Short Docs 3 has three film in competition - Ghost of the Arctic, Ten Meter Tower, and The Collection. But that's just the programmers' choices and there were films not 'in competition' that I liked better than some 'in competition.'
I've got more on these (and the other short docs in competition here. Including my personal problem with Ghosts of the Arctic.
Ten Meter Tower is wonderful. Despite people's diverse tastes, I would guess that 90% of viewers will like it.
Click on the purple/pink Life Hack link below and you'll know as much as I know about it.
The Last Animals is doc in competition. From what I can tell is a very well funded and marketed film that strongly advocates for saving endangered species. You can see more about it and the trailer at this post on the docs in competition.
But it's playing at the same time as a workshop by Dan Mirvish. I've never met him face to face, but I did a Skype interview with him in 2012 when his film Between Us played at AIFF. It's a loooong video (for me) but if you watch some of it you can get a sense of whether you want to go to the workshop. I'd recommend the workshop simply because you get to see an accomplished film maker live talking about what he does.
For me, there's no hard decision at 8pm - AlphaGo, another documentary in competition.
But others might not agree.
The colored bars are linked so you can see the details - location and short descriptions. Or go directly to the AIFF Sched for Tuesday,
Family Rewritten is about a girl in the foster care system who has cystic fibrosis.
Here's Ida Theresa Myklebost:
"Unwelcome" is narrated by a young Syrian refugee in Greece. Myklebost is a Norwegian television journalist who covered the Syrian war. This is her first film.
"Unwelcome" plays again
I had a Skype conversation (audio only) Friday about the making of the film Among Wolves.
This is a film about Bosnian war vets who have made one of their projects to protect a herd of wild horses. I only saw the trailer and read the synopsis, but my main questions was how did an American film maker come to make a documentary in Bosnian (Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are all "mutually intelligible standard varieties" according to Wikipedia.) He said he lived in Mostar for four years and I think he spent more time in Bosnia altogether. Long enough to get the trust of this group. So those were the kinds of questions I asked. Here's about five minutes of our conversation. Basically it covers how he found this subject and made the film.
The film shows Monday, December 4 at the Bear Tooth at 8pm. Shawn is scheduled to be at the Monday night showing.
Just to help out, here's a map of most of the former Yugoslavia. This film takes place in Bosnia and Shawn lived in Mostar for 4 years.
There was a full house Friday night for the Opening Night Shorts program. We had to find seats in the balcony.
My internet has been down, so this is a catch up post from Saturday night before Broken Ghost.
Below are directors Semara Lerman (Iron) and Jeannie Donahoe (l) (Game) talking about their films. I've got some video, and I'll get that up when I can.
My favorite short Friday night was Game. Everything was right. Donahoe got a funding from Lexus Films (yes, their part of that Lexus and Toyota). I got to see the film ahead of time online and that copy also had Weinstein Company in the credits. But in last nights copy it was gone. I talked to Jeannie afterward. She said Weinstein is coming off all the films and they really hadn't had any connection with them at all.
Cold Storage was also lots of fun, though I would have ended it after the post cards. I'd note that the filmmaker is part of a film dance group, which helps explain it a little.
I've been chatting with Girish Mohite via Facebook Messenger about his film, Pale Blue Dot, which plays at the Anchorage International Film Festival
Sunday, Dec. 3 AK Exp Theater Small 11:45am and
Sunday, Dec. 9 AK Exp Theater Small 2:30pm
I would note that this film has only been shown publicly in India at its world premiere at the Mumbai International Film Festival. This will be the first public showing of the film outside of India. This is one of the Features in Competition.
