McCabe's Interview With 60 Minutes And Seth Abramson's Explanation

Andrew McCabe's interview with 60 Minutes yesterday offers more evidence of what anyone paying attention knows:  our president is unfit for office and more than likely to be under the influence of Putin.  You can see the interview here:   Andrew McCabe: The full 60 Minutes interview.

But I'm going to add to it a Twitter Thread by Seth Abramson:  

For those who keep a healthy distance from the various social media outlets like Twitter, a thread is a string of tweets all tied together. It's a way to get past the character limit of tweets.  Abramson is the author of Proof of Collusion. It's a book that pulls together all the media sources to spell out Trump's activities relating to Russia, before and after he became a candidate.  It also gives lots of background on who all the players are.

This Thread is Abramson's response to the  Ex-Acting FBI director McCabe's 60 Minutes interview.  Abramson is just a really smart guy who, among other qualifications, graduated from Harvard Law School and practiced as a prosecutor for a while.

So I'm going to highlight a couple of the tweets in the thread.  You can see the whole thread at the link above.

The rogue FBI agents in New York and NYPD, who threatened to leak info about the Clinton emails if Comey didn't go public and who leaked info to the Trump campaign, and whether Trump knew about them (he did.)

3/ I've written of how these rogue agents, in conjunction with rogue NYPD officers—including, it appears, the man running the Weiner investigation, who donated to Trump's campaign in October 2016—leaked false info and/or coordinated false leaks with top Trump adviser Erik Prince.
4/ The question has always been how much Trump knew of what his advisers Giuliani, Prince, and DiGenova were doing to make contact with rogue FBI and NYPD officials, facilitate their illegal pre-election leaks to media, and use those leaks and a threat of more to blackmail Comey.
5/ This was critical because those illegal leaks were, per IG Horowitz, a major consideration in Comey reopening Clinton's case—a decision that, per polling data, gave Trump the presidential election. If Trump knew of these crimes, he was part of a conspiracy that made him POTUS.
6/ In the first minute of CBS's interview, McCabe reveals that Trump *was aware* of a bloc of FBI agents who'd been secretly working against Comey—we now know, by illegally leaking false information about the Clinton case to the media through Trump advisers—and said so to McCabe.
7/ "I heard that you were part of the Resistance," President Trump said to Acting FBI Director Andy McCabe. Trump went on to explain that he knew of a bloc of FBI agents who "did not support Jim Comey...[who] didn't agree with him, and the decisions he made in the Clinton case."

Rosenstein's offer to wear a wire when he talked with the president.

37/ When Rosenstein "absolutely serious[ly]" volunteered, *twice*, to wear a wire into the Oval, it was shocking in its novelty but not its investigative sense. If indeed the FBI had an active counterintel probe open then, which it did, a wire would be *one* investigative method.
38/ Anyone shocked by more than the historic novelty of the act Rosenstein described—who cannot see its investigative sense—simply does not understand or has refused to process how historically serious it is when the FBI and DOJ determine a POTUS could be a witting foreign agent.
39/ If there's one thing *every person America must accept* as a condition of citizenship it's that our Constitution *is* the document from which our laws emanate. *Any* person in the Oval who's a foreign agent *must* be removed *immediately* by impeachment or the 25th Amendment.

Why they didn't invoke the 25th Amendment?

78/ So when DOJ says there's "no basis" to use the 25th, it's saying that until its Russia probe concludes, it is the finding of Main Justice (*and*, I would note, of *McCabe also*) that the threat from Trump is not *so* imminent that the investigation can't be allowed to finish.
79/ And—follow me—once you've said that the potential national security threat is *not* so imminent the investigation can't finish, you're *also* saying that the appropriate remedy once it's finished, if malfeasance is found, is impeachment not the 25th. That's all DOJ is saying.

Trump has no such scruples about calling something an emergency.



Here he discusses McCabe's comment that Trump said he believed Putin over his own intelligence agencies.

