Hot

Anchorage has been sunny and hot.  For Anchorage that means 75˚F or more.  It's gotten into the low 80s some days this week - depends what part of town.  We also have good friends up from California who don't think it's all that hot.  We've spent a lot of time outside, and when at home, on the deck, where the mosquitoes seem to be distracted by the heat too.  There are some, but not many.  So here are some pictures of a bit of our time.  

The sun would seem a perfect start in this weather.  This version is downtown at 5th and G St.   Since Little J is a planet expert, it seemed like a good adventure to start here and visit as many of the planets as we could.  This high school science project brought to life over ten years ago, places the planets around Anchorage, proportionately sized and distant from each other.  So Mercury was a block away (5th and H), Venus another block, Earth a couple blocks, and Mars was at Elderberry Park.  

Then we got the car and went to the end of Westchester Lagoon for Jupiter.  Later that day went to visit friends in Turnagain, so we were able to go down to the bike trail at Lyn Ary Park to find Saturn (who's rings, unfortunately, have been broken off).  Then we drove down to Point Woronzof to find Uranus, which is on the bike trail before you actually get to Point W.  Fortunately, Little J's parents found it on google maps.  Neptune is somewhere further along the bike trail and Pluto is below Kincaid Park, not accessible by car, and Little J was getting tired and I think he'll have to do this another year when he's mastered bike riding.  He wasn't keen on the trailer bike I've got, even with the new dinosaur helmet.  

This was a view of some blooming cow parsnip from the bike trail that goes up Campbell Airstrip Road.  

I took our guests to the botanical garden where we saw this Chinese peony.  

And these prairie smoke flowers.  

And today we walked over to Campbell Creek Park playground where Little J tested all the playground equipment and then joined lots of other kids playing in the creek.  I saw some salmon in the creek a couple of bridges further down the other day.  

Tomorrow, Little J gets a playmate when my granddaughter arrives.  

Why is Mark Begich Running For Governor? Tom Begich Explains

Like a lot of people, apparently, I was surprised and concerned when Mark Begich threw his name into the Governor's race.  A three way race could well give the office to the likes of Mike Dunleavy.  (I'm afraid my opinion of Dunleavy is not very positive, though I acknowledge it's based on one event - the hearings he chaired in Anchorage during a special session.  His committee's task was simply to pass a bill - Bree's Law, to teach kids to defend themselves from sexual predators -  that the Senate had passed unanimously the previous year but the House hadn't gotten too.  The House subsequently passed it and now the Senate merely needed to pass it one more time.  It should have taken five minutes.  It took days.  Dunleavy tried to water down bill and add his own - already rejected during the regular session - amendments.  Here's one of the posts that sums up much of those hearings.)

I consoled myself and others about Begich's decision by saying, "Mark is a good politician and candidate, he knows the issues and he is a real extrovert.  But much more important is that he wouldn't jump in this race without talking to his brother, State Senator Tom Begich. And Tom knows the numbers of Alaska politics better than just about anyone else.  I know this, and got to know Tom, when I was covering the Alaska Redistricting Board.  Tom was at most meetings along with his equally knowledgeable Republican counterpart Randy Ruedrich.

So, when I saw Tom at the immigration rally on Saturday, I gave him pretty much that preface I gave others.  Here's what he answered.  [It was noisy Saturday.  There was music and lots of people talking around us.  The audio is mostly understandable, but I've made a transcript.  There were a few parts I wasn't completely sure of, but nothing that changes the basic meaning.  The transcript follows the video.]



Reasonably close transcript:

Steve:  Tom
Tom:  Hey Steve, how’re you doing?
Steve:  I trust your judgment . . .
Tom:  I’m glad
Steve:  . . . But I’m really concerned about Mark jumping into the race, so tell me why this is happening.  Is this going to lose the race altogether?
Tom:  Not a chance.  When you look at the numbers we use  to analyze the race, what is . . . the key  here is to make sure a progressive is elected governor of the state of Alaska. I spent time talking to the Governor, the Lt. Governor, and others.  My brother.  Facilitating for the last week before the filing deadline.
And you know, it was our belief, based on the data, based on those discussions, that the governor wasn’t going to be in a position to win this race.  And, you know, we can’t sacrifice a progressive agenda, we can’t take that risk.  The imperative was to be sure that the strongest progressive candidate was in the race.  And that that candidate was part of our base party.  Try to remember, our primary is open to Independents and Democrats.  The Governor was ??? going to be in that primary and changed his mind.  That’s a problem.  There would have been another D probably if Mark hadn’t filed.  And Mark would have been, was, is the strongest D.
I never would have supported my brother getting into this race if I didn’t think he could win this race, and I’m certain that he can.  That being said, the question is how do we all come together as progressives?  There’s not a lot of hostility here between the Governor or between my brother.  What there is, is the need to have the strongest candidate face Mike Dunleavy.