In our first exchange, he told me the film was based on an ancient Hindu legend. I asked for more information and he sent me a link to Wikipedia:
"The son questions his father - First ValliThe Upanishad opens with the story of Vajasravasa, also called Aruni Auddalaki Gautama,[24] who gives away all his worldly possessions. However, his son Nachiketa (Sanskrit: नचिकेता) sees the charitable sacrifice as a farce, because all those worldly things have already been used to exhaustion, and are of no value to the recipients. The cows given away, for example, were so old that they had 'drank-their-last-water' (पीतोदकाः), 'eaten-their-last-grass' (जग्धतृणाः), 'don't give milk' (दुग्धदोहाः), 'who are barren' (निरिन्द्रियाः).[25] Concerned, the son asks his father,
"Dear father, to whom will you give me away?"
— Nachiketa, Katha Upanishad, 1.1.1-1.1.4[26][27]
He said it a second, and then a third time.
The father, seized by anger, replied: "To Death, I give you away."
Nachiketa does not die, but accepts his father's gifting him to Death, by visiting the abode of Yama - the deity of death in Indian mythology. Nachiketa arrives, but Yama is not in his abode. Nachiketa as guest goes hungry for three nights, states verse 9 of the first Valli of Katha Upanishad. Yama arrives and is apologetic for this dishonor to the guest, so he offers Nachiketa three wishes.[28]
Nachiketa' first wish is that Yama discharge him from the abode of death, back to his family, and that his father be calm, well-disposed, not resentful and same as he was before when he returns. Yama grants the first wish immediately, states verse 1.1.11 of Katha Upanishad.[28]
For his second wish, Nachiketa prefaces his request with the statement that heaven is a place where there is no fear, no anxiety, no old age, no hunger, no thirst, no sorrow.[28] He then asks Yama, in verse 1.1.13 of Katha Upanishad to be instructed as to the proper execution of fire ritual that enables a human being to secure heaven. Yama responds by detailing the fire ritual, including how the bricks should be arranged, and how the fire represents the building of the world. Nachiketa remembers what Yama tells him, repeats the ritual, a feat which pleases Yama, and he declares that this fire ritual will thereafter be called the "Nachiketa fires".[29] Yama adds that along with "three Nachiketa fires", anyone who respects three bonds (with mother, father and teacher), does three kinds of karma (rituals, studies and charity), and understands the knowledge therein, becomes free of sorrow.[29]
Nachiketa then asks for his third wish, asking Yama in verse 1.1.20, about the doubt that human beings have about "what happens after a person dies? Does he continue to exist in another form? or not?"[29] The remaining verse of first Valli of Katha Upanishad is expression of reluctance by Yama in giving a straight "yes or no" answer. Yama states that even gods doubt and are uncertain about that question, and urges Nachiketa to pick another wish.[30][31] Nachiketa says that if gods doubt that, then he "Yama" as deity of death ought to be the only one who knows the answer. Yama offers him all sorts of worldly wealth and pleasures instead, but Nachiketa says human life is short, asks Yama to keep the worldly wealth and pleasures to himself, declares that pompous wealth, lust and pleasures are fleeting and vain, then insists on knowing the nature of Atman (Soul) and sticks to his question, "what happens after death?"[30][32]"
He also sent me this synopsis of the film. I don't think this is a spoiler, trust me.
"A specific name underlines the existence of a given individual but Sarvanaam i.e. an Eternity is a collective notion. Even while living this life making an effort to preserve one's own identity, often the destiny plays its cards in such an incomprehensible manner that one is imperatively left with no alternative but to ignore one's own personal existence or unique identity and dissolve oneself in the mighty oblivion of the Sarvanaam, the eternity. The film 'Sarvanaam', the Pale Blue Dot makes you aware of this insurmountable truth.
Thus, the existence of LIFE is PALE BLUE DOT.
'Death' is an ultimate truth. Each one of us is radically aware that at some or the other point of time in life, the death, is going to come to meet us and end our role. But even then every human being feels afraid of the death of his near and dear ones rather than being frightened of one's own death. That is why, every individual gets disturbed when the same death starts lingering around in the lives of your near and dear ones. This close shadow of the death destroys the peace of mind of every individual howsoever invariable truth it may be. An approaching shadow of that evil arouses a feeling of unacceptable injustice in his mind and he leaves no stone unturned to unveil the answer of this riddle. The unbearable sorrow of this inhuman destiny and the agonising journey of every human being's life saga is the gist of the Marathi feature film 'Sarvanaam'."
