Getting A Handle on Denali National Park's Vast Expanses

We're back as of Sunday afternoon.  Our upstairs ceiling popcorn is gone and a new ceiling in place.  Everything is still shoved into spaces to allow for painting the ceiling and walls.

Saturday at Denali was Denaliesque.  I recently saw a Mongolian movie and thought, wow, those huge vistas remind me of Denali National Park.  The sun was out most of the time, the clouds here and there not threatening rain or snow.  The (still) white vistas - humans generally just don't experience stuff like this.  You see for miles and miles unpopulated land surrounded by mountains.  With the late snow everywhere it was almost too much.  After you enter the park, about four miles in, you're past all the park buildings - visitor center, camping and touring building, education center, housing for workers, sled dog kennels, and then there's just one road that goes for 90 miles.

Only 30 miles are open now (until buses start May 20), so what we saw is that part of the land you can see from the road in the first 30 miles.  There are a few structures inside the park - at campgrounds basically and lots of restrooms at the bus stops.  After May 20, you get past the first 3 miles or so only on the buses.  Or if you have a camping spot at Teklanika.  All the other camping spots are tent only and you get there by bus.  And there's a big visitor center at about mile 60.

The picture above is the road into the park (though we were driving back to the campgrounds at the entrance when I took this.)  You can tell we're still within the first 15 miles of the road because it's paved.  We're looking east.

And here's a panorama view - I've photoshopped three pictures together.  You see about 20-30 miles into the distance and probably 30 or so miles across from left to right.  If you click on the picture you can see it bigger. (Large vertical images work great here, but horizontal ones don't.)

Just think about what a 25 by 30 mile area in your city would encompass.   In LA that would be approximately from Santa Monica to East LA and from Beverly Hills to Palos Verdes.   It's most of the LA basin with one road and for 85 miles of that road just a few structures and outhouses.   Get a map online of your location.  Seeing such vast distances with nothing but one road and just a few structures stretched out of 90 miles on the road is always mind-boggling, even after 40 years.

And here's a map of Denali National Park and Preserve to get all this into even more perspective.

Original map from National Parks Maps  - This map is fairly large, but at the link it's much bigger

The entrance to the park is to the east where the little black rectangle is to the right of the red line. The first part of the road - brown on the original map here - is the 12 paved miles.  It ends at the red #1 on the map.  (I added the red because the yellow line is harder to see and to show you how far the road was open.)  #1 is where Savage River is, where we snowshoed on Thursday.  I didn't mention it in that post, but it was two years ago when we were there at the same time a young summer Park employee, Michael Purdy, had fallen and died and had not yet been found.  I wrote about that here.  A Park employee told me that his sister was in the park a week or two ago for the anniversary.  You can also see how different the trail looked in late April 2016 compared to early May 2018.
#2 is about where I took the panorama above from.
The Black Bear Paw is Teklanika Campground - the road is closed about a mile past there for now, though beyond it you can walk or bike.
#3 is Eilson Visitor Center (above the 3) - about 60 miles into the park with good views of Denali on clear days.
#4 is Wonder Lake campground, the end of the 90 mile road into the park.
#5 is the North Peak of Denali - the tallest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet (6,140m)

So what we saw last week is only 1/3 of the road in the park.  The panorama is of just one tiny part of the park.  The vast majority of the park has no structures at all.  And the views further in are even more expansive.  Even if you don't see any animals (not likely) or the mountain itself (much more likely), the landscape itself is worth the trip.

Looking through the trees across to a small mountain off in the distance.

Here you can see the slope of the land.  I took this from the road.  J is walking up the road in her red coat.  Since walking on the snow, even with snowshoes, is a challenge, we took turns walking along the road with the other waiting up ahead in the car.  You see much more on foot than in the car.

Here's an area where the snow had an icy glaze.  But if you tried to walk on it, you break right through the ice.

This is just past the gate that closes off the road at the Teklanika rest area.  I'm looking down at the Teklanika River, which at this point is mostly covered with snow still, just those few squiggly pieces of open water.  If you look closely you can see the bridge in the lower right corner.

And below you can see some of those squiggly spans of water from the bridge.

