Bittersweet Humor - Science v. Everything Else And Delta's Breakup Letter To Juneau

This certainly is relevant to this blog's theme of how we know things.

Click to enlarge and focus - Found in LA Times Jan 20, 2015

My immediate reaction was a bittersweet smile.  So true.  So sad.  But this really depends on how one defines science.

Full blown rigorous western science with quantification and experimenting doesn't answer every question, but not everything can be broken down and measured.  Particularly social behaviors.

And there are less rigorous (in a pure science sense) ways of knowing.  Scientists in Alaska have learned to pay attention to traditional Native Alaskan knowledge on things like weather, animal behavior, ice conditions, medicinal herbs etc.  There's just a long accumulation of knowledge over generations.

Even the divide between simple, quick, superficial answers versus more complex ones can be questioned.  Many biblical justifications we hear are long and complex.  They can also be just wrong. And there is also a lot of wisdom in the bible, but like with the Constitution, it has to be interpreted in the context of what science has since revealed.  For instance the requirements to rotate crops, to leave the leftover harvests on the ground for the hungry, the ideas about jubilee years when debts are forgiven, are all good for social animals to heed.

I'll leave it at that.  It's a heavy, grey, rainy day on Bainbridge Island, makes Anchorage inviting, especially with the reports I'm seeing on great auroras.   I've got a short time here before I'm playing grandpa again..

So let me offer you, for another bittersweet smile,  this link to Delta's breakup letter to Juneau posted on One Hot Mess Alaska.  

Why Our Factory School System Fails Many Students

I'm reading a biography of Marie Curie and I was struck by the description of two key players - Curie's husband Pierre and New Zealand born scientist Ernest Rutherford.  Both were very slow in learning to read and write, but their minds were already working overtime on science. Consider what would happen to these kids in your local school district.

From Obsessive Genius:  The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara Goldsmith:

"At an early age [Pierre Curie] was unable to read or write but had an ability to visualize mathematical concepts far beyond his years.  His father, unusually enlightened for his time (1860's France), had realized that his son's spirit would be broken in a regular school.  He had decided on home schooling Pierre, aided by his wife an Jacques  Today, one would diagnose Pierre Curie as dyslexic.  His handwriting remained that of a child and his spelling was abominable.  .   .
At fourteen, Pierre developed an attachment to an excellent tutor who taught him mathematics and latin.  By the age of sixteen he had received his science baccalaureate and  . . . taking a degree in physics at the Sorbonne and enrolling at the School of Pharmacy in Paris . . ." (p. 57)

And later he would get a Nobel Prize in physics with his wife Marie.

And then there's a similar account a little later:

". . . [in] 1883, a boy of eleven, Ernest Rutherford, stood on the porch a New Zealand farmhouse while a thunderstorm approached.  His father, awakened by he storm, went downstairs to join his son.  What was he doing?  Ernest replied that he had figured out that by counting the seconds between the lightening flash and the thunderclap and allowing one second for the sound to travel 400 years, he could tell how close they were to the storm's center.  Until then Ernest, one of twele children of a potato farmer, had like Pierre Curie been considered slow.  Home-schooled, at eleven he could read but not write.  At twelve, he was lucky enough to find the first of a series of gifted teachers who inspired him to learn.  When he received his first full scholarship he told his mother, "I'e dug my last potato." [p. 80]

Ernest Rutherford went on to get the Nobel Prize in chemistry, though this bio doesn't mention that he  was slow to reading and writing.  A shame.


Why Is This Important?

Schooling used to be reserved for those who could afford to hire tutors for the kids.  As we moved to mass production schooling, we adopted the rationale of mass production factories.  Except in factories, the raw materials are relatively the same, whereas kids aren't.

But our schools have curricula that assume a kid's ability in all subjects will be at a certain level at a certain age.  If they aren't, the kid is considered a bit dim.  I've posted on the subject before.  Kids who do not have an academic bent, often learn fairly quickly that they are not as good as the others.  Instead of seeing where each kid is and then designing a curriculum for the kid, we design a curriculum for all kids a certain age and force the kid to conform or fail.

