The Peanut Files

The last two posts (#1)  and (#2) weren't really meant to tease you, but to overcome your natural tendency to actually stop, get a piece of paper and pen, and draw something.  You're surfing the net and your fingers are only supposed to be tapping the keys.  So I wanted to get at least a few of you to break that pattern and draw a peanut.

You can still do that.  I'll leave some space and if you don't scroll down you won't see the peanuts.

I'll put my peanut drawing up again, so you don't see what's below until you've drawn your own peanut.  We can wait while you do that.

Don't scroll down until you've drawn your own peanut.  (Of course, I have no power to stop you from scrolling down, but I think this will mean more if you draw first.)



OK.  Now let's look at some peanuts closely.  Let's start with the ends, because they're different.

One end - the top in the picture above - has a little hook, a parrot beak.  

The other end - on top in this second picture - has what I'm calling a navel, a little dimple.  The two ends of the peanuts are connected by ribs that go from the navel to the hook.  I counted ribs on about five peanuts and there seemed to be nine or ten.  They're not exactly straight.  You can see them best on the upper photo.

And between the ribs are little weblike patterns, which I assume help make the peanuts harder to crush.  You can see them better in the next picture where I've taken the same peanut and put it through a few different Photoshop filters so that different ridges and edges would be emphasized.

So now my drawing of a peanut looks pretty simplified.  As I wrote in the previous peanut posts - that this isn't really about peanuts, it's about knowing things and about being observant.  But as I was typing this post I was thinking it had much more application than just that.

• We have the notion I mentioned that when we can label something, we stopping 'seeing' it.  The first time you get a peanut (or meet someone) you check it out to figure out what it is and how to recognize it next time you see it.  But once that's done, we tend not to look too closely.
• This holds true for all the things we've named (or labeled).  As soon as we recognize it's a peanut we're satisfied.  We don't necessarily go beyond that simple first drawing of a peanut.  Instead they all look the same.  (Remember, in the picture immediately above, they are all the same peanut.)
• But really the idea of a peanut is much more complicated - the two different kinds of ends where the ribs all meet.  The weblike designs between ribs.  If we look closely we can see that each peanut is unique, though we may have to look pretty closely to see the differences.
• And I suspect that our ideas about health, ethics, nature, politics, and everything else are also prematurely identified and labeled and then not really examined too carefully after that.  

And you thought this was just going to be about peanuts.  Well, so did I.  But that also helps make my point about looking at things closely opens up new possibilities in areas we thought we knew.  Like when Alaska gained a huge Japanese market for fish roe after a Japanese visitor watched how the salmon were being cut open and the roe was thrown away.  He asked why and Alaska fishers discovered that they were throwing not just roe away, but lots of money, because there was a demand for roe in Japan.
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When I tried to find out more about the structure of peanut shells, I wasn't too successful.  Most of what I found was about the molecular structure, not the actual peanut shells themselves.  But there are lots of uses.  In India - peanut ash is used in producing concrete.  And ground peanut shells can also be used to absorb dye from liquids.  And Google has a patent to use ground peanut shells for insulation.

Does Your Peanut Look Something Like This?

Here's a quick peanut drawing I made.  It took less than 30 seconds to draw, color in, and photograph.  So in my last post when I asked you to draw a peanut from memory, I wasn't asking you to spend a lot of time.

This post is for people who missed the last one.  Go back and look at it.  And for people who saw it but didn't make a drawing.  It's just for you, no one else will see it.  I'm trying to give folks a chance to think about what peanuts look like before I post the pictures of the peanuts I took yesterday.

So, here's my quick drawing:

What does yours look like?  I'll either update this post with my peanut photos or put up a whole new post so you can draw without peaking.  (I'm not even labeling this post art - I don't want anyone intimidated by that word.  But it is about knowing.)

Do You Really Know What A Peanut Looks Like?

Take out a piece of paper and a pencil.

Yeah, go ahead and do it.

Ready?

Now, draw a peanut (the outside of an intact peanut shell).  Make it three or four times real size.

First draw the outline.

As you do this, draw the two ends.

Next draw the patterns that connect  the two ends.

There are things we see everyday without really seeing them.  When my granddaughter was here we looked at the peanut shells (she likes breaking the shells and eating the insides just as much as I do. But she takes off the skins first and I'm not so picky.)

