Snowden - The Movie

I've avoided posts about Edward Snowden.  Yes, I've mentioned him now and then, but I've held off from writing about him in much detail.  My dissertation was on privacy.  I've studied whistle-blowing.  Daniel Ellsberg is one of my heroes.  I knew I was primed to be supportive of Snowden and wanted to hold off.  (And whether I say something about him or not isn't going to matter in the bigger scheme of things anyway.)

I wanted to know more.  Well, I really wanted to drop by and talk to him for a couple of days and see if he was the guy I wanted him to be or not.

I've watched some of his tapes and I've pretty much settled, for the time being, on the Snowden the whistleblower side.  He's the good guy who believed in the ideals of his country and was willing to risk his freedom, even his life, to keep his country honest.  That's the narrative that fits most comfortably with what I've seen and heard about Snowden.


So we went to the 12:50 pm showing of Oliver Stone's Snowden today.  I did read a New York Times review when I was checking last night about when the movie played here.  After seeing the movie I'd concur with the reviewer.

This may be the movie that Oliver Stone has been practicing for.  It's restrained and straightforward.  It goes back and forth between the 'right now' and flashbacks.  The 'right now' starts with his arrival in Hong Kong.  The film is totally consistent with my sense of who Snowden is and why he did what he did.

The surprises for me were:

• how conservative he was politically and personally
• how he voiced concerns to others he worked with and for while he was an employee or contractor with the various security agencies
• that he suffered from epileptic seizures

So, until others can present a more convincing narrative - along with supportive evidence - I'm more than willing to call on Obama and others to find a way to let Snowden come back to the US honorably.  Don't make this like the Cuba sanctions that go on forever or our marijuana phobia because we can't admit we're wrong.

There are more thoughts, but I need to do other things and this movie is worth seeing.  It's well made and is entertaining.  At the very least, it should further open the discussion how we keep spy agencies accountable.  And how we treat those who call them on it.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great in the starring role. And I liked how the real Snowden's image replaces the actor's at the very end.

Small Changes - New Library Entrance And Park Parking

Some big, small changes in town.

First, the Consortium Library at UAA now has a north entrance.  From the day they opened the remodeled library it was obvious that they needed another door.  Anyone parking north of the library has to walk about 1/3 of a mile to get to the entrance.  No matter where you park, it's a schlep to the entrance.  I think walking is healthy and al that, but for someone with difficulty walking, particularly in the winter, that's a big deal.

They finally have a new north entrance.  I saw a north entrance sign in the library and looked in amazement.  I followed the arrow and low and behold there was a new entrance and a new spot to check out books for people using that entrance.  How long has this been here I asked.  Just a few days.

[Yes, I know the arrow doesn't point toward the entrance the way I meshed three pictures together.  I could have put it on the right and played with the perspective, but I wanted the check out desk to be clearly visible.  The rotated image in the middle was from further back.  The background picture is near the new door.]

When they first opened the remodeled library I was told a second door would have been too expensive to maintain.  That was when the price of oil was double or more what it is now.  I wonder how long they'll fund someone to check out books at this door.  People better use it a lot.  I'm guessing it was planned before the state budget tanked.

Second, there's a new parking lot at Campbell Creek park just south of Tudor and Lake Otis.  I first saw it from the bike trail not quite two weeks ago.  I was aghast.  Does this park really need more parking?  I guess there are a few times when it gets full, but I'd bet 90% or more of the time there are empty spaces.  And to take trees out for this?

But in the back of my head there was an image of a clearing at this spot, maybe some old maintenance building or something, but it had trees along the bike trail (the old one that cuts from Lake Otis to the easterly bridge.  I never understood why they build a second pedestrian bridge so close to the old one.)  I guess you'll have to go from the parking lot to the old bike trail and across the old bridge to the playground.  Or perhaps you can walk along Lake Otis Parkway to the new bridge.

I checked on google maps to see what was there before.  It looks like a late March or early April image with the creek and the bike trail still iced, but the rest of the snow gone.

And yes, there was a clearing with some sort of building(s) on it - in the green circle.  The playground is where the marker is and you can see the existing parking lot below it.

Who's On A Shoestring?

