan's Run.'"
From The Wild Hunt: "After meeting in the mid-sixties, Burnside and Hay blazed a trail for the still nascent Gay rights movement. They were protesting the exclusion of Gays from the military back in 1966, and appeared on television together two years before the Stonewall riots. Unlike some Gay rights advocates, Burnside was not an assimilationist, preferring that Gays develop their own unique culture and spirituality. This impulse lead to the creation of the Radical Faerie movement in 1979."
The LA Times listed a slew of new laws that came into effect today. Sounds like something like something all major newspapers ought to do. ADN, you working on the Alaska new laws story? I can't find a list of new Alaska laws, though there is plenty online about the Alaska's new marijuana law.
Here's one that has the potential to impact Alaska, especially if other states copy it:
The state’s two major public employee pension funds must sell holdings in companies that derive at least half of their revenue from mining coal used to generate electricity by July 1, 2017.
The state will increase compensation for innocent people who are wrongly convicted from $100 for each day behind bars to $140, to reflect inflation.
Here are the others
Prosecutors are allowed to seek forfeiture of the images and storage devices used in “revenge porn” cases, in which an estranged romantic partner posts nude or sexual pictures of the other person online
Law enforcement agencies must obtain a search warrant before looking at private emails, text messages and GPS data stored in smartphones, laptops and the cloud
Requires short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb to alert users that if they are renters, listing their home on the site could violate their lease agreements.
Companies with state contracts worth at least $100,000 must provide equal benefits to transgender employees.
Bans concealed weapons on college campuses.
Crisis pregnancy clinics certified by the state must post notices that California has public programs providing affordable contraception and abortions.
The word “alien” will be removed from California's labor code to describe those not born in the United States.
The vaccination law eliminates the ability of parents to waive immunization rules for their children based on personal beliefs. Though the law takes effect on Jan. 1, it allows parents to delay the vaccinations until July 1 if they filled out a request before New Year’s Day. But almost all students will have to show proof of immunization shots for the start of the new school year this fall
High schools that mandate health courses must provide lessons aimed at preventing sexual violence and the concept that both parties must consent to sexual relations.
Students are required to take sexual health classes unless their parents object — the classes are now voluntary — and the lessons must include the teaching to be inclusive of different sexual orientations.
Cheerleaders for professional sports teams are considered employees, not independent contractors, and therefore are eligible to receive a minimum wage, workers' compensation and other benefits.
Designates lace lichen, commonly known as Spanish moss, as California's official lichen.
One imagines that Texas and California are polar opposites. JRLawFirm let's us compare a bit. In some ways it's true. While California banned concealed weapons on campus, Texas did the opposite.
Senate Bill No. 11, which will take effect on August 1, amends the Texas Government and Penal Codes to allow handgun license holders, in some circumstances, to carry a concealed handgun on public and private colleges and universities in Texas, as well as other independent institutions of higher learning (does not apply to public junior or community colleges until August 1, 2017).
But in other cases they are moving in the same direction. Texas also took action against 'revenge porn' and they're requiring a search warrant for cell phone and wireless devices.
It is now illegal to broadcast or disclose private, intimate, visual material if that material was disclosed without the person’s consent, the material was not expected to be disclosed, the disclosure of the material caused harm, and the disclosure revealed the identity of the person in any matter. This is now actionable in criminal as well as civil court, per State Bill 1135, effective September 1st, 2015.
Police must now obtain a search warrant in order to search a persons’s cell phone or wireless communication device, per House Bill 1396, which will take effect on September 1st, 2015.
And while California now has an official lichen, Texas now has an official hashtag - #Texas. I'm sure there will be a lot more activity involving the hashtag than the lichen.