It was a beautiful day - I know that's relative.  The sun was out and the sky was mostly blue.  The temperature was in the 40's but there was a brisk wind in most places and especially on this bridge.    It was also a Saturday so there were a fair number of people who driven to the Park for the weekend from Anchorage and Fairbanks.

This post has taken a direction of its own - the vastness of the park - so I'll save some of the people   and critters we encountered for another post.

"Crackdown on illegal foreigners: Many claiming to be students to get fake visas"

Just to put things into perspective, this was a headline at ThaiVisa - a website for ex-pats in Thailand - about foreigners (Westerners generally) staying in Thailand illegally.

We're back (sniff, sniff) from Denali and I saw this in my email and thought I'd pass it on.  Yesterday was sunshine all day, pics at six.

Moose's Teeth and Denali Patterns

I read in my cloud  spotter's guide yesterday that Alfred Stieglitz was the first professional photographer to take pictures of clouds, not just as part of a landscape, but as abstract art.  I guess that encouraged me to follow my druthers as we drove through the park today.  Today's clouds, for the most part, were one mass of grayish haze that the sun tried to burn through now and then, but that also included intermittent rain and snow.   This first one is the mountain above Savage River.

Another snowy landscape.

Snow/Ice on the side of the road.

More formations in ice and snow and dirt as the plowed snow on the side of the road melts and sublimates.

Rocks below the ripples of Sanctuary River from the bridge.

OK, time to get more representational.

A view from the road.

Another view from the road, in an area that had less snow cover.

A magpie flies across Sanctuary River.  At this point a car stopped and a woman asked if anything was moving.  I said, "Just a magpie and the water."  She said, "I love the magpies."  I said, "I see them at home everyday so they aren't that special."  She said she was from North Carolina so she never sees them."  "You're right," I said.  "They are really beautiful birds."  And they are with their striking black and white patterns and their dark colors that turn green and blue in the right light.

But here are much better magpie pics from  my front steps and here in my back yard.  The magpie made it across the river.  A number of years ago my daughter and I watched, at this same spot, a mother moose with a very young calf cross the river.  But the calf couldn't make it up the snow bank on the other side.  The mom tried to push it up, but after a while it got tired and the current carried if off down the river.  It was real life nature.  The mom climbed the bank and wandered off.  No one to to comfort her and I know she had to have feelings about this.  But someone down the river was in for a tasty treat.  The natural world is harsh, which  is why civilization, in its best meaning, is important and worth striving to keep alive and improving.


And while I was hoping to see some caribou today, again we only saw moose, which we can see in our on front yard.   But again, they are still magnificent and fascinating to watch.  Here's last year's calf (I think).

And her mom.  I've labeled this picture "Moose's Teeth" which has a little more meaning for Anchorage visitors.  Moose's Tooth is the most popular place for pizza and beer in Anchorage and also the name of a  peak in the Alaska Range.  She was with the calf eating on the side of the road just a mile or two from the visitor's center.  The elevation is lower here and there isn't as much snow and the vegetation is a little closer to greening.

Quick Denali Pics

I'm sitting outside the closed visitor center at about 8pm to get the wifi.  It's in the 30s so I'm just going to put up some pictures without much conversation.  But I will say there's more snow than we've ever seen here, but the roads are great and we borrowed some snow shoes at the visitors center and I hiked a very windy mile with the snowshoes along Savage River and back.  Lots of rugged fun.

This was still about 40 miles from Denali National Park.

Here's the trail.  Well it's covered with snow, but you can faintly see some snow shoe tracks of the last person, but they're being covered quickly.

Snow shoes aren't the tennis racket kind of things of yesteryear.  These worked well, but you use different muscles and the wind was pushing really hard the whole way.  In my face on the way back.

 Much of Savage River along the trail is still covered with snow, but parts were showing.

Here are my tracks, just after I walked there, but on the way back they were barely visible.  The wind was blowing the snow as you can sort of see in the pic below.

The brown across the snowed over river near the top left is the bridge.

Here's the trail going back.  You can sort of see my old tracks.

Not sure whose tracks these are.  Rabbit?

I'll check tomorrow.

Here's some glaciation on the other side of the river.

Here's a view looking toward the west and the mountain, except the clouds are hiding the mountain.

And this is where we parked, popped up the top, and cooked some dinner - why our VW camper has been such an important part of our lives all these years.  Where else can you get dinner with a view like this?