There's an excellent opinion piece by Elise Patkotak in today's Alaska Dispatch News.  It's a response to Rep. Tammie Wilson's call for an investigation into why social workers are (allegedly) removing kids unnecessarily from their homes.  Everyone should read it.  (That sounds a bit pretentious of me telling people what they should read.  Let me rephrase that.  People interested in the welfare of kids, or in Wilson's claims, who want to better understand the issue can get a good, quick overview of what social workers face in Alaska.  Patkotak's response, based on her own experience as a social worker, isn't to punish social workers, but to have enough of them and enough backup services so they can do their jobs.)





But I do have an issue with the title (which usually is something an editor adds, not the writer.)  Here
it is:

Social workers can't protect Alaska 

kids on shoestring budget

What's wrong you ask.  Is it poor kids that can't be protected?  Or is it poor social workers who can't do the protecting?

This is a simple style issue that Strunk and White pointed out long ago in Elements of Style. (The link takes you to the book online.)  The specific item I'm quoting is from Section III, Elementary Rules of Composition, number 16 which begins on page 15.

16. Keep related words together. The position of the words in a sentence is the principal means of showing their relationship. The writer must therefore, so far as possible, bring together the words, and groups of words, that are related in thought, and keep apart those which are not so related.

Here's the specific rule of thumb for this case and some examples.

Modifiers should come, if possible next to the word they modify. If several expressions modify the same word, they should be so arranged that no wrong relation is suggested.

• All the members were not present.
• Not all the members were present.
• He only found two mistakes.
• He found only two mistakes.
• Major R. E. Joyce will give a lecture on Tuesday evening in Bailey Hall, to which the public is invited, on "My Experiences in Mesopotamia" at eight P. M.
• On Tuesday evening at eight P. M., Major R. E. Joyce will give in Bailey Hall a lecture on "My Experiences in Mesopotamia." The public is invited.

Let's add one more example here:

• Social workers can't protect Alaska kids on shoestring budget
• Social workers on shoestring budget can't protect Alaska kids

To me, the improvements are pretty clear, but if anyone has a question about why the bolded examples are better, leave a comment or email me (email's in right column above blog archive.)

Why does this matter?  Because humans have a lot of trouble communicating ideas from one person to another.  Even when they get everything right, there's miscommunication.  People who write - particularly editors at newspapers - should follow Strunk and White's rules (including their admonition about knowing when to break them) as automatically as they use the turn indicator in their car.  It doesn't solve miscommunication problems, but it doesn't add to the problems either.


Note:  Feedburner's been working reasonably well for the last two weeks, putting links to my posts up on other blogs.  Until yesterday's post.  So if you got here from another blog, here's a link to yesterday's post - The World's Disappearing Wilderness - The Importance of Long Term Thinking.

The World's Disappearing Wilderness - The Importance Of Long Term Thinking

A news item about the disappearance of wilderness in the world caught my attention the other day.  Since I live in state that still has some wilderness left, I thought it worthy of discussion.

From PRI:

"The result showed that about 20 percent of the world's land area is currently wilderness or about 11.6 million square miles.
Most of that wilderness is in Australia, North America, North Asia and North Africa.
Comparing the old map to the new one showed that an estimated 1.3 million square miles — almost 10 percent of the wilderness area — have been lost in the past two decades.
The amount lost is equal to twice the land mass of Alaska, or about half the entire Amazon.
The study did not delve into reasons why, but Watson said it comes down to increased development by the planet's growing human population."

Given that airplanes fly over just about every part of the world and that pollution travels by air and sea to every part of the world, I'd guess there isn't really any wilderness left, but here's the study's definition:

"For the study, researchers defined 'wilderness' as 'biologically and ecologically intact landscapes free of any significant human disturbance.'"

Let's put this in context.

WILDERNESS LEFT	TOTAL SQUARE MILES/km2/acres	% OF TOTAL LAND
in the world	11.6 million sq mi / 7.4 billion acres	20%
in the USA	170.5K sq mi / 109,129,657 acres	5%
in Lower 48	82.1 K sq mi / 52,553,809 acres	2.7%
in Alaska	88.4K sq mi/ 56,575,848 acres	13.3%
Alaska total size	663,268 sq mi / 424,491,520 acres	100%
Wilderness size from NWPS ;   Alaska total size from Wikipedia

Wilderness disappears as people make short term decisions; about survival for some, about profit for many.  Long term collective decisions, like the creation of the National Park Service by Teddy Roosevelt and the idea of setting aside natural areas for conservation, are what keep the small amount of wilderness we have left in the world.