In doing so, we waste so many brains.  We cause kids to grow up feeling inferior and marginalized.  I'm sure a lot of home schooling parents and charter school supporters are people whose own school experiences weren't positive.

And this is one of those areas where the people on the left and the right agree there's a problem, but disagree on the solution.


UPDATED 1:30pm:  I probably should have said I'm not necessarily endorsing the book or the NYTimes review of it.  The best thing about the book is that it's short and gives some insight that I wouldn't otherwise have on Curie.  But I also wonder about how Goldsmith chose what to include and what not?  I'm sure it's not an accident that she put in the two references quoted above about kids who learned to read late, but were otherwise geniuses.  But the example of the thunderstorm in Obsessive Genius leaves out a part listed in the Rutherford link.  That he'd gotten a book on science in school that had an experiment about how to figure out the distance away of a cannon.  It's still clever to transfer that experiment to the thunder, but not as original as it might seem.  It's also at odds with the quote about him being kept out of school still when he was eleven.  There's not enough detail in the notes for me to understand how she determined what was the more accurate interpretation of the paper trail on Curie and others.

I'm adding this because there's yet another Feedburner problem.  This seems to be getting all too common. I add this for two reasons. For those who found this post another way, I'm sorry if you were fooled into coming back. And I'm also keeping track of how many times Feedburner takes more than an hour or two to kick in.] UPDATED 6:30pm:  The second try didn't catch Feedburner either. I found some unnecessary html code had gotten into the post (probably from cutting and pasting the quotes). Let's see if getting rid of that helps. But this one is a little trickier because there was a comment which gets lost when I delete the previous version of this post (so it's not up on the blog twice) and so I'm including the comment here at the end of the post.

UnknownWednesday, January 20, 2016 at 2:43:00 PM AKSTRemember when they would teach children to ask questions? Now they drug the kids who ask too many questions.

This time it got picked up within a minute.

Confessions Part 2 As We Leave Anchorage

I posted some thoughts on confessions just before boarding a plane to Seattle.  But I had more thoughts as we took off and before we got into the clouds.

Cook Inlet Ice as we take off

Making a Murderer is a disturbing yet compelling Netflix documentary series.  I gave some details of the confession - what it sounded like in the news and how it was actually obtained - in the previous post.

Here are some more thoughts the show raised for me.

Some specific issues for me:

The Certainty of the prosecutors and the defense attorneys.  The prosecutor and the investigators - even the initial court appointed defense attorney - were all certain that Steve Avery (Brendan's uncle) was guilty and that Brendan was an accomplice.  They didn't even consider other leads.  This certainty seemed to justify the way they got the confession.  They knew for sure that Brendan was guilty and they just needed to get him to admit it.  The defense attorneys were also certain.  The first court appointed attorney was sure of his guilt.  Later, the better attorneys who took over were sure of Steven Avery's and Brendan's innocence.  It's the job of the defense attorney to defend the accused.  But it's the job of the prosecutor to uphold justice.  His job in court is to present the evidence against the accused, but when information comes out that raises doubts, he should just relentlessly go after a conviction.  If the wrong person is convicted, it means the actual murderer is still loose and liable to find new victims.


Getting a Confession - How far to push?  If someone is guilty, it's better for the prosecution to get a confession.  It makes it easier to convict and you can get evidence on other culprits.  Prosecutors even make deals with suspects - 'We'll offer you less time in prison if you confess and cooperate with us on others involved in the crime."  It can also save the time and expense of a long trial if the suspect confesses and pleads guilty.  And if there is still an imminent danger - an unknown partner in crime still on the loose and dangerous - there is the added urgency of protecting people from harm right now.

Foraker and Denali Get Some Morning Sun

But what if the suspect is not guilty?  How far should the interrogator push?  This was a big issue with Guantanamo prisoners and waterboarding and other torture.  If the suspect is not guilty, one is inflicting unnecessary pain and/or anguish to an innocent victim or one gets a false confession when the suspect says whatever the interrogator wants him to say.