We didn't see a lot of wild life.  A bald eagle flew alongside the road on the way to the park, just above the trees.  I saw a small flock (10-15 birds) take off on the side of the road.  They were white and 'snow bunting' popped into my head, but I have to check.  I did see snow bunting in Wales, Alaska once.  Also three ptarmigan - all white.  I don't remember seeing them like that before.  Usually, they are shifting to their summer plumage so they are half white and half brown.  Or in the summer all brown.  And then this moose.

My fingers are getting cold, so good night to you all.

Stopover In Talkeetna

It was sunny and warm, though windy when we left Anchorage.  The workers already had plastic on the floor, a couple of daffodils were close to opening,  buds on the birch trees were greening.  After reading about yesterday's "heavy snow" in Denali, along with the road being open only to mile 3, and temperatures dipping to the low 20s, I booked a room in Talkeetna for the night.








We got here and napped - catching up on some sleep we needed - then walked on the back streets which got us this view of a creek that I'm assuming empties into the Susitna nearby.

There's still a lot more winter here than in Anchorage.







We wandered back and took the trail through the woods into town.

Our first glimpse of downtown:

There's one main street, several blocks long.  Talkeetna's about 110 miles north of Anchorage.  Denali National Park is about 235 miles north so this seemed a good stop and we haven't really been here for quite a while.  It's about ten miles off the main road, so we tend to pass it by.  It's the jumping off point for Denali climbers.  In summer climbers from around the world are here (well they're here already) to fly to a Denali base camp in hopes of getting to the peak.  We were told that people had been stuck on the mountain due to the recent storms and a plane was able to get folks back yesterday.

We stayed a night in the Fairview Inn one winter many, many years ago.  It was a long noisy night as the bar is downstairs and they have frequent concerts.

The Fairview Inn was built in 1923 and soon after President Harding, on a long visit to Alaska, was there for lunch.  He died shortly after, though I don't think there's a cause and effect relationship.  It's registered as an historical monument.

If you're paying attention, you'll see it has a for sale sign.  An ADN article from 2014 said that attorney Phillip Wiedener had it up for sale at that time for $1.8 million.  I checked today and the price is only $1.2 million.   For people seeing prices like that for little homes in California, it might seem a steal.





We passed the cannabis shop, but it wasn't open.









And then on down to the Susitna River.

Further north, the Nenena Ice Classic ended yesterday when the tripod on the ice moved the required distance down the river giving someone a $225,000 jackpot for being the closest to the exact time the tripod was tripped.   And some ice passed by while I was watching.



Looking up the river, we could see the Alaska range, at least the foothills below Denali which would have been off the picture to the right if the clouds were gone.

We had pizza for dinner at the Wildflower Cafe,which was surprisingly good and not very expensive.  But the highlight was the amazingly illustrated bathroom.  (A bit distorted as I tried to photoshop two pictures together)


Denali's supposed to have a high of 37˚ F tomorrow, with a partly cloudy forecast for the morning and early afternoon, and then the days get warmer through the weekend (into the 40˚s) with some chance of rain and snow each day.   But the park is a large area and the entrance is fairly low elevation, so I think we'll take our chances.  Being outside walking around today was great, and we've been in the campgrounds with snow before.  Though the Park's website has conflicting info - the Alert says the road is open to mile 3 but the map (now) shows it open to mile 30.

Here's a webcam of the Alaska RR depot in the Park.  There's plenty of snow.  And this one from Mt. Healy suggests the Alert is more accurate than the map.  I guess we'll explore near the park entrance.  Or we'll cuddle up in the van and read a lot.

Getting Little Things Done As We Prep For Denali

The big things happening in our lives today were getting the upstairs ready for the workers to fix our ceiling and then to paint.  And so we are also getting ready to drive to Denali National Park while they do the first part of that chore.

So here's how I kept busy to those ends, but also smaller tasks.  I started by going to the repair shop for them to install my new battery for the camping part of the VW van.  Then to Best Buy to get a new CD player that we can plug into the tape deck in the van.  (It's a '97 van, so it has a tape deck.)  Then to the battery store to drop off the old battery.