81/ So now we come to the scariest part of the McCabe interview—a discussion of which will close this thread. McCabe reveals to CBS that Trump said he believed *Russian intelligence* on North Korea's nuclear capabilities over U.S. intelligence.
That's a national security threat.
82/ Those who say McCabe's statement on what Trump said in a security briefing isn't credible are—excuse me, I don't know how to say this politely—not living in the reality the rest of us are. Trump has *repeatedly* and *publicly* accepted the Kremlin line over U.S. intelligence.
83/ Indeed, McCabe's statement that Trump said "I believe Putin" when confronted with intel that North Korea is still a significant national security risk for America—dismissing what his own intelligence was telling him—is so consistent for Trump it bolsters McCabe's credibility.

Here's a link to the 60 Minutes Interview:  Andrew McCabe: The full 60 Minutes interview.

If you are represented by a Republican US Senator, contact that Senator and ask how s/he continues to tolerate in office a president who believes Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies.  It's easy to send emails to US Senators.  Just go to this link.  The more they hear, the harder it will be to continue to let this disaster continue.

Think about the investigations the Republican Congress pursued with so much less justification.

"The Government" Can't Be The Enemy Because "The Government" Doesn't Exist

This is pretty elementary stuff, but there's a lot of people who seem to be totally ignorant of the distinctions I make below.  I'm just talking about the United States today.  Just a couple of points to make today:

1.  "The Government" doesn't exist because there are many different governments.  There is NO one government.

2.   "The Government" doesn't exist because there are different parts of government that play different roles. Complaining about government because you don't like a particular politician makes no sense.



1.  "The Government" doesn't exist because there are many different governments.

Let's start with the obvious.  There's the United States government.  Then there are the fifty state governments, plus DC and the territorial governments.

Then there are the the local governments of the various cities and towns across the nation, not to mention the county governments, and special districts from school districts to road districts.

"Census Bureau Reports There Are 89,004 Local Governments in the United States"(2012)

So when someone tells you "The government is the enemy" you need to ask, which government are you talking about?  And then, which specific part or department are you talking about?



2.   "The Government" doesn't exist because there are different parts of government that play different roles.

In the US, governments have some very distinct parts:

Elected officials make the broad policy decisions.  Their major qualification limits tend to be age and citizenship or residency.  The major practical qualifications are ability to raise money, charisma, and to a certain extent, looks.  These are the people who pass the laws.

Appointed officials make up the next tier.  They are appointed by the elected officials to help them make the policy and run the government.  Again, qualifications are pretty loose.  Mainly you helped someone get elected, are a friend of someone who helped someone get elected, or in some cases, you happen to have experience and training in the area you were appointed to.  This is a remnant of the spoils system - when all public employment was based on political party and favors owed.  These folks general leave government if their candidate loses the election.

Civil Servants make up the bulk of government employees. These are the people ruled by the merit system.  The merit system came as a response to the spoils system.  It set up things like qualifications for employees that were work related, and rules for employment that made sure civil servants weren't fired for political reasons.  They give civil servants due process protections for their job.  They can't be fired without just cause.   These employees generally have jobs as a career and, until recently, they had pensions when they retired.  (This, of course, was true for private sector employees as well until business interests got laws past that made unions weaker and weaker.)

Civil servants have to carry out the laws.  They don't make them, the elected officials do, though they may work with appointed officials to write rules that work out the details of how to carry out the laws.


So, again, when someone complains about 'the government' ask not only which government they are talking about, but whether they are talking about politicians, appointed officials, or civil servants.


Final note:  This is a democracy.  It's not perfect one.*  But determined citizens can get the information they need to make informed decisions.  And without government as a check, large corporations would be free to do far worse to people.

Alaskans, any of you who were paying attention, are not surprised by our governor offering a budget that cuts the University by 44%.  Remember, unlike civil servants, elected officials don't have to have any skills other than raising money and pandering.

But in all of this, like in all of life, there are good politicians, good appointees, and good civil servants.  Prejudice is when you prejudge someone by the category they are in.  So the lazy commentators who want to throw the bums out - without distinguishing between the good ones and the bad ones - are as much of a problem as the bad ones.