Below is the trailer. I'd note that Girish sent me this and gave me permission to put it on Youtube so I could get an embed code to post it here.
I've never been able to do overviews of the films in competition in all the categories before. This one and the previous one - Made in Alaska - are a little short changed, but time's running out.
As I put this together I had a couple of thoughts:
1. This is the most international category of the festival - Taiwan, Korea, Canada, Ecuador, Iran, Czech Republic, Turkey, Japan, Venezuela, and USA
2. These will be the hardest to see - most are only shown once in slots that will be competing with longer films.
I'd note that the animated films are often the most original and beautiful.
So if you want to see these, you need to mark these dates and times and schedule them.
The animated films in competition are spread over three different programs - Animation 1, Animation 2, and Family Films - and that's how I've organized and color coded them for you.
Two of these films will also be shown at the Martini Matinee- I've marked them in green.
There's a mystery category called Animation at Night. It's Friday Dec. 8 at E Street Theater, 7:45pm
The films in this program have not been posted yet.
Animation 1
Sat. Dec 2, E Street Theater 2pm
BAUMU
Shao-Chun Chung
Taiwan
9 min 30 secs
Animation 1
Sat. Dec 2, E Street Theater 2pm
he Realm of Deepest Knowing
Seeing Her Kim
Korea
3 min 30 sec
Animation 1
Animation 2
Sat Dec 9 E Street Theater, 7pm
Twice Upon a Time Vojin Vasovic Canada 15 min Animation 2
Afterwork Luis Uson Ecuador 7 min Animation 2 Sat Dec 9 E Street Theater, 7pm
Cigare Tom Tassel Canada 6 min Animation 2 Martini Matinee
Genesis Abtin Mozafari Iran 10 min Animation 2
Happy End Jan Saska Czech Republic 6 min Animation 2 Martini Matinee Fri Dec 8 Bear Tooth
RIPrivacy Aycan Basar Turkey 5 min Animation 2
South Forest Wenru Huang Japan 7 min Animation 2
Family Films
Sat Dec 9 Loussac 12pm
Bakiro Miguel New Venezuela 15 min Family Films Sat Dec 9 Loussac 12pm
Light Sight Seyed Tabatabaei Iran 7 min 30 sec Family Films
Navajo Tales Dallin Penmen USA 4 min 2 sec Family Films
Undiscovered
Sara Litzenberger USA 2 min 30 sec Family Films
I've done this post fairly quickly, with the help of a 40 minute delay (so far) of our flight back to Anchorage. If you catch any errors, let me know.
I'm rushing this post up not quite complete, because I'm rushing to the airport to get home to see it and because Keep Talking plays tonight (Thursday, Nov 30) at the museum at 6pm. From Kartamquin:
"Keep Talking follows four Alaska Native women fighting to save Kodiak Alutiiq, an endangered language now spoken by less than 40 remaining fluent Native Elders. Their small community travels to remote Afognak Island to start teaching kids Alutiiq. Sadie, 13, is inspired to begin learning the language and dances of her ancestors. Instead of getting swept up in the wake of historical trauma, these women overcome personal demons and build toward a brighter future. Keep Talking reveals the ultimate impact of language and culture revitalization; joy and hope."
Conspiracy PIE
Levi Taylor
11m
SHOWING: Sun Dec 3 AK EXP Large 4pm
I couldn't find a trailer - it's only a 4 minute film. The only information I could find was at the AIFF site. It says:
"A poem by Emily Wall and X'unei Lance Twitchell. Told from the perspective of both father and mother, this origin story chronicles the birth of Shaawatkee through Tlingit and English--representing the power and the importance of language and identity."