Look, we’re talking about the situation now where the Supreme Court at the Federal level where you’re going to have Choice at risk, LGBT rights at risk.  There are a number of things that are going to take strong governance at the local level to ??? those issues.  Mark is the best candidate by far for that.
So with all that said, I believe Mark has the wherewithal to do it and the ability to do it.
Let me add one last thing.  Mark as the Democratic candidate brings other resources to the table.  The Democratic Governors’ Association resources, DFC resources that otherwise wouldn’t be coming to the state.  [http://www.democraticfreedomcaucus.org]   That’s going to help our down-ballot races, which matters a lot.
I know that both campaigns are going to continue to talk throughout this process, throughout the primary.  I’m certain that at the end of August, everybody will sit down and talk about who’s in third, who’s in second and make the right decisions.  I just believe that’ll happen.  But if it doesn’t happen, we have data that shows Mark wins a three horse race and he’s the stronger candidate in a two horse race.  And that’s what matters.  We have to win for progressives, we have to win.
Steve:  So you’re saying, if Mark didn’t get in the race, Dunleavy would have won anyway?
Tom:  I believe that to be true, yes.
Steve:  Thank you very much.
Tom:  You’re welcome.  

After I stopped the camera, I did ask Tom about the data he was basing this on.  He mentioned some polls, but pointed specifically to a poll that had been posted on Midnight Sun which showed, in a three-way race,  Dunleavy with 38%,  Mark Begich with 33%, and Walker with 23%.  These numbers were based on Begich having just gotten into the race and not having done any campaigning.   He also said that the Permanent Fund was really hurting Walker.  He also pointed out that Walker was a pro-life Republican.  He'd lost in a previous Republican primary so last round he entered as an Independent.  Walker and the Democratic candidate - Alaska Native and former head of the Alaska Permanent Fund Byron Mallott - realized that neither could beat the Republican Sean Parnell in a three way race.  So their Lt. Governor partners bowed out and Mallot joined as the Lt. Governor candidate with Walker as the candidate for Governor.  And they won.  Walker's main goal at the time was to build a natural gas pipeline, force the oil companies to release the natural gas they had on the North Slope, and ship the gas to Asia.  While there is action on that project and an agreement has been signed with a Chinese partners, there is also a lot of skepticism about whether it will ever be built.

If the poll numbers don't change much by August - or if Begich moves up - would Walker be willing to step out of the race?  The Democrats did that in 2014 to help Walker get elected.   I imagine he'd want Begich to commit to the pipeline and perhaps be given a position to lead that fight.  Walker has acted as a rational adult in Juneau- at least as I saw it, making decisions based on facts and practical realities rather than ideology.  But his cutting back the Alaska Permanent Fund while the Republicans blocked any other sources of revenue - recouping the oil taxes they cut earlier, an income tax, even a sales tax - doesn't sit well with Alaskans.  

Anchorage Immigration Protest Rally 2

Post 1 with lots of pictures is here.  Keeping track of what I put up yesterday so I didn't duplicate today got a bit hairy.

Hector Ortiz and friends (including grandchildren) played music.  They began with Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion."

This was after a lot of speakers and by this time the crowd had thinned out a bit.








Listening to the music.

I'm guessing Ruth Sheridan, who celebrated her 100th birthday this year was the oldest participant.

And a reminder of another big national issue:  homelessness.  When I rode along the bike trail to the rally, there were two official looking vans on the trail, some stopped cyclists, and a couple of men carrying large black garbage bags out of the woods.

On my way home, at Valley of The Moon park, this truck looked like it was full of stuff that had been cleared from the homeless camps.

It's Easier For Dogs To Get Into The US Than For People - Thoughts and Pics From Anchorage Immigration Protest

There were lots of folks at the demonstration on the park strip this morning.  Counting is hard on the ground, but my calculations put the number near or over 1000*.


*I didn't think there were that many folks, until I got into the crowd which was really deep.  I counted a thin wedge of folks and estimated how many wedges there were which got me to about 1000.  In NYE that would come to about 25,000.   NYE - New York Equivalents - is a device I invented at women against Sarah Palin march back in 2008 to give people outside of Alaska a sense of what a given number of Alaskan's would mean in a bigger city.  It gives the crowd  size if the same proportion of New Yorkers were out.  I updated things for more current population figures.  And remember, I could have under or over estimated the size of the crowd.

