Thursday, October 20, 2022

Thank You Ms. Downing For Calling Attention To My Email To The Anchorage Assembly

Yesterday I sent an email to the  Anchorage Assembly.  I've been concerned about the disruptive behavior of a number of people who give testimony at Assembly meeting.  It's frequently demeaning and racist (calling Assembly members Faggots, using Jew as an epithet) and who otherwise attempt to prevent the Assembly from getting their work done.  There are also reports of people verbally and physically intimidating others who testify, both inside the Assembly chambers and out. 

I'd started a letter to the Assembly back in July.  Yesterday, after reading the ADN article about the man who made a long racist diatribe about Alaska Natives and homelessness,  I went through it, edited it a bit, and emailed it to all the Assembly members.  

This morning I got a comment on my last point that was simply a link to a Must Read Alaska* post.  

Actually, it was a relatively decent post by Must Read Alaska (MRAK) standards.  After discussing the incident and reactions, it then turned to my email (which was sent to all the Assembly members.)  In fact 85% of what I sent the Assembly was in the post.  Over 50% of the the MRAK post was my letter.  (I'm sure there is a check in the mail to pay me for my contribution.)  

The first part is a report of the incident and other people's reactions.  Then she gets to my email.  Mostly it's direct quotes, but she does say in the headline "university professor suggests ‘people’s brains have been polluted.'  She also says I want censorship 

"a letter to the Assembly about how to handle speech that is racist, hateful, or not welcome. He wants the public censored."

I never use the word censorship nor do I talk about unwelcome speech.  But I did use hateful and racist.  I guess she thinks those things are good.  That seems to be her biggest issues and you'd miss her comments if you blinked. 

I'd note 'pollution' was a metaphor here.  But I think it is apt and I explained it in the email.

What's telling is the tiny, but important, part she left out:  The conditions for participation in Democracy:  

  • Sincerity - authentic discourse requires trust between participants that they are being honest and truly wish to find a solution. 
  • Focus on specific issue - not simply ideological posturing without reference to some specific situation.
  • Willing attention - Sincerely interested in the problem, willing to do the work necessary to get through the issues seriously, including listening attentively to what others say.
  • Substantive Contribution - having a unique point of view, specific expertise, or something that helps the discussion move along - even just the ability to express the concerns of a class of people.

I quoted Fox and Miller who were examining what was needed for the public forum to work, that is to come to decent solutions to the problems the public faces.  

I have to thank Suzanne Downing for giving my email this much attention - much more than it would get from the Assembly members.  Much more than it would get on my blog.  

And she doesn't actually say anything negative about it.  I'm not sure whether she disagrees with the idea that brains can be polluted or whether she just thought that was an idea that would rile up her readers.  

She does also suggest that I'm proposing to censor people who speak at the Assembly.  I'd point out that I recognize that people have First Amendment rights to free speech.  But the Assembly has an interest in having orderly meetings and speakers who add to solving problems, not speakers whose intent is to spread hate, disrupt, and, yes, pollute the public forum.  Perhaps her intent was to rally the troops against what I see as a reasonable and logical attempt to honor people's free speech rights while also maintaining some semblance of order at Assembly meetings.  Maybe she recognizes it for what I intended and that's precisely why she's flagging it and hoping her loyal readers (some of whom are frequent Assembly disrupters) will  attack the suggestions and make it harder for the Assembly to use it.  We'll see.  

So my suggestions allow them to help people organize their thoughts better and to ban folks who cannot follow the rules.  It's not about what they say, but whether it furthers the Assembly's objectives to come up with ways to deal with the issues that arise or if it makes it harder to do that. 

And since Assembly meetings are online people can still view them.  And since people can send in written comments (or even leave voice mail messages), their freedom of speech is preserved, while allowing the Assembly to have orderly meetings.  

A note I did leave out of my letter, was that judges in court have this power to eject people who disrupt the proceedings.  While the courtroom and the Assembly chamber are not the same, both have an interest in conducting public meetings so they can come to a fair and reasonable resolution.  The point of public testimony is to get input from the public about the issue at hand.  It is not just an open forum to talk about anything, or to insult those you disagree with.  Just as the judge in a courtroom has the right and power to limit how information is introduced, the Assembly members have the right to limit speech that does not lead to resolving the issue at hand.  They don't have the right to simply cut off people who advocate solutions they disagree with.  But if someone's speech is not on topic or is disruptive, they can cut them off from oral testimony.  Written testimony can be submitted without disrupting the meeting and allows for people to get their ideas on the record.  The Assembly is not a Speakers Corner at Hyde Park  where anyone can say most anything.  The Assembly is taking testimony to add to their understanding of how to resolve issues facing the Municipality.  


I'd also like to clarify the Fair Use Doctrine here. From Stanford University:

"What Is Fair Use?

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an infringement.

So what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general guidelines and varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation.

Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: (1) commentary and criticism, or (2) parody."

She only appears to comment/criticize a very limited part of what I wrote.  If it were parody there would be some transformation of what I wrote.  BUT, emails to the Assembly aren't copyrighted, so she can probably do what she wants with it.  

So, below is the full text of what I wrote to the Assembly.  The parts that appeared in the Must Read Alaska blog are in green.  The parts I sent to the Assembly that she did not lift verbatim are in black.  I'd note that she did give credit and she did use quotation marks.  