Findlaw tells us this was the reason for the protections against self incrimination in the US Constitution:

"The right against self-incrimination is rooted in the Puritans’ refusal to cooperate with interrogators in 17th century England. They often were coerced or tortured into confessing their religious affiliation and were considered guilty if they remained silent. English law granted its citizens the right against self-incrimination in the mid-1600s, when a revolution established greater parliamentary power.
Puritans who fled religious persecution brought this idea with them to America, where it would eventually become codified in the Bill of Rights. Today, courts have found the right against self-incrimination to include testimonial or communicative evidence at police interrogations and legal proceedings."

Getting a Confession - Use of Guile:  

Another issue is the use of lies to get a confession.  Interrogators led Brendan to believe that by telling the truth he would make his troubles go away.  He told them he needed to get back to school so he could turn in a paper and they implied that he needed to answer the questions first.  They asked if he wanted to go to prison for the rest of his life and when he said no, they said, then write down what you did.  They told him, "We know what you did, we just want you to say it."  Well, they didn't know.

About to fly up Eagle River valley 

Frontline tells a similar story about a girl name Troung:

"The detective also tells her that, if she confesses, they’ll “walk right out here, to special
crimes juvenile” to “talk to a social worker.” If not, he’ll consult with the medical examiner and start working on a murder case against her. . .
Finally Truong confesses, after being reassured by the detective that “maybe something good will come out of all this,” and that the courts will decide on what “treatment” she should get in the juvenile system. . ."

When you are dealing with a guilty suspect, you may have to use tricks to break them down and confess.  There are lots of strategies that we see in cop movies all the time, like Good Cop/Bad Cop.  But how does that work with the not guilty suspect?

The Frontline show goes on to say false confessions aren't as rare as people think.

"But are false confessions actually that rare? Brandon L. Garrett, a University of Virginia School of Law professor who recently wrote a book called Convicting the Innocent, says his research “suggests that innocents actually confess to a lot.” Forty of the first 250 people exonerated based on DNA evidence, or 16 percent, falsely confessed."

And why do people confess falsely?  They quote Troung about why she confessed, which sounds similar to Brendan's story:

So why did Truong confess to something she says she didn’t do? Why would anyone? “It was a pretty long two hours,” she told Boeri, “and all I could hear throughout those two hours was that they were going to give me help if I confessed.”

They falsely told her and Brendan that all they had to do was confess and they could go home.  In Brendan's case, that's all he wanted - to go home.  But they lied to him and chained him up and imprisoned him.  Is that kind of lying acceptable?

I think that different techniques are acceptable in different circumstances.  I'm not sure where the lines should be drawn, but introverted kids, like Brendan, with a low IQ and an inability to understand what is happening, are clearly on the no guile side of the line.  More important than locating that line, may be to insure that the person has an attorney present, though in Brendan's case, his attorney was part of the problem - enough so to be kicked off the case by the judge.

And over the Chugach 

Innocent or Guilty Presumption And The Need For Closure

We have trials to determine guilt or innocence.  The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.  Yet in the Avery case and in Brendan's case, it's clear that even Brendan's attorney considered him guilty.  (see the previous post on this.)
The Sheriff - It's critical police keep open some doubt about the suspect's guilt, simply so they don't stop looking for other suspects.  In Steven Avery's case, the sheriff's office ignored a tip from the local police that there was another suspect they'd been surveilling, except for the time of the crime.  That other suspect eventually - after Avery served 18 years in prison - was proven to be the culprit.  And he committed more crimes in the meantime.  And Avery, through DNA tests was proven not to be.
The Victim's Family - They want to believe the person who did that to their family member has been caught and punished.  In the Avery/Dacey cases, the victim's brother was certain from Day 1 that Avery and Dacey (Kevin) were guilty.  They ignored the inconsistencies.  But the family really does have an interest in the real perpetrator being caught and punished.  In Avery's original conviction (when he was proven innocent later) the victim positively identified him.  But later on, when the DNA proved he hadn't done it, she apologized.
The Media - They want to sell advertising.  They have a strong incentive to report the most titillating stories they can.  The reports of Brendan's confession dripped with blood and sex and murder.  The reports made it sound like Brendan, after stewing on this for months, came in and spilled his guts.  There's no hint the police picked him up at school and painstakingly fed him the story they believed and manipulated him until he eventually wrote what they wanted him to write.  The media didn't ncecssarily presume guilt as much as presume that sensationalism gets ratings.  But in going for gore, they planted the the presumption of guilt in the minds of their viewers and probably in their own minds.