I'd note that Ron Spatz is someone I've known for many years and he's the editor of the nationally acclaimed literary magazine Alaska Quarterly Review.
The festival starts soon. Here's a post looking ahead to a movie showing SUNDAY (Dec 3) AT 4PM.
Over the River Vanina Lappa Italy 1:14:00 Showing: Sunday, Dec 3, Alaska Exp Small, 4pm Sunday, Dec. 9 Alaska Exp Small 5pm
I've only seen the trailer (it's on my overview post of docs in competition), but I did get to speak with the film maker, Vanini Lappa, last week via Skype. This will be the North American premiere of this film.
As I learned more about the film and then talked to Ms. Lappa, it became clear that this film's theme is very relevant to Alaska, and to all places where the young are leaving small towns to find work, and the wisdom of their elders they leave behind is dying out.
Ms. Lappa was attracted to this particular town - Caselle in Pittari, near Naples - because of a legend .
"People who are pure can find a secret in this mountain where there is a grotto. The secret is not money or material things, but is knowledge."
From the trailer and what I read, the film seemed almost a feature rather than a documentary, so I asked her about that.
"I began to shoot as a documentary, then it took the form of a feature for me."
It's interesting how we learn about ourselves. Listen to her talk about this.
"I realized one year later that this film is a lot about me and my relationships with my city [Milan] and country. Even if I'm not in the film . . . because now I don't live in Italy any more. I've come to another country, so I made the same choice as the main character."
She also talks about the making of the film. She did almost everything but the sound herself. (Sorry, I've edited some sound problems out, but didn't have time to edit more.)
If you're the kind of person who likes to figure out a movie on your own, you may want to wait until after you watch the movie to see what she says about it. Meanwhile, here is some information about the town it was filmed in.
"Caselle in Pittari is a cozy hill town in the heart of the Cilento National Park. It is dominated by its medieval tower. The town is a delightful cluster of stone buildings that occupy the crest and spill down the hillside. Its aerie position offers great views of the surrounding hills and the soaring peak of Mt. Cervati, the highest mountain in Campania at 1898 meters above sea level. Down below bubbles the Bussento River, which slices through the valleys of the Cilento."
It goes on to talk more about the festival that is the center of the film as I understood it in my Skype conversation with the film maker.
"Caselle in Pittari hosts an unusual event called the Palio del Grano, a homage to a by-gone era to remember and recreate the traditions of rural life. It starts at sunrise in the piazza with contenders of various contradas (districts) dressed in old-time rural garb, and they parade out to the fields below, just like their ancestors did as a daily way of life to work the fields. The competition involves harvesting a swath of field that measures 5 meters by 100 meters in teams of 20 people armed with sickles. They have to reap according certain specifications, and the first time to complete the task wins the Palio.
The Palio is followed by a peasant lunch for all - participants and spectators alike - of bread, cheese, salami, sausage, fresh tomatoes, salad and wine, all served right there in the freshly harvested field. Accompanying the Palio is a bread baking workshop and a tarantella competition (a traditional southern Italian dance)."
See the Graham v. MOA tab at the top, under the orange blog logo for an introduction to these posts and an index of all the posts.
I've decided to stop trying to find some perfect order to tell this story and just pretend we're having a long conversation. I'll try to pick a general theme for each post and then just talk about, why it's important to the case, my general thoughts on the topic, and evidence that showed up. This one is about race.
This case started as a discrimination case. Jeff Graham is Korean-American and over 40. Did graders give him failing scores on the more subjective exams because of his national heritage or age? How do you get inside of people’s heads to prove that?
There were no overt anti-Korean remarks made. The only thing that could be linked to his Korean
A turnout is the heavy suit that protects fire fighters. Jeff’s had reached its expiration date. (Yes, they have them, I learned in the courtroom.) It needed replacement. He was sent a new one that didn’t fit. The second one they sent him was old and beat up and had on the back the name Chon, another Korean fire fighter. It was his old, used turnout.