As Alaskans debate where they can drill for oil,  log for timber, mine for coal and gold and other minerals, I'd suggest some longer term thinking.  Thinking that recognizes that what is rare is valuable.  Wilderness is becoming rarer and rarer.  Alaska's wilderness will become more and more valuable in the future.  Rather than destroy it for meager short term profit, let's save it for longer term, more valuable benefit.

I haven't addressed why we need wilderness.   I've written about before is described by Edward O. Wilson who talks about how the trillions of dollars worth of ecosystem services provided by nature -  recycling and purifying water, cleaning the air, enriching the soil, etc.

For those who doubt the need, here are a few more resources.


National Geographic: What is Wilderness, Why Preserve It?

Nash Roderick:  The Value of Wilderness (1978)

Why did US citizens feel the need to legally protect wilderness?

List of largest wilderness areas in the US

Getting Out On Blustery Day

I needed to bike.  I needed to just be outside with no distractions.  My regular ride with wasn't going to work.  My body said Bird Point.

We drove through the wind and occasional rain drops.  Pulled into the parking lot at Bird Point and got out the bike and took off.  Through the tunnel onto the old road turned bike trail.  Up the hill against the wind.

After a couple of miles of up, I stopped for a picture.

Then turned around and shot the rock wall behind me.

Back on the bike to the little rest stop back down on the bottom just before the Girdwood turnoff.

I walked around a bit, took some pictures until I got the colors right, then back.  This time with the wind at my back.  Much easier.

That was just what I needed.

Wally Hickel and Jay Hammond Go Two Great Rounds: Why You Should Buy A Ticket For The Ticket -

I admit, when I heard that Dick Reichman had written a play about a fictitious conversation between two of Alaska's most illustrious former governors, I had trouble imagining how that would play out.

But forces were moving me toward Cyrano's.   Cliff Groh at Nerd Nite on Wednesday, had highlighted the different visions of the Permanent Fund between Hickel and Hammond,  and I'm reading Hammond's Bush Rat Governor for my book club this month.  Seeing this play seemed inevitable.  The world premiere was Friday night and so we saw the second performance.

And it turned out to be a wonderful evening.  The dialogue is a quick and witty serving of non-stop delicious  bonbons* about Alaska politics, about public service, about ego, about growing old, and about friendship, to name a few.   The enjoyment of the play comes from the conversation between the two characters, played by Outside William S. Murphy and Matt K. Miller.

The 'plot' is just a device for getting them together.  But if you want to see this play with no hints at all, skip the next  paragraph.  And the actors were superb, though it seemed to me a couple of times they almost lost control of a couple of the words, but they did it so seamlessly I can't be sure.

The play begins with Hammond arriving at Hickel Captain Cook Hotel office.  He's been summoned by Hickel, who's not at all sure Hammond will show. Republican  Hickel tells him he's going to run as an Alaska Independent, against the Republican nominee Arliss Sturgulewski,  for another term as governor and that Jack Coghill is going to be his running mate.  Unless . . .


You can start reading again here

This is a terrific Alaskan play. I added Alaskan there because it was written by an Alaskan about Alaskan figures, but it's really a universal play that happens to have Alaska as its setting.  Even if you know nothing about Alaska politics or about Hickel and Hammond, it's an interesting political flirtation between two men who have feuded in the past, approach the world very differently, yet ultimately have an unexpected affection for each other.   One of the characters is self aware and comfortable with himself, while the other needs a late run for governor to 'keep in the game.'  There's a lot of bluster and affection as they learn about each other and themselves.   It's serious, good theater.

But for Alaskans, there's the added factor that these are two former governors and most of the issues they discuss are still current today, 26 years after this imagined conversation.

Adding to the juiciness was the after theater discussion with someone who knew them both.  Last night's discussant was Sen. Johnny Ellis.  Ellis was the valedictorian  at his Bartlett High graduation when he first met Hammond who was the other speaker, which led to Ellis working on Hammond's reelection a year or two later.

If I understood it correctly, there will be guests after each performance, including Arliss Sturgulewski, whom Hickel stole the gubernatorial election from in that 1990 election.