Need For Closure
I suspect that the quick presumption of guilt in this case reflected a very human need for closure.
The Sheriff - When a brutal crime is committed in a small town, law enforcement has to feel some responsibility for not having prevented it.  Thus the sooner they catch the culprit, the closer they are to redeeming themselves.  And there has to be at least subconscious antagonism toward the suspect for making them look bad.
The Victim's Family - They too want to put this to rest as quickly as possible.  Knowing the person who hurt or killed your family member has been caught and is being punished, for many, is a big part of the grievance process.  Retribution seems to be part of human society.  So much so that punishing the wrong person is not a worry for most victims' relatives.  I'm not saying they knowingly will accept any culprit to punish, guilty or not, but rather their need for retribution helps them see guilt, even in the innocent.
The Media - They probably have the least need for closure, as the 2014 Republican presidential race demonstrates.  As long as an issue gets viewers and sells advertisements, they'll feed it to us.
The Public - They share the police and victim's family needs.  They want to know the perpetrator is off the streets and they are safe so they can go on leading their lives normally.  They want to believe that justice will prevail.  They've watched enough police and lawyer television shows that they believe that in the end, the smart defense attorney will pull her client out of the fire.  Until they experience their own injustice at the hands of the police or the courts, they just want the culprit caught and punished and they don't probe too deeply into the matter.


One Other Issue - Media Manipulation Of Trials

My sense is that the filmmakers seriously made this film because they thought an injustice was done.  At least that's how it came across to me.  But how do any of us know whether they fairly represented all sides of this case?  Because they were taking the side of the economically and educationally poor, outsiders of this community against the establishment - particularly the sheriff department and the court system - that their motives are relatively clean.  But then, how poor are the Avery's?  They've got 40 acres of land, they've got a great vegetable garden.  Is there a bigger story that the filmmakers missed that someone is trying to get their land?  Probably not.  It's upstate Wisconsin and there is probably plenty of land available.  You see how many threads one could unravel and follow here?

The film makers here did a great job of mixing entertainment and documentary.  A documentary should be accurate and explain complicated relationships AND be interesting to the viewer so they watch the whole thing.  That happened here.  I know my wife and I were totally pulled into the story and we were rooting for the good guys and angry at the bad guys.  The filmmakers succeeded in their mission.

 But will others see this model and do similar types of films, but with a sponsored message?  Will corporations use this style to push their agendas?  Will criminal organizations make similar films to make their own members look innocent?  This documentary wasn't available when El Chapo met with Sean Penn, but maybe he was thinking along the same lines.

OK, there are all kinds of directions this can go.  Lots of issues.  But enough now.

Laugh Hard

I'm trying to get Part 2 of the confession post up, but in the meantime, somehow my granddaughter and I got on the subject of frogs catching flies with their tongues.  In 2016, you can then say, "Let's find an example on Youtube."  The first one's we found were frogs catching flies, not with their tongues though, just jumping fast with their mouths open.

But then we found this one and we both started laughing and laughing.  I finally had to say, just one more time after she watched it five or six times.

Enjoy!


 

[Sorry for those seeing this reposted - Feedburner problems again. This seems to be getting all too common. I add this for two reasons. For those who found this post another way, I'm sorry if you were fooled into coming back. And I'm also keeping track of how many times Feedburner takes more than an hour or two to kick in.]