Jeff’s chief at Station 10 was irate. They just sent him the old coat of another Korean. (Note that for later when I say people claimed no one knew he was Korean.) Captain Albrecht saw this as a racial joke and sent the turnout back and tried to find out who had sent it. There were no records of who sent it, though turnouts are expensive and normally such information is kept.
Jeff’s station captain is a white fire fighter, but he’s sensitive to racial issues because his wife is black. This fact came out in testimony in court. Captain Albrecht was asked if he had heard racial jokes. The Muni (Municipality of Anchorage) attorney objected to the direction of attorney Jeff Jarvi's question. The judge wanted to hear what Albrecht would testify without the jury present. The jury was given a break.
Jeff Graham’s attorney, Jeff Jarvi, asked if Captain Albrecht had ever heard racist jokes. Yes he had. Then he told one such joke and the situation.
It was Thanksgiving. Fire fighters work on holidays and he was carving the turkey in the station. Jim Stewart, a fire fighter who raised a damaging, unproven rumor about Jeff Graham during the oral peer review, said, as the turkey was being carved, “He likes dark meat. He really, really likes dark meat.” It was at that point that Albrecht revealed that his wife was black and that Stewart’s tone of voice made it clear that his comment had strong racial overtones.
You'll probably see that both of these are very subtle forms of racism. They're deniable. Just a coincidence that he got Chon's turnout. Dark meat? I was talking about the leg and thigh, he really likes that.
Monica Elkinton, the Muni attorney, objected on the grounds that just because someone was prejudiced against blacks, didn’t mean they were prejudiced against Koreans. The judge ruled that telling this story before the jury would be prejudicial at this point.
The resolution was that when Stewart testified (he was a Muni witness because he was a grader in Graham's peer review process), Jarvi could ask him if he ever told racist jokes. If he said no, then Captain Albrecht could be brought back to court to tell this story. In the end, the Muni never called Jim Stewart as a witness, so this never got before the jury.
During the voir dire - the selection, or some might say the weeding out of jurors - Monica Elkinton, the Muni attorney, asked the jury if anyone had ever heard stereotypes about Koreans. One juror raised his hand and preceded to talk about how people say Koreans are shrewd businessmen always trying to get the best deal. Elkinton removed him from the jury. It's significant because the rumor about Jeff Graham that was introduced at his peer review was precisely about that sort of behavior. We'll get to that later. But the jury got to hear all this.
A Fire fighter is the lowest rank in the AFD. Next comes engineer. You have to promote to engineer to get to any higher positions.
At another point, Chad Richardson, who was in charge of the training and testing for the promotion process from fire fighter to engineer, testified. He was subpoenaed by the plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Jarvi. He was asked about an incident at the opening day of the 2010 Academy.
Fire fighters were being welcomed to the Academy. At one point, a female fire fighter objected to Chad Richardson’s constant use of the term “fireman.’ She asked him to use the gender neutral term ‘fire fighter.’ Richardson explained his reaction. He testified that he’d been telling a story about firemen, not firewomen. There are firemen and fire woman. There were only men in the story. He said he told the woman something like, “You’re a fire woman. I was referring to fire men. So I should say firemen.” Jennifer Henzler later testified that he was actually addressing the whole group and used the term repeatedly. This was, the welcoming part of the training, the part that was supposed to make everyone comfortable. He was making her more and more uncomfortable. (Note these 'little' incidents that create a hostile work environment for women.) In this case too, the Muni attorney, Monica Elkinton argued that discrimination against women didn’t mean he would also be prejudiced against Koreans.
The jury, however, was 13 women and one man. (Two were alternates in case someone had to leave. The final 12 jurors weren’t determined until after the trial was over.) The jury heard the hostility toward women in Richardson’s voice and his disingenuous explanation about why he didn’t need to stop saying fireman instead of fire fighter. Or his "I don't remember" when asked if he had apologized later.