When I got home I called my insurance to ask if they got my forms for my hears.  They haven't, even though when I talked to them before I sent the forms 17 days ago, they said I'd get my check in about ten days.  So I had to redo the forms.  Fortunately, we had copies of the forms.  But then we've been having a recurring problem with our printer.  It prints fine.  But when I try to make a copy it complains that the wrong sized paper (envelope size) is in the tray.  It's not, but it says that and won't copy.  I've pushed all the buttons in the little window.  I've changed the paper to envelope size and back, but nothing worked.  But when we moved everything downstairs I found the paper where I wrote down the number of the Costco concierge (a little pretentious title, don't you think?).  After trying this and that, she had me check my computer setting.  It was set right, for letter sized paper.  She had me change it to envelope size and try to print.  It didn't.  She had me reset it back to letter sized.  It didn't print.  But there was a new option that showed up in the little window on the printer - change paper size.  So I did, and then it printed.  Grrrrrr, it shouldn't be this hard (this has been a recurring problem - enough so I've ended up taking pictures of documents then printing the pictures.)  But then no one used to have printer, copier, fax machines in their homes that worked via wifi.  So I'm only complaining a little bit.

The contractor came by to see how our moving things was doing.  We'll be ok.  Then I still needed to fill out one more (four were done via the copies) form.  By then the mail had already been picked up, but I bike ride to the post office would get me some exercise time.  There wasn't even a line and I sent it registered so I could track it this time.  On the way home I stopped at the family medical practice to get my knees Xrayed.  When I saw the doctor last week, we agreed I should get a baseline image.  I notice them mostly when I go down stairs.  They don't hurt, but they are no longer unnoticed either.

Then I got home in time to get into Google Hangout, which is not Meet or something like that, to chat with my San Francisco grandkids.  And while we were chatting I suddenly realized my left hear wasn't behind my ear.  I looked downstairs in the garage where I'd taken off my bike helmet, but it wasn't on the floor.  And where I took off my hat and sunglasses, but it wasn't there either.  You do get one lost hear free, but it's a little early for that.

J got home and talked to the grandkids, then she went looking for the missing hear.  She brought it up.  It was caught in the strap of my bike helmet.  That was lucky.  I'm going to have to be much more careful with them.  I really forget they're on (or not on.)  Until someone talks too softly for me to hear.  Maybe I can find a way to tape my phone number on them.  Another good reason mohave the bigger ones.

So I still have to get camping stuff into the car and get all the little loose stuff cleared out.  The workers will move the bigger stuff into the kitchen.  We'll sleep downstairs when we get back until the painting is done.  Then I hope we will get rid of a lot of stuff rather than bring it back upstairs. But the printer works well downstairs, it may stay there.

And we've been watching the Denali road opening and weather for the last week.  The park busses start May 20.  But until that day you can drive as far as the road is cleared up to Teklanika Campground - 30 miles from the entrance.  It's a wonderful time to be there.  But until just last week the road was only open to mile 12.5.  And then it went back to mile 3.  12.5 again, and then mile 30.  The weather's been chilly - high's in the 30s(F) and lows down to 20˚F.  Here's what it says for right now:

"Heavy Snow Freezing Fog
31°F
-1°C
Humidity 85%
Wind Speed Calm
Barometer 29.73 in
Dewpoint 27°F (-3°C)
Visibility 0.25 mi
Last update 1 May 5:56 pm AKDT"

But we learned a long time ago, that if you let weather get in your way in Alaska, you'll never do anything.  Looking at current road conditions right now:

"Denali Park Road closed at Headquarters
The Denali Park Road is closed to vehicle traffic at Mile 3. Pedestrian traffic (via ski, snowshoe, etc) is permitted, but stay back from any road plowing equipment you see. The Murie Center (our visitor center) is open daily, 9 am - 4:30 pm, at Mile 1.5."
 

Maybe I should take cross country skis.  In 2016 we were there in late April and it was beautiful.


Meanwhile it's sunny and 49˚F here and I can see green on the birch buds in the front yard.

"Nextdoor: An alternative reality where black Audis terrorize and everyone is a meth-addled menace"

Someone convinced me I should join Nextdoor - an online community where you can get to know people in your neighborhood and keep up with very local news - and it sounded like a good idea, so I did.  That was about a year ago.