I got there after the Mayor spoke, but I was told his words were powerful.  Someone else told me the best speaker was the first lady.

I'm going to break this into two posts because I've go so many pictures, mostly of signs - original hand made signs seem to me to be an indicator of people's passion on a topic.

Here's the follow up post.

The big sign with God on it was part of a small anti-abortion contingency that tried to interrupt the speakers by speaking with a bullhorn.  It didn't work.



And these folks seemed to anticipate their presence here

And some bible quoting on behalf of
immigrants.

After walking around and seeing all the dogs in the crowd, I suddenly realized:  Dogs can enter the US more easily than people can.    Imagine:  Some American citizens can bring a dog back from Mexico, but not their own children!  Here are the rules - basically they're about health.

There were lots of dogs.  Here, with  the help of photoshop, you can see both sides of the same dog in one picture:












Even the Statue of Liberty was here to protest.




Twice!

Jesus Christ with sunglasses?

Speaker Robin Bronen from the Alaska Institute for Justice.

Voting showed up in signs here and you may have noticed the Voter Registration table in the 4th picture from the top.

And speaking of voting, former US Senator and current candidate for Governor was talking to folks in the crowd.  Many people have been wondering why he would jump into the governor's race and split the progressive vote.  Including me.  But my answer, to myself and to others has been:  his brother Tom knows the numbers as good as anyone and Mark wouldn't make this decision without talking to Tom.  Well, Tom (who is a Senator in the Alaska Senate) was also there and I posed that question to hm and he gave me a very convincing response.  I've got it on video (I hope, I haven't downloaded it yet)  and I'll put it up Monday or Tuesday. [It's up now here.]  Stay tuned.

,





The women holding these signs said if I do anything with the picture to give credit to the artist, so here: Julio Salgado's online stencils.








More pictures coming soon.

Wash Post Article Sounds Pretty Sexist And Racist As It Attributes Ocasio-Cortez' Win To Tribalism

A Washington Post article that appeared in Thursday's Anchorage Daily News really bothered me this morning.  It seemed pretty clear to me this was written by a white male (turned out to be by two white males), who despite writing at the Post and appearing to be generally left-leaning, acted as though women and people of color winning elections were some sort of quirky desperation play by Democrats.

Let's look at some of it.  (The second half was less disturbing.)

"The newest star of the Democratic Party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, launched her New York congressional campaign by declaring “women like me aren’t supposed to run for office” — a jarring embrace of her distinction as a 28-year-old Latina less than a year removed from a job tending bar."

Many people's stereotypes tend to dismiss young women (28 is young to me), even white women, as not very important.  Young men, especially if they're wearing suits, get more respect.

The idea that women like her shouldn't run, was so true that no one paid attention to the race, assuming the long-term white male incumbent would easily get reelected.  Even in a district that has 18% whites and 49% Hispanics,  The percentages come from Wikipedia. I'd note a Twitter feed pointed out that a Wikipedia moderator had taken down her Twitter page because she wasn't deemed important enough to have a page of her own. (I'd note that neither the white female (Alyse Galvin, Independent) nor the white male (Dimitri Shein, Democrat), running to unseat Rep Don Young of Alaska have Wikipedia pages either.)

The fact that she worked tending bar less than a year ago basically dismisses her.  Here's a mere bartender running for Congress.  I'd note Randy Bryce, who is running for Speaker Paul Ryan's seat, was a steel-worker a year ago.  Did the reporters bother to find out if she was more than 'just' a bar tender?  If they found out that she'd tended bar, why didn't they find out she's got an asteroid named after her too, because she did really well in a science fair project?  But apparently that didn't fit their story arc.

Our economy is such that even highly qualified people find tending bar a better option than other available jobs.  But it doesn't define who they are.

"Her campaign slogan: “It’s time for one of us.” 

That appeal to the tribal identities of class, age, gender and ethnicity turned out to be a good gamble, steering her to the nomination in a year when Democratic voters are increasingly embracing diversity as a way to realize the change they seek in the country."  (emphasis added)

Tribal identities?  First, I'm already disgusted with the sudden popularity of 'tribal' to describe America's current political scene*.  Let's take a term from anthropology where it has a fairly specific definition that most people don't understand well, and then use it as a metaphor for current US politics.  What could go wrong?