Another incident came up near the end of the trial. Early on, when Jeff Graham was still working as a mechanic for the fire department, he wanted to be "on the line," that is, to become a fire fighter, even though this would mean an initial significant drop in pay. But he figured he'd be able to promote to engineer. He’d heard that another department employee, Mark Montfore, who also wanted to become a fire fighter, had been able to apply to be a fire fighter. So Graham asked Monfore how he had gotten into the next fire fighter academy. Here’s Monfore’s testimony from my court notes, which are rough, but capture the key points.
Elkinton: When did you learn he was Korean?
Monfore: Not sure. We had a conversation about me transferring and he was doing that too. He asked some questions. In that conversation, in that conversation he said if they don’t transfer me I’m going to play the Native card.
Elkinton: Sounds like from that statement, sounds like you thought he was Alaska native. What did you take that to mean?
Monfore: Don’t know if he was insinuating some sort of minority route to get in.
Jeff Graham was brought back to testify at the very end of the trial, specially to address this.
Jarvi: Mr. Graham do you recall a conversation when you were both trying to switch to AFD fire fighter in 2006? Was there snow on ground?
Graham: No snow. Summer maybe.
Jarvi: Where was it?
Graham: Outside AFD maintenance shop. [Where Graham worked at the time.]
Jarvi: Who initiated the conversation?
Graham: I did. I saw him outside, heard he was transferring, I was trying to transfer forever. He said to take a couple of courses. “You can take classes or play the Native card.”
The Muni attorney had a follow up question then:
Monica Elkinton: Did you say I’m not Alaska Native.
Graham: No
So, here he is, the white fire fighter stating that Jeff Graham, a Korean-Amerian, said the way he was going to get into the academy was to play the “Native card.”
Jeff Graham’s memory of the event had Monfore as the one who used the term “Native card.”
We all remember things differently. This incident happened 11 years before the trial. But to me, the idea that a Korean-American would tell a white man he didn’t know well that he was going to use the Native card is not believable. Race card is a term whites invented to dismiss claims of racial discrimination. They use it to dismiss charges that they personally or the system in general are discriminatory. "He wasn't discriminated against, he's just playing the race card." It's not something a person of color would normally say to a white person.
To make it even more questionable, Jeff Graham is Korean-American, not Native. If he had responded that way, he more likely would have said, “race card’ not ‘native card.’
"A close examination of the usage of the phrase reveals that it is applied almost exclusively to people with non-white skin pigmentation in general and against black people in particular. If one conducts a simple experiment by typing “race card” into a Google browser and then clicks on the image tab, the result will reveal the faces of black people inscribed on various forms of cards with comments such as, “Race Card: For the morally & intellectually bankrupt” or “God gave you your skin colour, so why not use it to your advantage.” Anytime black people open their mouth to speak about racial injustice, they are silenced with five words that have stood the test of time: 'Stop Playing The Race Card.'”]
And why wouldn’t Jeff Graham correct Monfore and tell him he was Korean? People of color are tired of explaining themselves to whites, and even to other people of color. This is especially true of people of mixed race who often don’t quite fit in with either group. I started to really appreciate this point after watching the short film called "What Are You Anyway?" created by a film maker at 2008 Anchorage International Film Festival. It's about how one Japanese-Canadian got sick of people asking him, “So what are you anyway?”
Fortunately, the jury was very diverse racially and I’m sure they understood all this.
Monica Elkinton, the Muni Attorney, only had a few key arguments in her opening statement to the jury. One was that Jeff Graham failed the exam because he hadn’t studied enough. (Note: he passed the written and practical parts of the test that were more engineer related well. He failed the much more subjective oral peer review by one point.) Her other point was that he couldn’t have been discriminated against because people didn’t know he was Korean. I don’t know if she actually believed this or whether this was simply a legal strategy. I would assume the latter, but I'm not sure. She pushed throughout the trial to reject any evidence of discrimination that wasn’t directed at Koreans.