Why Do People Confess To Stuff They Didn't Do?

We watched Making A Murderer on Netflix this last week.  I didn't know how to write about the show without talking about what happens.  But then I saw a short article in the paper yesterday saying that Steven Avery has filed an appeal.

So, if you are in the middle of watching Making of a Murderer, you probably should stop reading right now.  Not that I'm going to give any spoilers.

There's a newscast early on that talks, in the normal urgent, almost astonished tone of news broadcasts, about the confession of Brendan Dacey, the 16 year old burdened with guilt, who told investigators in gory detail how he went to his uncle's trailer and found a naked woman handcuffed to the bed.  She begged him to help her.  Instead, at his uncle's urgings, he raped her an slit her throat, and shot her in the head.  Then they burned in in the burn put out back."

Sounds pretty damning doesn't it.

But as the show continues, you see the hours it took to get the confession from this low IQ, quiet, introverted kid.  They didn't use physical force.  They didn't even raise their voices.  But they constantly told him they were there to help him - his court appointed lawyer wasn't there and his mom said she wasn't even told about the interrogation - and all he had to tell the truth.  He kept denying things until he starts guessing at what they want to hear.

"What did you do to her head?"
"Nothing"
"We know, we just need you to tell us."
On and on until
"Hit her."
"Is that all"
"Yeah."
We know there's more.
What else did you do to her head?
"Cut off her hair?"
It goes on and on until the detective asks if they shot her in the head.
"Yeah."

The cops were sure they had the right guy and they used every trick to get him to confess.  It wasn't hard with a very immature, slow, quiet teenager, with no record at all.  (At one point he's on the phone and tells his mom, "they said I was inconsistent.  What does that mean?"  His mom doesn't know either.)

Here are some pictures of his court appointed attorney's investigator interrogating Brendan.  This guy is supposed to be working for Brendan, but he's working hard to get a confession.

"Do you want to get out and have a family someday?"  Image from Making a Murderer

"Well, that means you have to cooperate with me" - Image from Making a Murderer

He tells Brendan to draw a picture of the woman handcuffed to the bed, and Brendan does as he's told.  In a conversation with him mom, when she asked why he confessed to something he didn't do, and where did he get these ideas from, he says, "I guessed what they wanted, like I do in school."

Here's that same interrogator, in the courtroom responding to Brendan's new attorney, one with experience in coerced confessions.  Remember, this guy was supposed to be on Brendan's side. He's talking about Brendan's family, the Avery's.

These people are pure evil  - image of Brendan's mother and grandmother

"A friend of mine suggested 'This is a one-branch family tree'"

"Cut this tree down.  We need to end the gene pool here"

 The only thing positive I can say about this guy is that he seems to believe in evolution if he's talking about genes.   He gets this guy to acknowledge that he was trying to get the confession to help the prosecutors' case against Brendan's uncle.  (I didn't use 'admit' because he doesn't seem to think he did anything wrong.)  Brendan's new attorney is incredulous about the interview and this testimony.

While Brendan's confession is not allowed in Steve Avery's trial, it is allowed in Brendan's.

The film makers clearly believe that Steve Avery is innocent and that Brendan's confession is coerced and pure fiction.  There's a lot they left out - the trials lasted weeks.  One tantalizing lead I would have like to know more about was when they asked if the story about the assault and murder wasn't true, where did he get his ideas.  Eventually he says he read it in a book and names the book.  The show didn't say if anyone followed up and found a copy of the book.


My flight to Seattle is about to board, so I'm going to post this, but I may add some more later.  Or make a Part 2. (My granddaughter said, "I want you to come to my birthday party."  What could I do but say yes?)  But I can say, I'll never 'hear' a reported confession the same again.



Confessions Part 2 is here.

UPDATE Jan 20:  Here's an LA Times article about LA settlements with two men wrongly convicted of murder who served 34 and 26 years in prison and who were awarded $16 and $7 million.  I don't think confessions were involved, but there was enough wrongdoing by police officers that city attorneys argued against going to court.