More recently I've been noticing that a lot of people are posting about crime and suspicious people and situations.  I was beginning to think that there were a lot of fearful people on Nextdoor.  Sure, if someone breaks into you car or house, it's reasonable to be upset.  But if most of the posts on something like Nextdoor are about crime, it also magnifies people's perception of the dangers of their neighborhood.  (The same can be said for newspapers and tv news.)

Here are some recent posts from the Nextdoor pages from my neighborhood in Anchorage:

• Unsupervised Kids in Subsidized Housing Neighborhood [she's seen them carry hatchets and guns and take drugs]
• 2003 Black Tahoe stolen in midtown 1/30
• Car rifled. Stolen change, coffee cards, glasses and keys. They keys are for out o state property so not usable for them but a pain for us
• Abandoned Vehicle
• Mail thieves

These were interspersed with lost (and found) cats and dogs, items for sale, but I'd say at least 50% were crime or safety related.    

I guess it came to a head for me when someone posted a warning  earlier this month to be careful during the political seasons for misleading posts:

"Be aware of political actors for 2018, even now
Hey all, you may or may not have seen my activity in a thread regarding the mail voting situation. Just know, the Koch brothers have spent a TON of money in this area(I'm not joking or exaggerating), especially regarding unions, and don't take every resident at their word, because they may not be residents. You can talk to me in person, I'm not a member of anyone except my dance group."

That led M to write:

This is not a political site please do not post political posts .

Followed with:

Thank you M.  I'm thinking of quitting this site as I don't appreciate the nasty attitudes of some of these people.  When I signed up for this site I thought it was for neighbors to let neighbors know about thefts, car break-ins, etc., not an agenda to spout your political views no matter which side.  Surely there are other sites where you can go to vent.

Did that "Be aware of political actors" post sound nasty to you?  I guess "nasty attitudes" means things I disagree with because "Thank you M" was the nastiest attitude I saw.  Then others pointed out the guidelines allow for civil discussions of political issues that impact the local area.  But it appears that some people think this is just for reporting crimes and it seems there are people who see nothing but suspicious people and vehicles.

I'm not sure if people who aren't members can go to the link, but here are the guidelines for Don't Use Nextdoor as a Soapbox.


And so yesterday, when I saw this LA Times opinion piece, I felt a kindred spirit had written it.

Nextdoor: An alternative reality where black Audis terrorize and everyone is a meth-addled menace

He says all I've said, but he's much funnier.  Here's a brief sample:

"In the alternative reality that is Nextdoor, people are committing crimes I’ve never even thought of: casing, lurking, knocking on doors at 11:45 p.m., coating mailbox flaps with glue, “asking people for jumper cables but not actually having a car,” light bulb stealing, taking photos of homes, being an “unstable female” and “stashing a car in my private garage.”
From the very first time I logged on, my mission was clear: Do not let my lovely wife Cassandra find out about Nextdoor. Not because I didn’t want to worry her pretty little head, but because I didn’t want her bothering my pretty little head in panic about every black Audi driving down our block."

Theorizing The Web Conference: You Can See Most (All?) Of The Panels Here

My immediate conception of "theorizing the web" was:  people talking about what the meaning and consequences of what's happening online.  Here's their description:

"Theorizing the Web is an inter- and non-disciplinary annual conference that brings together scholars, journalists, artists, activists, and technology practitioners to think conceptually and critically about the interrelationships between the Web and society. We deeply value public engagement, and consider insights from academics, non-academics, and non-“tech theorists” alike to be equally valuable."

Pretty much what I was thinking, but more specific.

So I found out about this from a @nathanjurgenson Tweet which offered a link to the online proceedings.  Here are a few of the panels and panelists.  There's video here  of each these panels and a bunch more (maybe all).