At Jeff Graham’s deposition, she started out essentially asking him “How Korean are you?” She asked about his parents (his mother is a Korean who married an American solider serving in Korea.) Do you understand Korean? Do you speak Korean? Do you eat Korean food? Do you cook Korean food? Do you have Korean friends? Do you go to Korean church?
I was dumbfounded by this line of questioning. Where was she going? Was she going to try to prove he wasn’t really Korean? Or Korean enough? It was kind of how women who have been assaulted are asked their sexual history in order to prove they couldn't have been raped because they'd had sex before.
Missing was any acknowledgment that being different racially from the norm, plays a big role in being discriminated against. It doesn’t matter if they know he’s Korean, or even Asian. Most discrimination in Alaska is against Natives anyway, so if people thought he was Native that would be grounds enough.
Jeff Graham’s attorney, Jeff Jarvi asked fire fighters, who said they didn’t know he was Korean, whether they thought he was white. They hemmed and hawed. He’d follow up, did you think he was the same race as you and me? One answered that he thought he was Italian because he had good hair.
Why does this matter? Because Anchorage has been identified as having some of the most diverse neighborhoods in the US. But the Anchorage Fire Department is VERY white. The numbers that the Deputy Fire Chief calculated in her head at the deposition come to 88% white. Though that did not include Hispanics. So lets say it's about 85% white. When a Korean failed the promotion exam because of his score on a highly subjective oral exam (after passing the more objective and engineer related sections) someone should have asked, why is this happening. If the fire department wanted its workforce to look more like the city's population, they should have called Jeff in and asked him 'how do we get more people of color into the fire department?' Did I mention that the three lowest scores on this test were Koreans? No, I guess not, but we'll get into that when I talk about the exams in a later post.
I would note here that there is a way to avoid discrimination in exams and scoring exams. The merit system has been around for over 100 years and it's designed to find the most qualified candidates for the job. It eliminates as much as possible, subjective exams that allow the bias (conscious or unconscious) of graders from slipping in. It helps minimize any kind of bias so that you don't have to prove that someone was thinking "I will score him lower because he's Korean." People can find lots of ways to get around it, but when they do, they leave a trail.
I'll get to the merit system in my next post. Thanks for getting this far.
Overview
Jeff Graham is a Korean-American fire fighter with the Anchorage Fire Department (AFD). He originally took the exam to promote to engineer (the next step up in the Anchorage Fire Department (AFD)) in 2004, and passed. A day or so later he was told he hadn't been eligible to take the exam and so he wasn't being promoted. He had taken the test early (there's a five-year-as-a-fire-fighter requirement), but he had been given 'equivalency' from the Employee Relations Department as well as the Fire Department, based on the almost eight years he'd served as a mechanic for the fire department before becoming a fire fighter. Others had gotten equivalency and took the test early too. As a mechanic he had driven, repaired, and rebuilt all the AFD trucks, engines, and vehicles. That experience overlaps a lot with what AFD engineers do in their role to maintain and drive the engines.
He took the exam again in 2008 when he messed up one part of the practical. He tested again in 2010, but, as he describes it, he didn't pass the practical exam because they deducted 'style' points even though he accomplished the required tasks. The practical test involves driving the vehicles and performing specific tasks with the trucks, hoses, etc.
In the 2012 exam, AFD added an hour long oral exam section - ten technical questions and a 'peer review' that covered five questions about character. That's about four minutes per question. In 2012 Jeff passed the written exam with a strong score. He also did well on the practical exam. But he only got 69 on the oral exam. 70 was the lowest passing score and you had to pass all three exams to be eligible for promotion. Across the three different exams, his average was comfortably above 70. There were lots of issues about the subjectivity of the test and scoring that I'll get into in later posts.