*  There are lots of flaws in how our democracy works.  The writers of the Constitution 'gerrymandered' the Senate by giving all states two Senators.  When the country was founded, that wasn't too outrageous because the populations of each of the new 13 states were relatively small.  But the range from the smallest state (Tennessee at 35,691) and the largest state (Virginia at 691,937) was already almost 20 to 1.  But perhaps that assumed that as a frontier state, Tennessee had lots of room to grow.  But today California's 39,776,830 citizens have two Senators, just the same as Wyoming (573,720) and many other states with smaller populations.  That's more like 60-1 and the idea of one person one vote is sorely violated.  And it's why the Republicans still control the Senate.

And Republicans have done their best to create districts in some states so that while the split between parties is relatively even statewide, Republicans get huge majorities in the state legislature. (Yes, Democrats have done this too, but since the Republicans gained control of so many state houses before the 2010 census, they were in charge of redistricting last time round.)

Travel Day Included Modern Art In SF With Granddaughter

The northbound trains into San Francisco on weekends, don't go beyond Bayshore.  Then you switch to a bus that takes you the rest of the way to CalTrain Station.  (Not sure what the people going to the South San Francisco stop were supposed to do.)

From there we hoofed it to the Museum of Modern Art to meet our son and nieta.  The nieto wasn't feeling too good, so he stayed home with his mom.  But I do like this museum a lot.  We didn't stay too long - a 2year old's patience in a place full of things you can't touch is limited.  And we had to pick up our stuff and then get back down to BART and to SFO. 

But here are a couple of pictures from the museum.  

Ron Mueck is one of the more challenging artists.  I'd never seen his work in person, but somewhere on this blog I've linked to his super real giant sized human figures.  This was only a head, not even that much.  A face.  Three feet or so from chin to scalp.  The guy in the back with the ladder and the police officer on the far right are also sculptures.  They're both by Duane Hanson.  

This one, by Chuck Close, is interesting because when you step back it's something very different.  

       

 

Some other 'classic' modern artists:  Calder

And Warhol:

And here's a view of downtown SF from one of the museums great windows.

 I have to mention the joy of standing on the platform at the BART station and hearing a beautiful

soulful rendition of YellowBrick Road, followed by Sittin at the Dock of the Bay.

Our benefactor was the man behind the pillar at the right of the photo.  Thanks again.  A wonderful way to wait for the train.

Our flight left SFO about 35 minutes late. 

The pilot said he'd made up some time, but he also said we're going to land at some remote spot on the tarmac and be shuttled by bus to the terminal.  There were a few folks with tight connections and he asked that they be allowed to get off first.  Well, the few quickly became an endless line of people until those in front - we were in row 8 - had enough and started getting up.  We had a close ferry connection, but we waited.  It turned out not to matter.  We were among the last people on the first bus, which meant we were at the door and among the first to get off.  They dropped us off where you can either catch the trains to S or N, walk to B, C, or D, or go out to baggage.  With the delays, we got to the ferry at 8:09.  It left without us at 8:10pm.  I'm not a happy camper.  This winter I've been good at fighting off various bugs, but a cough has settled in my chest in the last few days.  So waiting 50 minutes in the chilly terminal for the next ferry wasn't a pleasure.  Anyway, I'm working on this as we ferry across and had some clam chowder to soothe my cough a bit.  

Emergency Evacuations In Planes - Some Thoughts and Recommendations

We've been in the exit row on a lot of flights.  These rows have a lot more leg room but you have to agree that you are able to follow the procedures to open the emergency exit on the window.  But the instructions available are very detailed.  Here's what you get:

Specifically the lower part - Emergency overwing exits.  This is pretty vague.

The flight attendant has to get everyone in the two rows to say 'yes' out loud, affirming that they can and will perform the emergency procedures.  But it's really not clear what that means.  The person at the window has to open it.  But what are the others supposed to do?  What happens when you get the emergency door open?  You're out on the wing.  How do you get off?  It's kind of high off the ground.

These are questions I've had, so I've looked around on line.  Here's what I've found:

1. Finding videos for what you - as a passenger - are supposed to do, is difficult.  I have some videos below that you can see, but they don't really help much.
2. An old study says that the more people are prepared, the better they respond. 
3. Crew gets lots of training.

I was beginning to think that the airlines didn't take this passenger exit row thing too seriously.  That they aren't expecting people to have to use the emergency exits.  