#A4 POLITICS OF PORTRAITS
.Moderator
Millie Christie-Dervaux   -  How we capture bodies in art and visual communication media sheds light on how bodies are imbued with identity.
Ayşenur Benevento  -  Capturing Their Aspirations: Examining Parents’ Photographs of Their Children on Social Media
Emily Stainkamp  -Looking back at the selfie: A survey of Western self-portraiture from antiquity to Selfish
Rachel Coldicutt    -   The Woman’s Gaze and The Robots’ Gaze
Anja Dinhopl  -  The Looking Glass Self(ie)

#A3 QUEER RELATIONSHIPS
.Moderator:   Jessie Sage   -  Our expectations of romantic relationships are deeply heteronormative. The experiences and transgressive actions of queer people stand to change that for everyone.
Tommy Ting  -  Cruising Heterotopia: Queer Play in Video Game Space
Lindsay Ferris  -  I’m queer – don’t fuck with me if you’re not: Exploring queer women’s use of Tinder
mattie brice  -  Catfishing in 3 Acts: Investigating Emotional Labor Networks Supporting Progressive Masculinity
Aaron Su  -  Recuperating the Cybernetic Libido

#K1 THE NEXT GENERATION
[AUDIO ISSUES EARLY, WILL BE FIXED & RESTREAMED LATER!]
.Moderator  -  Molly Knefel
.Participants  -  Malcolm Harris, Osita Nwanevu, Crystal Abidin
While it’s often claimed that young people’s social reality is dictated by phones and social media, the actual forces at play have deeper historical roots. Like everyone else, everyone born within 20 years of the new millennium are affected by surveillance, unemployment, and self-determination, but they are uniquely situated within social antagonisms they have inherited. 

#B1 TECH SUPPORT
.Moderator
Michael Connor  -  To sustain protest we must also turn to one another for support. Can digital media serve as a means for this without undermining it?
Kristen Barta  -  Reclaiming visibility after sexual assault: Lessons from sexual assault survivors’ use of social media for designing digital supportive spaces
Olga Boichak  -  Mediatizing War: digital media and the battlefronts
Ada Cable  -  Perverse affordances: The victims of
Sara Lillo  -  Declarations and Diagnostics: Mental Health Tweets and Our Perceptions of Twitter

#B3 BOT PHENOMENOLOGY
Moderator  -    Damien Williams  What it means to exist with technology, and what it means to exist as technology
Emma Stamm
Robin Zebrowski
Johnathan Flowers 

#C1 MAP QUEST
.Moderator
Jeremy Antley - Digitality hasn’t obviated geography as was anticipated; it has made geopolitical boundaries simultaneously more visible and more intensely monitored. Sometimes technology even makes visible border practices that states intend to be invisible.
Anne Jonas - Embedding Inequality: The Implications of Regional Blocking in Web Services
Matthew Sekellick - Hot Hot Heats: Strava’s Global Heatmap and (the Aesthetics of) the Corporate Subject
Jan Rydzak - Disconnected: A Human Rights-Based Approach to Network Disruptions
Jasmine Vallve - Cross-Border Solidarities of Racialized Violence and Surveillance 

#C2 POLITICS OF CITIZENSHIP
.Moderator
Tanya Lokot - Digital media has taken on a structuring role in more and more of our lives, including participation in civic life. The role of citizen is now deeply entwined with digital platforms’ interests and affordances.
Amrita Sengupta - Collective Identity in Digital Spheres: Feminist movements and struggles for public spaces
Anastasis Germanidis - Sybil Society
Colin Kielty - Analog Analogies to Digital Citizenship: “Nodality” Online and Off
Kaveh Azarhoosh - Uberization of jobs and decline of deliberative democracies in Western European Democracies

#C5 NETWORK AFFECTS
.Moderator -Joelle Woodson.  Moderator -  Britney Gil
No tech platform can solve how communication and emotions are fraught with contradiction and confusion. As machines start to speak the language of affect, these contradictions may only intensify.
Jacqueline Feldman - AI and Affective Labor: an inquiry into how easily bots can fake it
Erin Gordon - Do You Want to Quit? Intimacy, Site, Self
Amber Westerholm-Smyth - Consumers of our own grief? Exploring the commoditisation of grief following terrorist attacks on social media platforms.
Tim Cowlishaw - A Digital Dérive: Situationist strategies for reclaiming digital public space. 

No, I haven't looked at all of the videos.  Hardly any so far.  They seem to all be an hour or more.  But here's a chance to sit in on New York based conference on a really important topic, without spending all the time it takes to get to New York.  But you also don't get to ask questions during the sessions and mingle with the crowd between sessions.  But I'm sure if you really have a burning question or comment, you can find the presenters' email addresses and contact them.  