Snow, But Still Out Of Synch

I posted a picture of our snow free back yard the other day.  It's white again.  But according to the ADN today, businesses in town that depend on snow and cold are hurting and that we have had very little snow this year.

image from Alaska Dispatch News

And that three inches all came in the last week.

Their other charts show we have had more snow than last year - which was a record low snow year, but we've had more "no snow depth" days than last year, only six days (through Jan 15) behind the record "no snow depth' year to this date - 2007-2008.

Road Closed Lost And Found

This barrier and sign have been at this alley since last fall, maybe September or October.  Some utility did some work in the alley then left.  But they also left the sign behind.  I called MLP and asked if it were their sign and if not could they check with other utilities who might have left it.

But it's still here in January.

Maybe it belongs to a contractor.  I couldn't find any identifiers on it.  I'm thinking about offering it on Craigslist.  Anyone leaving something like this lying around for three months is guilty of littering and surely this could qualify as abandoned.

On RoadTrafficSigns.com you can buy a Road Closed sign like this from $42 to $72 depending on the quality.  I suspect this is the cheaper quality.  And I found similar traffic barricades ranging from $463 to $896.

You'd think someone would have notice these missing.

Well, if you lost these, let me know and I'll tell you where they are.  Or if you're looking for something like this, I'll tell you too.

[Sorry for those seeing this reposted - Feedburner problems again. This seems to be getting all too common.]

Today's IRS Time: One Hour 30 Minutes [UPDATED After Visit To Local Office]

[Update at the bottom] Monday I called the IRS again in hopes of resolving the payroll tax snafu for my mom's caregiver.  Regular readers know my mom died in July.  Although she had an experienced accountant and he'd suggested I hire ADP, one of the largest payroll companies in the world, to take care of the caregivers' state and federal taxes and other deductions, things got screwed up.

The payroll company did all the deductions at first.  Then they told us that, for a small household account with just one employee, they don't do the federal taxes.  They  had done the first three quarters in error and it was my responsibility to do the fourth quarter deposits.  In conversations between ADP and the accountant, they decided to put all the deductions into my mom's personal income tax return and ask that the money ADP deposited be transferred there.  And I found a payroll company that specialized in home care employment so this wouldn't happen again for 2015.

Then I started getting letters from the business side of the IRS saying they had $12,000 but no returns and from the personal side saying they had a return, but that I owed $12,000.  Sounds pretty simple right?  The business side just needed to transfer the $12,000 to the personal side.  That's what I thought anyway.  After regular monthly notices and phone calls, in September a business side IRS agent said that the way to resolve this was to amend the personal income taxes and leave out the payroll information and submit 941 forms to the business side.  And tell them to transfer the fourth quarter payment that went to the personal side to the business side.  (Remember, my mom is now dead, which seems weird to me, but the IRS doesn't worry about such things, those most of the agents I've talked to have been quick to offer condolences.)

That was done by early October.  I also was told that the power of attorney I had that allowed me to speak on my mom's behalf was no longer good because she had died and that I had to file a Form 56. (This is important to understand today's encounter and why I'm headed over to the IRS office now.)  I filed Form 56 on Oct. 16 - I have a copy of the stamped form in front of me because I went to the IRS office to do this.

I kept getting various notices - mostly fines and penalties adding up on the missing payments.

So, Monday I called the IRS again.

Agent 1:  On the business side.  Said she couldn't really help and I should talk to the personal side.  Besides, her shift was over and the next shift person was waiting to use the desk.  She transferred the call.

Agent 2:  On the personal side now.  Spent more time looking into it and finally said that the case had been sent to Advanced Account Services and she'd transfer me to someone there.

Agent 3:  The man at Advanced Account Services said he'd never heard that term before, but would like to help.  It should be easy to fix, but unfortunately, the computers had been down since 10am Eastern time (it was now around 5pm Eastern time.)  I'm not sure how the previous two agents I spoke to had looked up my stuff on the computer if it had been down all day, but I try to be polite on the phone calls so I didn't say anything.  He said I should call the Tax Payer Advocate.