There were also some luminaries in the audience including former Anchorage Mayor Jack Roderick and former Alaska attorney general John Havelock.

So, yes, this is a strong endorsement for everyone in or around Anchorage this month to get tickets for a lively and entertaining evening.

*Bonbons might imply light and insubstantial and perhaps appetizers might be a better word to use there because it would imply warming you up for something more filling.  It's an entertaining play, not deep history.  But Reichman (and Paul Brown who helped with this and was there last night) offer us the broader themes that usually get missed in the contemporary reporting of events.  So, feel free to substitute appetizer, and after you see the play, you can read more about these two fascinating men.  You can even watch Brown's movie on Hickel which is available

Articles of Interest - ISIS Recruits, Genes, Bias, Map Artist

There's way too much information for anyone to keep up with.  Here are some ideas worth considering.


Danes choose love over punishment to fight terrorists with some apparent success.

". . . France shut down mosques it suspected of harboring radicals. The U.K. declared citizens who had gone to help ISIS enemies of the state. . . But the Danish police officers took a different approach: They made it clear to citizens of Denmark who had traveled to Syria that they were welcome to come home, and when they did, they would receive help with going back to school, finding an apartment, meeting with a psychiatrist or a mentor, or whatever they needed to fully integrate back into society."

When a Person Is Neither XX nor XY: A Q&A with Geneticist Eric Vilain

People argue that the use of computers, human bias can be eliminated, but this piece shows that human bias can still be reflected in the programs they write.

"That has important applications. Any bias contained in word embeddings like those from Word2vec is automatically passed on in any application that exploits it. One example is the work using embeddings to improve Web search results. If the phrase “computer programmer” is more closely associated with men than women, then a search for the term “computer programmer CVs” might rank men more highly than women. “Word embeddings not only reflect stereotypes but can also amplify them,” say Bolukbasi and co."

Secrets are not a secret anymore if more than one person knows...

“A real secret is something which only one person knows.” ― Idries Shah, Reflections

There are no secrets that time does not reveal. Jean Racine If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. Khalil Gibran

An argument against having backdoor keys to break into phones.



Rubric Memo  -  A spoof on academic memos and the use of rubrics.

"We refer to this rubric as Project 3.5.1, which you will recognize as a series of numbers. By entering data about your courses into this rubric, you help us to improve education for all our students, to whom we have also assigned numbers. We have also assigned you a number based on an Enigma-encrypted combination of the street address of your childhood home and your ATM PIN code, which we hacked (please see attachment 7)."

Map Maker Artist Perfectionist 

"These days, almost all the data cartographers use is provided by the government and is freely available in the public domain. Anybody can download databases of highways, airports, and cities, and then slap a crude map together with the aid of a plotter. What separates a great map from a terrible one is choosing which data to use and how best to present it."

It's All About Being At The Right Place At The Right Time

Was biking home last night to a huge rainbow that arced the sky, with a dazzling display just over Flat Top.   I only had my little Spotmatic to snap with, but you can get a sense of how vivid it was.

This morning, about 12 hours later I was back at the same spot I had gotten this picture.  But things were different.  

"Replumbing Permanent Fund doesn't create more water" or Nerd Nite Alaska Budget AND Facial v Verbal Portrait

I went to the Nerd Nite beer and budget meeting last night.  Before I get into that I'd like to offer you a 'how you know' things test.  Regular readers know I'm fascinated by how people come to 'know' things - like what's true, how the world works, how we draw conclusions about people, etc.  All the kinds of things that underlie everything we know and how we act on things.  If everyone were self-aware of all these things would, society would be radically different.  And as we watch this event known as a presidential election, it's clear that all of these things impact what voters take from media coverage, images, words, etc.

So let's do an experiment

I want you to look at the verbal portrait I've made of someone.  And as you read it, I want you to be aware of the images you have of this person.  I don't want you to work at imagining the person.  Rather I want the image(s) that your unconscious creates.  What do you see?  Is it one image?  Does it change as you read more?  At the end is there an image of this person - a face?  a stature?  a voice?
Again, don't think, just capture the image that your brain generates on its own.

Got your image?  OK.  Stash it away until later in the post.