But I looked up how many emergency landings there were.  As a percentage of flights, it's rare, but as the list of emergency landings of commercial planes in the US 2018 below shows, there were 201 emergency landings listed for the US in 2018.  That's almost two every three days.  

( I copied the list so I could  sort it and look closer.  There were several events that were listed as in the US but weren't - from UK, Ireland, Scotland, India.  I got rid of those to get to my total.       And since there were some non-US incidents listed here, there could well be some US incidents listed elsewhere by mistake.)

The category this website allowed me to search for was:

•  Emergency, Forced Landing, Diversion - Commercial

That doesn't mean all, or even most were landings that involved emergency evacuations from the plane.  Some (many?) involved passenger illness or drunkeness or other disruptive behavior which probably wouldn't require emergency evacuations.   Here's the list by state.  You can see the details at the original site linked above.  You have to fill in the parameters yourself.   I've highlighted Alaska Airlines simply because that's the airline I'm on the most.  I've also highlighted the five states with the most emergency landings in red.  Except for North Carolina (#9 in population), they are the highest population states.

Alaska	5
Arizona	4
Arkansas	2
California	13	8/12  Alaska Airlines
Colorado	1
Connecticut	3
Delaware	1
DC	1
Florida	13
Georgia	8
Hawaii	3	4/27 Alaska Airlines
Idaho	1
Illinois	5
Indiana	2
Iowa	2
Kansas	3
Kentucky	4
Louisiana	1
Maine	1
Maryland	1
Massachusetts	5
Michigan	4
Minnesota	2
Missouri	5
Montana	1
Nevada	5
New Jersey	3
New Mexico	5	Alaska  6/11
New York	14
North Carolina	13
North Dakota	3
Ohio	6
Oklahoma	10
Oregon	2	Horizon 4/28
Pennsylvania	6	Alaska 5/15
Rhode Island	2
South Carolina	4
Tennessee	3
Texas	15
Utah	2
Vermont	1
Virginia	6
Washington	1
West Virgina	3
Wisconsin	2

Here are a few of the articles I've found on this topic:

Plane Exit Row Seating is a  Responsibility  - This is written by "John J. Nance, ABC News' aviation analyst, is a veteran 13,000-flight-hour airline captain, a former U.S. Air Force pilot and a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves."  He recommends training and certifying passengers on how to open the emergency doors and giving them priority to these seats with extra leg room .  It begins:

"Of course I can open that hatch if needed!"
It's the battle cry of the long-legged coach passenger who's figured out that even a middle seat in the emergency exit row of most single-aisle airliners has as much leg room as first class. There are even small turf battles among the highest-level members of different frequent-flier plans as they try to jockey for priority seating in the emergency exit row. And experienced travelers know how to sidle up to the agent at the departure gate and request to be one of the defenders of passenger safety, in the unlikely event of an emergency evacuation.
Because that's exactly what you're asking for when you accept or request an exit row seat: The responsibility to move fast and efficiently to open the hatch in the it-almost-never-happens-but-could event that your jetliner has slid to a stop on the ground and the flight attendants relay an order to get out of the airplane fast.
That moment -- as utterly rare as it is these days -- is not the time for realizing your shoulder won't handle 40 to 50 pounds of unhinged door."

Susannah Fox's personal experience of an emergency exit:  This is her first hand account of having to evacuate a plane which hadn't yet taken off.  An engine had caught fire.  Here's an short excerptt:

"A line from the safety demonstration popped into my head like a snippet of an old song: “the closest exit may be behind you.” That was true in my case, but there was a bottleneck. People were refusing to go down the slide. I craned my neck and saw that some of the people hesitating at the back of the plane were older adults who were understandably afraid of hurting themselves. I could hear the flight attendants cajoling them, telling them that we had no choice: The only way out was down the slide. Their voices grew increasingly sharp as the time ticked by."

Many Passengers In Exit Seats Benefit From Extra Briefings - From the Cabin Crew Safety study. This 2001 publication reviews procedures and studies from different airlines and countries.  They don't really make recommendations, but from one study it says that the more instructions passengers get, the better prepared they are.  Not really surprising.