Someone once said that once you 'know' what something is, you stop paying attention to it.  But there is always more to see, feel, hear, smell.  I once had a teacher who changed my life by saying "Intelligent people are never bored."  I eventually came to understand that meant that there was always something to observe, to think about, to consider.

I've taken some pictures of peanuts.  Tomorrow or the next day I'll put them up.  But meanwhile, draw your own peanuts to see what you already know.  Then go find some peanuts and then make new drawings.

Barbara, put your drawings up on your blog, ok. Your first 'blind' peanuts and then your observed peanuts.  You draw so beautifully.  (There are two artists named Barbara who drop by here now and then.  One's in Canada.  Maybe you can email me your pictures and I can add them.  And anyone else is, of course, welcome to do the same.)

Using The Right Word - Burgeoning

Often students would write their graduate papers using words they would never say, and which, quite often, they used incorrectly.  When I'd ask, they'd tell me they found a word in the thesaurus, that this was grad school and they wanted to sound more academic.  Did you look the word up?  No, it was in the thesaurus so it was a synonym.

Well, usually synonyms have a related meaning, but they don't all mean exactly the same thing.  So when I read this sentence in the paper this morning about the Alaska railroad, my antennae began to twitch.

"The stronger 2017 revenue figures were driven by continued growth in the railroad's passenger service — largely attributable to Alaska's burgeoning tourism industry." (emphasis added)

Burgeoning?  Alaska's tourism industry is 'burgeoning'?  It's been strong and growing since I moved here over 40 years ago.  So, just to check whether my own internal dictionary is accurate, I looked up the word at dictionary.com:

"verb (used without object)
1. to grow or develop quickly; flourish:
The town burgeoned into a city. He burgeoned into a fine actor.
2. to begin to grow, as a bud; put forth buds, shoots, etc., as a plant (often followed by out, forth)."

It's the quickly part that rings false here.  There's no real transition from one thing into another as in the first example.  Here are the stats from a study I found at the Alaska Travel Industry Association website:

This long term slow growth isn't exactly the way I understand the word 'burgeoning.'

Take Home:  If you use a thesaurus to find a different word to use, be sure to look it up in the dictionary before you actually use.  Most synonyms are exact substitutes for each other.

Randy Bryce's Response To His Opponent - Paul Ryan - Dropping Out Of The Race

It's been a while that I've been following Randy Bryce on Twitter.  I think I saw a video of him talking about his campaign to unseat Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.  If I weren't following him on Twitter I wouldn't be aware much of how hard he's been campaigning.  I was beginning to think that it was possible for him to win.  As he says in the video, who would have believed that a man working on a construction site a year ago could take on the Speaker of the House.

Well, it seems that Speaker Ryan thinks so too.  Here's Bryce's tweet and video response to the announcement that Ryan will not run for reelection.  I'm sure that the strength of Bryce's campaign had to play a role in that decision.

.@SpeakerRyan knew he couldn’t beat this campaign. Not in 2018. So he’s quitting now rather than losing in November.

Enjoy your “retirement,” Paul. I’ll be busy here in #WI01, fighting for all of the working people who don’t have the luxury to “retire” at the age of 48. pic.twitter.com/zUeB6u4DRc

— Randy Bryce (@IronStache) April 11, 2018

Impressive Student Art At Anchorage Museum

When my granddaughter was here last we, we visited the museum to see the children's art exhibit.




Conlan Cantrell
Grade 5
Sand Lake Elementary[Commenter 2/26/21 says Conlan went to Chugiak, not Sand Lake]

This is a close-up of the picture.

Katherine Reinbold

Grade 5

Sand Lake Elementary

Randy Lee
Grade 4
Williwaw Elementary
Saxophone

Emory Banker

Grade 12

West High

Amaeli Kam-Magruder

Pink Rose

Grade 7

Mears Middle School

Ada Bjorkman
Self Portrait
Grade 8
Rilke Schule German Charter School

Abigail Barios

Grade 8

Wendler Middle School

Ann Bebauer
Lichen
Grade 12
Service High School

Francis Giovanni Anino

Cousin JoAnne

Grade 12

Service High School

Brian Cuevas Fuentes

High School Wolf

Grade 9

West High School

Kristine Felipe
La Muerte
Grade 11
West High School















This is by no means a selection of the best.  There were lots and lots of works of art.  These were a few that caught our eye.  And a friend had strongly recommended that we visit the polar bears, and it was a great idea.  These are real kid magnets and the guard watched carefully as we walked into the room (in the new addition that was completed last year.)  But my munchkin had lots of self control.