The 49th State Brewing Company is in the old Snow Goose building, which was the Elks Club built in 1918.  (The chandelier in this room is adorned, still, with elk antlers.)   This was an evening of state budget policy with three speakers who have been intimately involved in the topics they took on.

You can see that the room was packed.  Probably 400 or more people to hear about:

1. the origins of the Permanent Fund Dividend (Cliff Groh)
2. the trade offs between cutting the budget and raising revenue (including dipping into the Permanent Fund, various taxes, and oil taxes and subsidies) (Larry Persily)
3. how the oil subsidies work (Dan Dickinson)

There was beer and snacks for sale as a standing room only crowd hung around for two plus hours of policy.  It was a mix of ages, but I would guess most were under 40 which is a different demographic than I've seen at talks on similar topics in Anchorage in the past.  Having beer instead of coffee probably helped.

Groh went back to the debates between the Hickel view (the owner state) and the Hammond view (the people as individuals having a share in the state's wealth) and other reasons for and against having the dividend.  Groh's position was more as a reporter than an advocate.

Persily didn't pretend to be neutral as he discussed the income options open to the state because cutting the budget alone simply won't balance the budget.  He favored taking a part of Permanent Fund earnings (cutting into the dividend), income taxes, changing the oil subsidies.  When an audience member pointed out that cutting the dividend was the most regressive option, Persily didn't disagree, but said including an income tax would balance this by getting the most from those with the largest earnings.  

After each speaker, there was a five minute beer break, so instead of leaving before the third speaker, the audience was fairly mellow.  

Dickinson discussed how the oil and gas credits worked.  Some are related to production, some are intended as incentives to investment in exploration.  They can give companies a huge return - combining can lead to a maximum of 85% return on investment.  But the graphs he had of revenue show a steady decline since these credits have gone into place.  But he pointed out, in response to a question about why we keep funding companies that go bankrupt instead of producing, that usually a new company takes over what the last company did and they keep production going.  He also pointed out that now when companies submit for their credits, instead of taking the money themselves, they often assign it to the financial institutions that gave them their initial loans.  

A key bit of information I learned was that the law doesn't actually guarantee the state will pay the credits.  There's a clause that says something like "if the legislature appropriates funds."  So, he said, if the state didn't pay the credits because there was no money allocated for them, the state wouldn't be violating any laws.  And, in fact, he said by the end of the year forecasters predicted companies would be submitting for about $1 billion in credits.  The legislature allocated about $460 million (not exactly certain of the number) and the governor vetoed all but $30 million of that.  

All three of the speakers, as I said, worked for the state on the issues they discussed.  They knew their stuff cold and their presentations were lively and interesting.  A good way to get this stuff.

Now, back to the verbal image above.  Which of the images below comes closest to the image your head conjured up?

#1	Image Source #2	#3
#4	Image Source #5	Image Source #6

Be honest with yourself.  Which is closest to your image?

What's the point of all this?  When I got home and looked at the picture I had taken, I realized the visual just didn't convey the depth of work and experience I had learned this person had.  It made me realize how much I still - despite my efforts not to - make assumptions about people based on what they look like.  Despite my admonition to myself to treat people I meet as though they will be the president of the US in 15 or 20 years, but no one knows it yet.  Or as though they have won a Nobel Prize or in some other way are highly distinguished and interesting.

For non-Alaskans and for non-political Alaskans, these are the six certified candidates listed in the US Senate race today at the Alaska Division of Elections.  #1 is Joe Miller who recently replaced the Libertarian candidate who withdrew.  #2 is Breck Craig.  #3 is Margaret Stock.  #4 is Lisa Murkowski.  #5 is Ted Gianoutsos.  #6 is Ray Metcalfe.  The one whose bio is briefly summarized in the top image is #3 Margaret Stock.  The info comes from her campaign website.  I met her for the first time last night at Nerd Nite.

Note The Nerds' Numerical Aesthetics

Did you catch it?  The meeting is September 7at 7 pm.  And it's at 49th State Brewing Company.   Pretty nifty, eh?

And the topic is compelling too - if you care about the future of Alaska and the Alaska Permanent Fund.  They left out the address, but I guess they didn't want to mess with beauty of the numbers already on the poster.  But for those who might want to attend:

717 W 3^rd Ave     It's tonight, by the way.