Taxpayer Advocate:  The recording said they were there to help people who either had a hardship or who had problems that couldn't be resolved.  But the lady who answered the phone asked if I had a hardship.  Well, I'm not going to be thrown out of my house because of this delay, so I said 'no' but I have a long unresolved problem.  She said that they can only help people with hardships.  I pointed out what the recording said.  She said, "We got a notice recently that we are only to deal with hardship cases and she was sorry the recording had not been fixed."

I understand that Congress is not funding the federal government to the level they need to deal with the workload.  So I can understand that the IRS is trying to focus on the most urgent problems - like people who are in a financial crisis.  I also suspect this is part of the legacy of the Reagan policy to "starve the beast."  Today, the tax cut policy, along with actually cutting the budget, this means that government agencies like the IRS are understaffed.  You can wait 90 minutes for someone to answer your call.  (Today it was only 35 minutes fortunately, but as April nears it will get horrendous.)  This causes people like me, who have done everything they were supposed to do and paid their taxes correctly, to get really frustrated.  If I didn't have special expertise in public administration, I would probably be ranting and raving about how bad government is.  I suspect that there are some among the Republicans who want exactly that to happen.  I at least understand it's not the IRS, but Congress that's the problem for me.  Well, I do think someone at the IRS should have been able to fix this.  But this is an aside from my story here.

Senator Murkowski's office:  OK, if an agent tells me to use the taxpayer advocate and the advocate says they can't help me, I need to go to a higher authority.  I called my US Senator's office and gave them permission to get information about my (mom's) taxes.

Today.  I began at 8:05am.  I waited 35 minutes on hold.  The agent listened and spent a lot of time looking at the (now lengthy, I'm sure) record on the computer.  But it boiled down to this:  "You aren't authorized to represent this account."   Again, she tells me, because my mother died, the power of attorney is no longer valid.
Me:  "But I filed a Form 56."
IRS:  When?
Me:  I have a copy of the stamped form here.  October 16, 2015.
IRS:  We don't have a copy.  You sent one for the personal side, but not the business side.  You need to fill one out with the EIN number (my mom had to be a business to do the payroll deductions and so she was assigned an EIN number.)
Me:  The Form 56 I submitted has both the EIN number AND my mother's social security number.
IRS:  Well, we don't have it.
Me:  Can't you call the personal side (of the IRS) and get a copy?
IRS:  No.

Mind you, I've talked to about five or six agents on the business side since my mother died.  Only Monday and today did this issue of the power of attorney come up.

So I'm off to the IRS to file a second Form 56 and this one will only have the EIN number on it.

GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

I know I should proof this, but I need to get to the IRS office and I have a ton of other things to do as well.  So please correct the typos as you read.

UPDATE 1:29pm (original posted at 10:30am today) -  It took less time to walk (15 minutes) to my local IRS office and wait there (3 minutes) than it took earlier to wait for an agent to talk to me on the phone (35 minutes.)  The agent who saw me did NOT say she couldn't talk to me.  She did NOT say she couldn't see the business side or the personal side.   I'd gone in to refile Form 56 which allows you to represent someone you have power of attorney for after they die.  Well, that's not entirely correct.  It allows you to establish that after the death you still have the authority to represent the deceased.  I'd already filed the form in October for both the business and personal side.  The personal side has said they have it, but the business side today said I needed one for the business side before she could talk to me.  Even though the form I'd filed listed both the EIN (for business side) and the SS#.

But Ms. E took the old form I'd filed (and had stamped because I'd filed it in person) and said I didn't need to refile.  Instead she went into the computer and went to the business side and added the Form 56 info for them.  She checked what they were doing and she checked on what the personal side was doing.  The personal side had received the amended return in early December and there was a note to transfer the money over to the business side when the review was completed.  She went into the collections side and put in a note saying to hold off on collections because they were processing the amended form.  While she didn't move the money over and make all the issues go away, she did more than any of the folks on the phone have done.