Paola Pivi’s Polar Bears

What The Internet Does Well - Make Things Available Like Old 78 RPM Recordings - Listen to Josh White, House Of The Rising Sun

From Archive.orghttps://archive.org/details/78rpm

"78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
The Great 78 Project! Listen to this collection of 78rpm records and cylinder recordings released in the early 20th century. These recordings were contributed to the Archive by users through the Open Source Audio collection. Also the Internet Archive has digitized many.
Artists available here include Ada Jones, Caruso, Eddie Cantor, Edison Concert Band, Harry MacDonough, Len Spencer, Paul Whiteman, and many others.
MORE"

Josh White, 1942 recording of House of the Rising Sun.

Today's ADN Opinion Pages Fodder For A Dozen Posts From Salmon To Bears To Legislators

One problem with blogging is picking something worth writing about from the many things out there.  Today I'll just do a quick take on several items from today's newspaper.

Stand For Salmon Or Stand For Alaska

A former member of the Alaska Board of Fisheries, Tom Kluberton, writes a column in favor of an initiative that would force resource developers (and others I assume) to prove that their projects won't hurt Alaska's salmon fisheries.

Next to that column is one by the vice chairman of the Doyon, Ltd. board of directors and a former chief of Allaket, PJ Simon.

Alaskan's won't vote on this until August or November*, so we have plenty of time to hear about this initiative, and we can be sure that we will.

*From Alaska Statute 15.45.190

Setting Dates For Ballot Initiatives in Alaska

The lieutenant governor shall direct the director to place the ballot title and proposition on the election ballot of the first statewide general, special, or primary election that is held after (1) the petition has been filed;  (2) a legislative session has convened and adjourned; and  (3) a period of 120 days has expired since the adjournment of the legislative session.  Our primary election is August 21, 2018.  So if the legislature adjourns (including special sessions) more than 120 days before that (roughly around April 27), it will be on the primary ballot.  Otherwise on the general election ballot in November.  That's a whole other issue - having important propositions on primary ballots when relatively few people vote. As I say, we have time to learn more about this, but I was struck by PJ Simon's column which portrayed him as a simple man - " I am just a regular guy. I am not a high-powered lawyer or professional environmentalist paid by outside interest groups. I'm sandwich meat, the guy in the middle, the guy who works for wages to support my family." But despite the fact that he says he can't read all that fine print, he knows for a fact the initiative will "kill construction jobs and hurt Alaska's economy." Alaska has long been a colony for outside corporations to come in an exploit.  I've written about this in different posts, particularly The Vampire History of Alaska when we had another initiative on the ballot that would have taxed the oil companies more. It's very easy for large corporations to come into a small (population) state or country and buy off some locals to push their mega projects. John Perkins outlines the process in his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman.  Alaskans will recognize the process when he spells it out.  You can see him explain it in this video.  So when self-professed common folks like JP Simon side with the big development corporations, I can't help but wonder what he gets out of it.  What Doyon gets out of it.  But that's another story. In any case, I need to learn more about this initiative, but it reminds me of the law the legislature passed some years ago blocking public participation on development projects along the coast line.  My first assumption here is this is people fighting back for the power that's been taken from them.  But the devil is in the details.  We'll see. "Undeveloped Anchorage Bowl Area Being Managed For Bears" In a letter to the editor, Jim Lieb of Palmer rants against retired state biologist Rick Sinnott's commentary on keeping bears in mind in our wilderness areas.  I want to focus on the word "undeveloped" here.  He uses it again in the letter:  "It's hard not to conclude that the undeveloped portion of the Anchorage Bowl is being primarily managed for bears and their well-being." Think about it - the "undeveloped portion."  It's like that part of Anchorage isn't finished yet.  It doesn't have many roads, or buildings.  It's like trees and rivers and bushes and animals are there temporarily until we need their land.  I think about those areas as 'natural' or 'wilderness' or 'respites' from traffic and building and concrete.  And people have documented the benefits of nature to human health. I wrote a post a while back about the meaning of the word 'empty lot' which pointed out that no lots were actually empty waiting to be developed. Words matter. "Voter Turnout Was Awesome" In the same letter to the editor section (same link as above) Donna K. Daniels lauds Anchorage voters for dispelling her doubts about Anchorage's first 'vote by mail' election.  She's excited because 76,000 people voted.  Yes, that's more than any past Municipal election.  But it's technically only 35.6% of registered voters.  To me, that isn't awesome at all.  It's depressing.  Voter turnout like that is how democracies die.  (I said ' technically' because not all the people on the voter rolls are still living in Anchorage - some have moved, some have died, but they're still on the voter rolls.  But even if that number were 40%, it would mean that the election was decided by about 20% of the voters.   I think this is what people mean about 'the new normal.'  Compared to a 20% turnout, yeah, it's awesome.  But that's starting at a really low bar. "Alaska Legislators Would be Fired By Now In the Real World" I guess what Jim Bell means by "the real world" is the business world, or at least an organization that is hierarchical and someone has power to fire workers.  But the legislature is elected by voters (that same small portion in the previous section who vote).  They can be fired by the people in their districts. My concern here is putting the blame on the legislators instead of the electorate. I'm also concerned when everyone is blamed for the misdeeds of only some.  Republicans, supported by organizations like Koch Brothers funded Alaskans for Prosperity, complain about deficits, yet won't raise revenue.  They're obsessed with the notion that the less government the better.  But the less government simply means that rogue corporations get to do what they want because government doesn't have the capacity to monitor their behavior. Just read the book I mentioned above - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. (I do strongly recommend it.)  And that kids in foster care or in dysfunctional family situations can't count on the state to protect them from abusive situations because social worker case loads are way beyond what they can reasonably handle. More help for these kids means lower crime and fewer prison cells in the future.  I see the Democrats being much more responsible by calling for a modest income tax to start gaining more income.  And the Republicans are barricaded against an income tax.  In Oklahoma we are now seeing the results of Republican tax cutting, as schools only teach four days a week and teachers are on poverty level wages.  That's our future if we don't go to the polls and elect responsible legislators.  That means NOT firing the ones that are already responsible.  But people have to pat attention to more than party labels and propaganda and they need to vote. That's just from one page in the Anchorage Daily News.