The wealthier, white, Protestant male good-old-boys have dominated American politics since we were still a colony.  No one called that tribalism.   But when a woman of color unexpectedly wins an election in a district with a strong Hispanic plurality, it's because she's appealing to tribalism?  Please.  Class, age, gender, and ethnicity used to be demographic characteristics, but now that white males are losing, they are suddenly tribal identities?!  I know that word is currently floating in the US political ether, but like all popular new terms about to become clichés, they are easy to bandy about without considering all the implications let alone the accuracy of the term.  Maybe it was 'unexpected' because people don't take young Hispanic women seriously, or they didn't pay attention to the current demographics of the district.

As I recall, it was Richard Nixon's Southern strategy that got racist Southern Democrats to switch to the Republican party by using not so subtle racist appeals.  And Trump has been much more blatant about his white-nationalist leanings.  What exactly are these two reporters trying to say?

"The tribal trend has implications for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, where a historic number of nonwhite and female candidates are considering launching campaigns, including Sens. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) and Cory Booker (N.J.). They will likely face off against a cadre of more traditional white male candidates, including possible bids by former vice president Joe Biden and former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe."

What's their point?  Nobody called it tribalism when Irish or Italian male politicians appealed to Irish and Italian voters.   Isn't increasing the number of women in Congress long overdue?  The Senate has the highest number of women ever - 23% and in the House of Representatives it's only 20%.  So having women candidates is tribal?  Maybe it's a reaction to the sexual predator in the White House.  Or the 80% of male majority in the House?  They don't trust white males to represent their interests any more.  How many women presidents have we had in 220 years?  India and Pakistan have had women heads of state already.

"Many of the key Democratic House primaries this year have been competitions over biography, with a premium given to those who break new ground or remove old barriers. House nominees in key races to unseat Republicans include a black former NFL player turned attorney, a female retired fighter pilot and a lesbian Air Force intelligence officer, all of whom defeated more conventional opponents."

Aren't most elections about biography?  Most candidates campaign on who they are more than on their policies and programs.  The people on this list sound highly qualified, with a wide array of experience not normally represented in Congress.  I'm sure these folks could represent more different Americans than 'more traditional white male candidates.'

The rest of the article gets less problematic in its language and analysis, but the beginning parts quoted here sound much more like off-the-cuff, testing of political opinion that reflects a white male bias, rather than serious, knowledgeable analysis.  And this comes from the Washington Post!  No wonder people are focused on gender and race rather than qualifications and policy.  It's where media direct our attention.

Oh yeah, the title of the article was:

 "The worst thing to be in many Democratic primaries? A white male candidate."

The reporters generally aren't responsible for the titles.  This goes to the editors.   Nothing like stoking Trump supporters fears that they are being targeted.  Why not turn it around and say 'Females and people of color trying to get more balance into our legislatures."  Not as catchy of course, but not as inflammatory either.  And more accurate.  But alarmist titles get more clicks.


Here's a link to the whole article on misusing 'tribalism'   I needed a password to see it, so it probably won't work.  But if you have a local library card, you might be able to get to it.  It's better than the abstract you can get at the link above.  ‘Tribalism’ gets a bum rap"  Guest Editorial by Lawrence Rosen, Anthropology Today, October 2016.

Bullshit Jobs

As I gather my thoughts - which I've done a couple of times here - on the problems with our economy, I sometimes run into articles that are of interest, but maybe not directly related  to my thesis.

[There's a fairly long introduction here before you get to bullshit jobs.  For the impatient, just skip down to the quotations below.]

Basic Thesis:  Underlying everything, the Protestant Work Ethic is no longer applicable and probably never was all that good a model for an economy.  Basically, the Protestant work ethic made work an intrinsically 'good' thing.  Work became a religious 'calling' from God.  Your worth in society is based on your work.  On keeping busy.  If you aren't working, you are a parasite.  Idle hands, you know.   That may have seemed useful at a time before steam engines and electricity and food and housing and the basics of life from dishes to clothing required as many hands as there were.  Yet even then, the wealthy didn't have to work.  But  children did.  (And I'd point out that all that work may not have been necessary.  In fertile lands, lots of cultures had times for art and music and elaborate festivals.)

The work ethic may not be a good economic model, but it's a great moral model to keep workers working and  to help the rich  justify why they have so much more than they need while others are barely scraping by.   And so  the rich folks really have no obligation to the poor.  Quite simply, the rich worked and 'earned' their wealth, and the poor were simply lazy. We still hear a lot of this from Republican politicians.  Even many liberals believe this.  It's fed to us with fairy tales and television and movies.  Our whole society is based on this notion.