She said there's a big push to do everything electronically, but what I needed couldn't be done that way.  Or via the phone easily.  So being a walk in at the local IRS was both faster and more productive that calling on the phone.  At least in the Anchorage office.  AND I got a nice walk through the fresh snow instead of sitting around on hold.

[Sorry for those seeing this reposted - Feedburner problems again. This seems to be getting all too common.]

Blue And White

These are two Mexican shallow bowls and three candle holders that we brought back from my mom's house.  Each has its own unique pattern.  They were small (about 6 and 3 inches in diameter respectively) and easy to pack.  And their colors and patterns pleaded with me to take them.  Looking at them makes me feel good.


And when we got home I thought about a post I'd started before about all the blue and white items we have.  Is there something special about these colors?  Is it just us or are lots of other human beings particularly fond of this combination?

I took pictures of other objects we have with these colors.  I looked for some answers, but didn't find much.  There's lots of stuff on color wheels and color combinations, but white isn't in most color wheels.  Finding info specifically about blue and white was more difficult. But I'll put in what I found.  Maybe Mark, if you see this, you'll have more to add.




   Here's a Chinese vase, and that leads to the origin of this color combination.   From the Blue and White Porcelain page on Wikipedia.

"In the early 14th century mass-production of fine, translucent, blue and white porcelain started at Jingdezhen, sometimes called the porcelain capital of China. This development was due to the combination of Chinese techniques and Islamic trade. The new ware was made possible by the export of cobalt from Persia (called Huihui qing, 回回青, "Islamic blue"), combined with the translucent white quality of Chinese porcelain.  Cobalt blue was considered as a precious commodity, with a value about twice that of gold.[4] Motifs also draw inspiration from Islamic decorations.  A large portion of these blue-and-white wares was then shipped to Southwest-Asian markets through the Muslim traders based in Guangzhou."

This Thai bowl surely originates from the same Chinese tradition.















And this Japanese vase as well.





















But what about this Portuguese plate that was a present from close friends of my wife's parents who were always so good to us?
















And here's a Japanese cup and saucer made for the US market that has a completely different look.

And here's a very American bowl that is basically blue and white, but adds a few other colors.

Were you getting the sense it was only pottery?  I was.  But here a couple blue and white shirts.

As I was photographing all this I was reminded of how wide the range is of what we call white and what we call blue.


But I still hadn't found much on why people like this combination.


This short introduction from  From Houzz   succinctly repeats the Wikipedia info and adds some aesthetic reasons for the color combination.

"Blue and white is a popular color scheme steeped in history. This classic color palette dates back to the ninth century, when cobalt-blue pigments were used to create motifs on white pottery and porcelain in China. During the 18th century blue and white printed fabrics began popping up in France. 

Blue and white is an appealing combination because it is a very serene palette that looks natural to most people. In design it creates a feeling of elegance and simplicity that is unparalleled."

"Unparalleled elegance and simplicity."  Did the writer just make that up, or is there something more concrete to support that conclusion?

The Anthrotorian, in a post on blue and white in Greece, adds a political reason for the combination:

It wasn’t until 1967, when a military government was in power in Greece, that the other colors disappeared for good.  Thinking that the blue and white showed unification, and supported their political agenda, this government mandated that all buildings must be repainted in blue and white if they weren’t already.

When you do internet searches, you get hits that are vaguely related, but really take you off in a completely different direction.  Like this Harvard Law School paper on the history of the regulation of lipstick from 3500 BC to the present.  I think it showed up because, in addition to more traditional reds, Egyptians used a blue-black lipstick.

For more focus on color, here's a favorite post, from 2011, Are Color Distinctions Natural or Culturally Created? More on Language and How We See the World?

Potpourri: Brent Crude, Science Literacy, Burner Phones, And Hidden Netflix Codes

Some stuff that might interest folks.


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.

4.  Netflix codes for all their different categories.  This lets you get beyond what they think you'll like.