I had trouble finding good videos, but today, as I'm about to post this I looked again and others popped up.  This first one shows how to open the exit row emergency door and what to do after.  But it's a nine minute video and 'nothing happens' until 6 minutes in.  It's mostly talking - not useless info, but this is not the kind of video that will teach people quickly what to do.





Wall Street Journal Video about evacuations:  This is a passengers video from his phone as he evacuated.




Baltic Air Training Video - it starts with talk, but then demonstrates how to open the door and how to use the safety strap on the wing.





Here's an ancient (1960sh)Western Airlines training video for evacuating a 737  Despite its age, this was the one that gave the most practical visuals of what happens.





Training Video for Chinese - a little odd.  In one scene smoke comes out and the passengers sit there until they disappear in the smoke.  This seems to be intended for crew.




On a February 9 flight from Seattle to San Francisco we were once again in the exit row.  The flight attendant perfunctorily asked each of us if we could and would carry out exit row responsibilities.  She had to ask one person to say it out loud.  Then at the other end of the row she asked a person I couldn't see several times until she said 'yes.'

Later, another flight attendant came by with the drinks tray and to take food orders.  The person at the other end wasn't answering her questions.  The flight attendant realized she didn't understand English and said she had to move to another seat.  And sitting behind her was one more person in her party who didn't understand English.  I complimented the flight attendant, Sherry, for doing her job and told her I was working on this post.  I told her the emergency info they hand out are just pictures and not particularly clear.  She answered some of my questions:

• When you pull down the handle in these planes, the window automatically pulls itself up and out of the way.  
• That the back wing flaps lower so it's not so far up off the ground.  (I said that it looked pretty high from the wing to the ground  - were we supposed to just jump?)  She added that when you open the emergency door, a rope comes out that people can use to sort of rappel down to the ground.  (Or is this just the rope that gets tied to the wing to hold on to on the wing?)
• She also said our job was to get the emergency door opened and go on the wing, then crew will help people get down.  
• They get lots of training on this.  

After rereading all this, here are my recommendations.

1. Alaska Airlines (or Boeing or Airbus) should make an emergency training video for passengers that shows exactly what someone like me, sitting next to the emergency exit window, would do in an emergency - opening the window, getting on the wing, how the rope works, what the others in the exit row do, what the crew's role is, etc.
1. This can be available:
1. in the inflight video entertainment package
2. in the terminals
3. on the Alaska Airlines website (and all other airlines of course)
2. Put emergency exit windows in the terminals where people could try them out.  If this is too costly, then videos showing how they work.
3. Airlines allow passengers to get the same kind of training that flight crew get for emergencies
1. Then, exit row seating would only be available to people who had taken the training and been certified.  Because exit rows have lots more leg room, this would be a bonus for many.
2. I'm guessing many people would pay a reasonable fee for this training if it meant priority seating in exit rows.

I realize that airlines don't want to alarm passengers by showing them videos of people having to evacuate a plane.  The Jaws effect, if you will.  For example, Alaska Airlines asked a non-profit they were sponsoring, to change the name of an event from "Turbulent" to "Tail Winds."  

"Alaska Airlines, an event sponsor, suggested the change at the last minute because of turbulence’s negative connection to air travel."

So they are clearly sensitive to these issues.  

But if kids can do lock down drills in schools, airline passengers can watch videos that show them how to get out of the plane quickly and safely in an emergency.

The February 2019 Inflight Magazine on Alaska Airlines has an article saying that Alaska has been rated as one of the 20 safest airlines in the world.  The article quotes Max Tidwell, Alaska's VP for Safety as saying:

"Safety is our top priority and is firmly ingrained in our culture, as we are personally committed to the safety of our guests and one another."

I'm hoping he will pay attention to the issues I'm raising here and consider implementing the recommendations that I'm borrowing from people with greater expertise than mine.

Heavy Rains In San Francisco While Alaska Hit By Unnatural Disaster As Dunleavy Reveals Budget

From Accu Weather:

"Atmospheric river to fuel torrential rain in California"

It was raining steadily, but not terribly hard as we caught the bus to the CalTrain station this afternoon to visit good friends who live a little south of SF.