“Padre, you just got to stay out of politics,” he recalled the speaker saying.

As I'm sure you all know, Paul Ryan fired the House's chaplain - a Roman Catholic priest, Father Conroy.

The title quote and quotes below come from a New York Times article that points to the prayer that is said to have caused Ryan's remark (in this post's title.)  Apparently he was miffed by this comment about the Republican tax plan that Ryan helped pushed through:

 “May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”

This focuses on a key difference between the Catholic interpretations of the bible and many Protestant interpretations which talk about work as being a divine calling and the importance of self reliance.

But as I read the quote, I couldn't help but think about what Ryan probably really meant by the word 'politics.'  I think he meant don't take positions that challenge my positions.  Surely, if the Father had spoken about saving fetuses from abortion (as political a topic as you could want, and one consistent with the Catholic church's beliefs) Ryan wouldn't have been upset at all.

 Merriam Webster's online dictionary's first definition of political is:

"of or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government" 

How could a Congressional chaplain say anything of relevance that would not be political?  Even if the chaplain's job is purely ceremonial, there's no way a chaplain can say anything without it being interpreted as political by someone.

The article goes on to discuss simmering tension between Catholics and Evangelical Christians in the House.

"The controversy was heightened when Representative Mark Walker, Republican of North Carolina and a Baptist minister, said Thursday in an interview with The Hill newspaper that he hoped the next chaplain of the House might come from a nondenominational church tradition who could relate to members with wives and children.
Catholic Democrats quickly called his remarks anti-Catholic, as Catholic priests are celibate . . ."

The Times article also offers another explanation for the firing - that the Chaplain wasn't carrying out his pastoral duties satisfactorily.  It also suggests this was one more Republican 'unforced error' that would help Democrats in the November election.  I don't know about that.  There are so many things that will influence whether and how voters vote.  Add this to the list.

A Serious Life And The Two Horses Of Genghis Kahn

I met Michael Sidney Welch a number of years ago when I taught a class at Olé on blogging.  I insisted that we have it in a computer lab and that everyone would get their own blog in the several weeks we met.  My expertise was just my own blogging experience, but I knew if I just talked and they didn't try it out themselves, it would be really boring.

Just about everyone - I think there were about 20 folks - got a blog up and several have kept those blogs going or got new ones up after that.

Michael is a philosopher.  I see him around town, usually he's with his wife, particularly at the Anchorage International Film Festival.  Recently his wife invited us to a group I can best describe as a movie club.  I mean that in the sense of a book club that watches movies rather than reads books.

This week we met to see "The Two Horses of Genghis Kahn" - a really beautiful Mongolian movie about a woman who travels around Inner and Outer Mongolia in search of the lost lyrics of a song her grandmother taught her.  She knows some of them, but there were more inscribed in a horse head violin that was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.  She still had the broken off horse head and sought someone to make a new violin for it while she went searching elders for the missing words.

The broad landscapes and the search for lost culture are familiar to Alaskans and it provoked a lot of discussion about cultural change, both natural and. . .   I'm sitting here thinking about the right word and I'm not succeeding - unnatural isn't right.  Forced comes to mind - as when one culture tries to wipeout another culture by banning the language and music and other ways the culture is transmitted from generation to generation.  And we could talk a long time by what 'natural' cultural change entails.  We talked about how younger generations live in different worlds than their parents' generation.  But is this really natural?  Or is it a product of the industrial revolution that fosters so much rapid change in the last few centuries?

I haven't found any serious reviews, but this one gives an introduction to the film and the director.
Anchorage's Loussac Library has a copy. Youtube has a tease that looks like the whole copy from Netflix, but it doesn't seem to be so.  It apparently has been on Netflix (couldn't find it today) and may be on Prime.   It has a much slower pace than US viewers are used to.  Here's a preview, though we watched it in the original (which I assume was Mongolian, but may have been a dialect) with English subtitles.



As we were leaving Michael told me he has his newish blog - A Serious Life - up now.  When I say he's a philosopher, I'm not joking.  This is not for the Tweet at Heart.  I'll also link it in the right column, since some of the bloggers I've had there have been, shall we say, preoccupied with other things than their blogs.

For those who make it this far, the title of the movie is also the title of the song Uma is seeking.