Finally Made It To The New Writer's [Block] Bookstore and Cafe [UPDATED]

[UPDATE April 8, 2018 9:30am -  Grrrr! It's Writer's Block Bookstore, not Writer's Bookstore.  But I know how it happened, sort of.  Spell check.  Block got misspelled, then I somehow turned it into Blockstore which spellcheck didn't like, and then Block disappeared altogether.  I woke up with this floating in my head and now I finally came to check and sure enough, Block had been dropped.  Is this a variant of writer's block?]

What used to be an adult bookstore is now a comfy little bookstore and cafe on Spenard.   I had two separate pictures of the front and merged them into one.   That's not quite what it looks like.  The angles were too different.


But my renderings of the inside are more accurate.

There aren't a lot of books, but it looks like they were carefully chosen.  (I'm sorry, but I think the word 'curated' is much overused.  It used to be about putting together a museum exhibit and now you can 'curate' any combination of things.  I'm sure there are curated garage sales now.)


You can also get snacks and beverages.

The bookstore's website has much more beautiful pictures than mine and more information about other activities at the bookstore.











I also took a couple of pictures of books whose covers and titles caught my eye.

Checking With The Reporters On A Couple Of Amazing Claims They Made

There were two lines in the Anchorage Daily News today that caught my attention.  "Really?  How do they know that?"

The first was a line in Erica Martinson's story about Alaska's two US Senators' relationship with the President.  It talked about how they didn't support him, but they are getting policies that help Alaska. (Of course, what helps Alaska is open to interpretation and to whether one is looking short term or long term.)

Martinson wrote:

"More than 500 days have passed since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Alaska's Republican senators didn't vote for him . . ."

Wow!  They didn't vote for the presidential candidate in their own party.  (I have to say that it was a safe bet in Alaska, where their two votes were not going to swing the state to Clinton.)  But to tell people?  I assumed that Martinson had evidence, so I emailed her asking if she meant in the November election (which is what the sentence would seem to say) and if yes, how she knew this.