But the disaster happening in Alaska is totally man-made.  The ads promised a balanced budget and Permanent Fund Dividends forever.  They were paid for, in large,  by candidate Dunleavy's brother.  And the people who vote based on such ads and party identification - but ignore any kind of obvious signs, like the ones I saw at the special hearings set to pass Erin's Law.  





The Alaska state budget is a daunting document.  While I acknowledge that it is complicated, often the people preparing a budget have a vested interest in making it as confusing as possible.  Terms aren't clearly explained or the explanation is hard to find, especially online.  The lists of budget terms online like this one and this one don't explain all the terms and acronyms used in the budget.

Quantities aren't always clarified - like how many zeros you need to add to the numbers in columns to get the actual number.  Often people hide things they don't want people to discover - like funding for a pet project or removal of funding from an agency.

And there are different types of budgets.  Operating and Capital Budgets for instance.  But also Unrestricted General Fund That's all preface to the next item.

x

Screen Shot Budget 2020-02-13 by on Scribd

Note:  I'm not even sure what LF means on this page GF is General Fund.  Unrestricted means the funds are restricted to a specific use.  This page comes from here.  But at the State's Budget page you can find a whole slew of different takes on the budget.

I've just highlighted the education parts of the budget.  Despite the fact that Dunleavy taught in public schools in rural Alaska as well as being principal and a superintendent, this budget show total disdain for public schooling.  That was already clear when he talked about 'parental rights' at the Erin's Law hearings.  The parental right movement is related to the father's rights movement.  It's also connected to the home-schooling movement.  There's a touch of anti-government and a tough of fundamentalist religion and a touch of so called 'traditional family values.'  And it was clear to me back in 2012 that Dunleavy would try to cut public schooling if he were in a position to do it.  (Let me say that like in any group that forms, there are people with legitimate issues about how they were treated.  But a number of movements are really protests against losing power they once had - like men's power over their wives has eroded quite a bit over the last 100 years.  See this article on father's rights groups.

"The fathers’ rights movement is defined by the claim that fathers are deprived of their ‘rights’ and subjected to systematic discrimination as fathers and as men, in a system biased towards women and dominated by feminists. Fathers’ rights groups overlap with men’s rights groups and both represent an organised backlash to feminism. Fathers’ rights groups can be seen as the anti-feminist wing of a range of men’s and fathers’ groups which have emerged in recent years, in the context of profound shifts in gender, intimate and familial relations over the past four decades (Flood, 2010). While fathers’ rights groups share common themes, there are also diversities in their degree of opposition to feminism, their involvements in political advocacy, their reliance on Christian frameworks, and so on.Three experiences in particular bring men into the fathers’ rights movement. Painful experiences of divorce and separation, as well as accompanying experiences of family law and the loss of contact with one’s children, produce a steady stream of men who can be recruited into fathers’ rights groups"

And here's a piece on parental rights from a Home School website.

I offer those links, not as 'proof' or as an exhaustive review of the topic, but just as an appetizer to become more aware of the code words 'parental rights' which sounds very reasonable on the surface.  I think the link to the Home Schooling movement helps predict this budget.

The other issue that people have raised with this budget is the 'visiting budget director' as Dermot Cole dubbed Donna Arduin.  I haven't done adequate research on her, so for the time being, you can look at this (Sarasota) Herald-Examiner article form 2014 that reviews her run as a Libertarian 'expert' budget slasher, whose budget analyses are regularly debunked by real economists.

Sometimes being in Alaska and late on Lower 48 trends is a good thing.  We can learn from others' experiences.  Here's hoping that Alaskans will figure out really quick what we've done by electing Dunleavy before too much damage is done. Here's hoping we can learn from what's happened in Kansas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere.  [UPDATE Feb 14, 2019:  I added Kansas and links for a little more background about those states' outcomes of cutting taxes and government.]

Hopefully, those who blindly believed Dunleavy's promises to get people all their back PFD checks AND balance the budget without any new revenues, will realize it was all a scam before the state infrastructure for schools and health and safety are destroyed.  Perhaps the people who are now finding out that those tax rebates Trump promised are not really coming, will transfer that awareness to what Dunleavy is trying to pull off.