After writing a complaint about the oral exam and getting a curt rejection, Jeff filed a complaint with the Alaska Human Rights Commission. Jeff is trained as a mechanic. He filed the complaint on his own, without the help of an attorney. The commission investigated, but did not find discrimination.
Then Jeff hired an attorney, Jeff Jarvi, and after a long pretrial process, the trial finally began in July 2017. (Yes, Jeff Graham and Jeff Jarvi. Two Jeffs makes this a little confusing, but I'm pointing it out now so you'll be less confused.)
My Comments About Blogging This
I've had a couple of months to prepare these posts. There's a great deal of technical detail that I want to cover as I write about this trial, but in this post I'm just trying to give an introduction. This trial lasted three and a half weeks because of details. (I'd note that each of the three Alaska political corruption trials - Anderson's, Kott's, and Kohring's - took two weeks or less.) I'm going to write about the issues the jury had to consider. I'll write about issues in the Fire Department that came up during pre-trial (like the subjectivity of the oral exam, or the low percentage of women (about 2%) and people of color (about 15%) in the AFD) as well as things that turned up (for me) in the trial. While there were some problem fire fighters, I would note most of the fire fighters who testified impressed me.
I'm hoping that with the breaking of the Harvey Weinstein case and the growing number of powerful men being accused of sexual harassment and/or assault, that it might be a little easier for people to understand what was going on in the AFD. This is not about sexual harassment, but the dynamics are similar.
As I see it, there were a few bad apples who were taking advantage of positions of power. They were in charge of training and promotion from fire fighter to engineer. Some people had heard rumors. Others had seen or been told first hand. But people were afraid to say anything lest they jeopardize their own careers. And people higher up, who should have been on top of things, didn't see it. They apparently believed the perpetrators who reported directly to them and thus dismissed the complaints.
And when I say perpetrators, I'm not even sure how many there were. There was at least one, but other people contributed to the situation. It's not clear to what extent they knowingly and/or intentionally did this.
I know I called the first part above an overview, but there's really no middle or end. I did put up one post on this case already. It was a very factual, objective post, with little context. Just the facts. I posted this with permission of both Jeffs, mainly because I think the story is significant and no other media covered this case, to my knowledge, except for one brief pre-trial report by Casey Grove on APRN. You can see my original post here. I should add a spoiler alert, but this isn't fiction and the real story is not the outcome, but what was going on, regardless of the outcome.
I don't know how many posts this will encompass. A lot, I'm guessing. I am also setting upa tab on top for a page that will have an annotated index of the posts. I'd love every post to be interesting to everyone, but some will get technical and they're particularly there for people who are involved in human resources, the AFD, MOA, and other jurisdictions that might have similar issues. I'd like to think that everyone who is an employee, and thus involved with the human resources departments in their own organizations, will be interested. I hope everyone will find the posts readable so they can understand the ways that people abuse the fairness of selection and promotion systems. A friend probably got it right when she said, "Steve, you really nerded out on this, didn't you?"
My goal in all this is to make this dysfunctional power situation as public and clear as possible so that it will get addressed.
And there will be a post or two on my own ethical challenges as I acted - for the first time - as an expert witness in a trial. The challenges came because I was also viewing everything as a blogger. I told attorney Jeff Jarvi, right away about my blogging and we had to determine guidelines. We agreed I wouldn't blog until after the appeal date had passed. And that I would not reveal things covered under attorney/client privilege - only things that were public in court or I found from other sources.
Not being able to post until everything was over was really frustrating. But the deadline for appeal has passed, so I'm free to write. Actually it passed several weeks ago, but I've held off just to be sure.
This would likely be more dramatic were it live daily coverage of the courtroom and the story as it unfolded. But that couldn't be. And despite all the time I've had before the deadline, and all the pages I've written, I'm not sure how I will proceed. There's so much to cover, lots of detail that needs to makes sense. I've got an outline. Let's see how it goes.