I got a quick response:

"I meant in the Nov. 2016 election.
I wasn't in the voting booth, but that's what they told me and others at the time. Sullivan said he was going to write in Mike Pence's name. Murkowski said she was going to write in a name, but she never did say who, at least to me.
https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/10/08/u-s-sen-lisa-murkowski-in-interview-said-decision-on-trump-was-instantaneous-after-seeing-video/
https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/10/08/alaska-sen-dan-sullivan-calls-on-donald-trump-to-drop-out-of-presidential-race/They both resigned their positions on the Alaska Republican Party's central committee until after the election because they would not support Trump: https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/10/11/alaska-republican-party-is-sticking-with-donald-trump/Not sure if it made it into a story that day (I think we ran a day-of blog?), but I spoke to both Senators about it on or around election day and they had not changed their plans."

I guess during the election coverage I missed this or forgot it.  Had I read the story on-line instead of in print, I'd have seen the link, but I didn't do that until I was getting the link for this post.

 

The second line that jumped out at me was from an article by Marc Fisher, also in the ADN, reprinted from the Washington Post, about Trump's campaign against Jeffrey Bezos - the Amazon head and owner of the Washington Post.

"But others who have heard Trump rail against Amazon as a “monopoly” say his central complaint is based more on a cultural gap than a financial one, deriving from the fact that the president has never been known to shop online and does not use a computer — and has therefore never experienced what has drawn so many Americans from local storefronts to Amazon and other online retailers." [emphasis aded]

That jumped right out at me.  The president doesn't use a computer!  I remember the uproar when George H. W. Bush expressed amazement at a demonstration of supermarket scanners.that checkers use.  (This Snopes assessment suggests the New York Times played up that story to Bush's detriment.)  I was thinking that the US president doesn't necessarily get too much time going to the supermarket and he'd been VP for the eight years before he became president.

But in 2018 it seems remarkable that the US president doesn't use a computer.  And if he doesn't, how can he tweet every day.  So I emailed Marc Fisher my questions - did he mean by 'computer' a laptop or desktop?  Surely Trump uses a smart phone or he wouldn't be able to tweet.  Before I sent the email I googled the topic and found quotes about Trump feeling no computer was secure to use.

I also got a quick reply from Marc Fisher:

"Yes, Trump uses a phone, primarily for voice calls and for tweeting, which he does only on his phone or by dictating to his digital politics advisor. What he does not and has not ever used is a desktop or laptop computer. He has, for example, never used email. As for his reasons, when he’s been asked about his avoidance of computers, he says he doesn’t have the time. Not a terribly enlightening answer, but there it is."

Given that a smart phone today is a mini-computer with access to the internet, I guess it isn't as shocking as it originally sounded.

What is shocking - and would seem to be illegal - is the possibility that Trump is intentionally using the office of the presidency to damage someone because he's offended by what Bezos' newspaper writes about him.  (Fisher cites several WP people who say Bezos plays no role in the content of the paper.)

"Later in the campaign, Trump complained that “every hour, we’re getting calls from reporters from The Washington Post asking ridiculous questions, and I will tell you, this is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos.” Trump said Amazon was using The Post “as a tool for political power against me. . . . We can’t let him get away with it.”

"Amazon’s stock value declined by more than 5 percent after the president’s recent attacks but has gained ground this week."

"A Wells Fargo analysis concluded that although 'the arguments made by the president against Amazon have been undermined by third-party fact checkers . . . the president’s actions [could stir] additional scrutiny of Amazon beyond the federal government.'” 

"But Politico media critic Jack Shafer argues that Trump is right to connect Amazon, Bezos and The Post, because the retailer’s wealth made Bezos’s purchase of the paper possible. “If Amazon didn’t exist, it’s unlikely the Washington Post would exist in its current form,” wrote Shafer, whose wife, Nicole Arthur, is The Post’s travel editor. Shafer rejected the notion that The Post is lobbying on behalf of Amazon but said that by linking The Post to Amazon and driving down Amazon’s stock price, Trump had found a way to try to punish a news organization that he otherwise couldn’t harm."  [emphasis added]

 If a company is misbehaving, the president of the United States can say something about that.  and even call for an investigation.  But he's got to be careful not to bias that investigation.  But if the reason for the president's attack on a company is criticism in a newspaper whose owner also owns the other company, it seems to me there are real First Amendment issues being raised.

In any case, I was pleased that both these reporters were quick to respond to my questions and to have information to back up what they wrote.  Fisher clarified what using a computer meant, but didn't say how he knew about the president's computer use.  But when I looked back at my original email, I didn't ask that of him.  And it should be pointed out that Fisher works for the Washington Post, which is the target of the president's attacks.