It's Abe's Birthday Already? This Post Took Me Places I Didn't Expect

I've been derelict here.  We've been spending a lot of time away from the computer - either transporting the grandkids to pre-school and elsewhere, or playing with them.  Or helping with food and pajamas and story times.   Also we had lunch yesterday with a former student from Beijing who is visiting the US.  It's been nearly 15 years since we've seen each other, though we've kept online contact.  But there were lots of questions we had for each other.

So here are a few pictures of the last few days until I have more time to think more clearly.  Some of these building pictures lead to architectural and technology issues I wasn't expecting.  And Lincoln's birthday tempted me into the question of whether the civil war was necessary and had it been avoided would we be more united today.  I'm still working on exit row issues including a promising incident on our flight to San Francisco.  Stay tuned for that.

The building with the turrets on top is an Episcopal Church whose red doors are usually closed.


But Sunday I was strollering by with my nieta (the Spanish word for granddaughter sounds so much nicer and is much shorter to write) and the doors were open.  We got invited in to listen to the organ.

We looked at our shadows at the playground and while we were walking.  

We also experimented with foot prints since the grass was wet.  

My nieto (o makes it grandson) and I spent about 90 minutes at the Japanese Garden.  He was interested in all the bridges and shrines and paths and, of course, the dragon made of a winding hedge and a rock head and rock tail.  

We also checked out St. Mary's Cathedral.  the basic structure is set on four points like the one in the lower center of the picture.  Arch Daily gives lots of details and more pictures:

"Pylons support the 19-story cupola at each corner of the floor plan, each constructed to withstand ten million pounds of pressure. With a circumference of 24 feet at their narrowest points, the pylons are embedded 90 feet down into the bedrock. A surprising 1680 pre-cast triangular coffers comprose the inner area of the cupola, featuring 128 different triangular sizes. These transfer all the weight of the structure down to the ground, while allowing large windows to frame views of the city of Saint Francis of Assisi. To call on memories of historic mission architecture, red brick is used on the floor in sweeping patterns."

And San Francisco is not without broken glass.  Here's part of the bus stop on the way to pre-school yesterday.  I've seen a couple of vehicles with broken windows and the shattered pieces lying on ground below. like in this picture.


By the afternoon, most of the glass was swept up and there was tape across the ad.  

And this car was making its point pretty loudly.







We ate at a Ramen place in Japantown with my Chinese friend.

And finally, here's the tallest building in San Francisco with its top in the clouds.  It's called the Salesforce Tower, though it used to be called the Transbay Tower.  And since I dislike branding everything so that people are forced to say some corporation's name when they mention it (it's much worse for public or semi-public places like stadiums), I'll stick with Transbay. From Wikipedia:

The site of the tower was in a dilapidated area, formerly used as a ground-level entrance to the San Francisco Transbay Terminal, which was demolished in 2011. The TJPA sold the parcel to Boston Properties and Hines for US$192 million,[14] and ceremonial groundbreaking for the new tower occurred on March 27, 2013, with below-grade construction work starting in late 2013.[15][16] The project is a joint venture between general contractors Clark Construction and Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction.[16][17]
The footprint of Salesforce Tower rests on land fill near San Francisco's original waterfront, an area prone to soil liquefaction during earthquakes. To account for this seismic risk, the tower uses a design that is modeled to withstand the strongest earthquakes expected in the region.[18] Its foundation includes 42 piles driven down nearly 300 feet (91 m) to bedrock and a 14-foot (4.3 m) thick foundation mat.[19]

My son explained to me exactly what Salesforce (the company) does.  They make and run the software for tracking communications between companies and customers.  So when you call up a company and they can look to see all the times you've called and what you said and what they said, they could be using Salesforce technology.  Here's how their website describes it: 

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

Select Hub offers some alternatives to Salesforce CRM technology after this introduction:

"Saying Salesforce is a big name in the CRM software space is like saying Christianity is a popular religion — it’s pretty obvious to most people who know anything about CRM. But it doesn’t have to be the only option. For those who may be looking for something else, we gathered data on the best Salesforce alternatives to help you find the right match for your organization."