In the US in the 1950s there were lots of articles about what Americans were going to do with all their spare time when automation cut jobs to 30 hours a week or less.  The 50s were a rare time in the US when the gap between rich and poor was fairly low.  Income taxes (at least before deductions)  were near 90% for the wealthiest.  (I don't think that's part of Trump's vision of making America great again.)  Unions were strong, blue collar workers could make a lot of money.  There were decent wages and benefits for people without a college degree, even a high school degree.  So the economists maybe saw things going along at the same pace, with robots taking over some jobs, allowing workers to work less for the same income.

But they forgot this is a capitalist society.  As the owners brought in more automation, instead of cutting back the work week, they cut back jobs.  People got full time leisure (also known as unemployment).  Those who kept their jobs often ended up working well over 40 hours a week, often without an increase in pay.   The financial profit of automation went, not to the workers, but to the owners of the businesses and their shareholders. And politicians acknowledged these realities - that not all unemployed folks were deadbeats - enough to set up various welfare program for some of them.

And so as this trend continued - more automation replacing workers who can no longer find good paying jobs with pensions and health care - we've ended up with a huge gap between rich and poor and lots of unemployed (not just those officially 'unemployed')  and a growing homeless problem.   Building houses for the homeless isn't the solution, because if the economy continues in this trend, there will be an endless stream of people who become superfluous and who can't earn enough to pay for housing.

We need to change the economy so it doesn't bleed workers, or so that work doesn't become the only way to morally redistribute wealth.

So we need a new model for the economy, one not based on a 16th Century religious revolt against the excesses of the Catholic church, but one based on the reality that not everyone needs to work to support the economy any more.  Jobs should no longer be the only morally acceptable means of distributing income.  Paid work shouldn't be mandatory for a decent basic lifestyle.  A practical alternative model is what I'm looking for.

But in the meantime, here are some thoughts from a book about bullshit jobs by David Graeber.  First a quick definition and second a simplified list of examples of bullshit jobs.

"How does Graeber define a “bullshit job”? Essentially it’s a job devoid of purpose and meaning. It’s different to a “shit job”, which is a job that can be degrading, arduous and poorly compensated but which actually plays a useful role in society. Rather a bullshit job can be prestigious, comfortable and well-paid, but if it vanished tomorrow, the world would not only fail to notice, it may actually become a better place. Bullshit jobs ‘take’, more than they ‘give’ to society. 

Graeber refines his definition by providing his own hilarious typology of bullshit jobs. There are “flunkies”, also known as “feudal retainers”, who are specifically hired by directors to make them appear more important. “Goons” are the aggressive, hired-muscle frequently found in telemarketing teams and PR agencies, employed solely to cajole people into do something that contradicts their common sense. “Duct tapers” who are employees hired only to fix a problem that ought not to exist. “Box tickers”, which we need no introduction to and “task masters”, whose sole function is to create whole new ecosystems of bullshit (the latter can also be described as “bullshit generators”). And there are various combinations of the above, which Graeber describes as 'complex multiform bullshit jobs'”.

But Graeber doesn't blame capitalism ( I need to read more on this to be sure  that's accurate).  Rather he says capitalism has been perverted by "Managerial Feudalism."  And this results in the creation of bullshit jobs.

"One of the most compelling arguments in Graeber’s book is the simple observation that the creation of meaningless jobs is exactly what capitalism is not supposed to do. Governed by the need to maximise profits and minimise costs, companies subject to “pure” capitalism would gain no advantage in hiring unnecessary staff. However, Graeber points out that many industries no longer operate on this dynamic of profit and loss. Instead some industries like accountancy, consultancy and corporate law, are rewarded through huge, open contracts, where the incentive is to maximise the length, cost and duration of the project.
One testimony from a former consultant helping a bank resolve claims from the PPI scandal described how they, 'purposefully mistrained and disorganized staff so that the jobs were repeatedly and consistently done wrong… This meant that cases had to be redone and contracts extended'”.

Bullshit jobs really isn't what I'm talking about.  Though it shows the hollowness of the Protestant work ethic - since these jobs aren't needed, yet they are there.  People work at these jobs that are not only unnecessary, but at times harmful, and probably not mentally healthy for the workers.

So, consider this post as notes.  As I run across interesting things like this, I'll post them as more notes.     Is Managerial Feudalism just a disease that capitalism caught, or is it a natural outcome of competition leading to power and greed that sets up perverse incentives for corporations to make money?  (Think about the housing crisis where banks made loans they knew wouldn't be repaid, but everybody was making big profits on.  Think about Wells Fargo setting up false bank accounts to bleed their customers who had set up real accounts.

Enough for now.  But also note, if we move to fewer and fewer real jobs, then the Supreme Courts' regular cutting back of union powers may not matter.  Unions too need to refocus so they can help define the new economic and moral model for wealth distribution to go along with or even replace work.