So, I bet you weren't expecting some of this.  Neither was I.  Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln.  What would the US be like today if didn't have the Civil War?  Would slavery have died out naturally because it became economically unsound?  Would African-Americans gained legal status without creating the race divisions that our president has reignited today?

Could Slavery Have Died A Peaceful Death?

Would Slavery Have Survived Without the Civil War?   This is a journal article you need a library connection to reach.  For those without that access, here's an excerpt from the intro to the article:

"My argument here is two-fold: (1) slavery, though generally profitable, had a harmful, long-term developmental impact on the southern economy; and (2) that the institution would gradually have evolved into something else in the late nineteenth century even without the Civil War. Before moving on, however, a necessary disclaimer: I well recognize the moral enormity that was slavery, and my comments here pertain only to the economic aspects of the peculiar institution, and, even delimited to the economic realm, should be seen as an attempt to analyze “what was” rather than “what ought to have been.”1"

Here are some interesting, related articles that don't address the question head on:

Without Slavery, Would The U.S. Be The Leading Economic Power?

Could Compromise Have Prevented the Civil War?

Civil War's dirty secret about slavery

The Economics of the Civil War - This one gives a lot more detail, but doesn't really answer the question

Would there be less animosity between Americans today had we not fought the civil war?  I'm guessing not.  Scapegoating the other is practiced by the power hungry throughout time and in all parts of the world.  The legacy of slavery would still have left the US divided, in my humble and unsupported opinion here.  Perhaps the support is for another post.

Deicing As We Leave Seattle's Snow For San Francisco's Rain

There was about 6 or 7 inches of snow this morning when we headed to Seatac.  Someone had plowed a snowy/icy path along the sidewalk and the walk back to the airport wasn't too bad.

A lot of flights had been cancelled, but our was scheduled to leave on time.  But then they had to deice.  I had a pretty good view.  So here's a minimally edited video of part of the process happening outside my window.  (As I was editing, I realized that often my purpose is not to just cut to the most dramatic few seconds here and there.  Rather I figure someone who knows a lot more than I about deicing (that would be anyone who knows anything at all about deicing) might get more out of my leaving most of the footage in.)





From Wikipedia:

On the ground, when there are freezing conditions and precipitation, de-icing an aircraft is crucial. Frozen contaminants cause critical control surfaces to be rough and uneven, disrupting smooth air flow and greatly degrading the ability of the wing to generate lift, and increasing drag. This situation can cause a crash. If large pieces of ice separate when the aircraft is in motion, they can be ingested in engines or hit propellers and cause catastrophic failure. Frozen contaminants can jam control surfaces, preventing them from moving properly. Because of this potentially severe consequence, de-icing is performed at airports where temperatures are likely to be around 0 °C (32 °F). 

In flight, droplets of supercooled water often exist in stratiform and cumulus clouds. They form into ice when they are struck by the wings of passing airplanes and abruptly crystallize. This disrupts airflow over the wing, reducing lift, so aircraft that are expected to fly in such conditions are equipped with a de-icing system.
De-icing techniques are also employed to ensure that engine inlets and various sensors on the outside of the aircraft are clear of ice or snow. 

Chemical de-icing[edit]
De-icing fluids consisting of propylene glycol (PG) and additives are widely used by airlines for de-icing aircraft.[2]:43 Ethylene glycol (EG) fluids are still in use for aircraft de-icing in some parts of the world because it has a lower operational use temperature (LOUT) than PG. However, PG is more common because it is less toxic than ethylene glycol.[3]:2–29

Alaska Airlines' blog also has a post on deicing.  

When we took off, the wing was green.  It was its normal color when we landed in San Francisco where the sun was out as we landed.  But when we got out the BART station downtown, it was raining.  But when i'm with my grandkids, the sun is always shining.




I'd also like to point to an article in the Alaska Airlines Magazine for February 2019.  It was about how CEO Brad Tilden spent a week shadowing employees in Alaska.  Yes, putting it in the magazine is hype, but the fact that he was on the ground (and in the air) with employees doing their jobs with them says good things about him and the airline.  He wasn't just in Anchorage, he also flew out to Dutch Harbor on PenAir.  And in Anchorage he did a night shift.  You can see the piece here.