"Suggestions for the Anchorage Assembly on ways to get public testimony focused on the issues and to avoid disruptive and hateful testimony.


I offer this as a contribution to the discussions ignited recently in response to David Lazer’s recent racist testimony.  First there's an introduction to the concept of pollution of public discourse.  Then there are specific recommendations.  


Steven Aufrecht

Professor Emeritus, Public Administration

University of Alaska Anchorage



Underlying concepts for good public discourse  


Charles Fox and Hugh Miller, two public administration scholars, many years ago suggested some conditions for participation in a public discourse.  Without these, democracy cannot thrive.


The participants should all possess the following:

  • Sincerity - authentic discourse requires trust between participants that they are being honest and truly wish to find a solution. 
  • Focus on specific issue - not simply ideological posturing without reference to some specific situation.
  • Willing attention - Sincerely interested in the problem, willing to do the work necessary to get through the issues seriously, including listening attentively to what others say.
  • Substantive Contribution - having a unique point of view, specific expertise, or something that helps the discussion move along - even just the ability to express the concerns of a class of people.



Pollution of Public Discourse


What's that? If toxic chemicals get into the water system, the whole system has to be cleaned out before people can drink the water again.


When people come to the public forum, but insult their fellow citizens, spout half truths and complete lies, don't learn the complexity of issues, they are really civic outlaws who pollute the public forum. 


Our progress to finding alternatives that we can all reasonably live with is thwarted. Instead, the public forum is cluttered with rhetorical litter - lies, falsehoods, innuendo and clear cut slanders - that have to be cleaned up before we can go on. 


But it's not as simple as picking up trash. People’s brains have been polluted, misinformation has been planted, and people have lost trust in others, healthy debate dissolves into hostile conflict.    


The point of civic debate, theoretically, is to work out our disagreements. We:

1.  share ideas about the problem, the possible solutions 

2. identify facts, 

3. forecast consequences and costs. 


That’s the ideal. Separating the objective from the emotional is never easy. We want to allow for emotion in testimony, but we also must draw a line when emotion becomes polluting of the discourse and derails sincere attempts to deal with issues.




Recommendations


Point of the Assembly having the public speak is:

  1. Hear their preferences
  2. Hear the reasons for supporting one action/path over another
  3. Gain additional facts about the costs (financial or other), impacts, etc. about one option versus another
  4. Identify options that meet the needs of the most people, or minimally inconvenience the fewest people 
  5. Get a sense of how many people support a position (though good polling would be more accurate than counting people at meetings)



Actions that pollute the public discourse:

  1. Repetition of the same information
  2. Addressing unrelated issues
  3. Intentional misinformation 
  4. Personal insults and attacks
  5. Trying to get one’s preferred outcome through physical or verbal abuse and intimidation rather than reason and information



Strategies to encourage good public discourse and to discourage pollution of public discourse.  


  1. Clarifying what is expected of speakers
    1. Written guidelines for oral testimony
    2. Video guidelines
    3. Written public testimony form to help people focus their presentation
      1. State your preference - A, B, C etc.
      2. Facts supporting your preference
      3. Reasons for your preference 
        1. How does it affect you?
        2. How does it affect others?
        3. Costs/Savings it might entail
      4. Additional facts/points that have not been raised
  1. Offer the public a summary of the basic options, supporting data, costs, and impacts and ask speakers to address those points - particularly if they have something to add or refute
  2. Assembly chair or members ask questions guiding the speaker toward answering the questions on the public testimony form - “Do you have any new facts to add to the discussion?”  
  3. Use of technology to get the public’s views
  1. Electronic surveys people can take live at meetings to show support for one or another option or point - these can be done via cell phones and can show results on the screen.  People watching from home should also be able to participate.  
  2. Online written, possibly audio and video, options that people can use to submit their testimony.  The Alaska Redistricting Board had this option on their website which allowed people to submit written testimony online.  The testimony was then made available for all to see online.  Board members got packets of the testimony.
  3. Investigate what other participation technology options are already in use in classrooms, in government public hearings, in  business settings
  1. Consequences for people who violate the Assembly ground rules
  1. There’s a difference between people who genuinely have trouble organizing their thoughts and those who are intentionally trying to disrupt the meetings.  The former should be encouraged and given help.  The latter should be given alternative ways to submit their input other than oral testimony at Assembly meetings.
  2. There can be a hierarchy of offenses.
    1. Level 1: Worst
      1. Intimidation - name calling, insults, slurs directed at other members of the public or at Assembly members or administration representatives.  This includes physical and verbal threats that occur inside and outside the chamber.
      2. Intentional disruptions that unnecessarily delay the proceedings.  This is trickier, however the Assembly needs the power to keep order at meetings and to eject people who regularly disrupt meetings and do not stop when asked to, 
    2. Level 2:  Bad
      1. Regular harangues that are disruptive rather than sincere attempts at resolving an issue
    3. Level 3:  Minor 
      1. Repetition of things already said (this can be handled with electronic polls)
      2. Difficulty organizing one’s thoughts - this needs understanding, unless it is something that happens repeatedly from the same person, in which case, moving to written testimony or referral to Public Testimony Guidelines
  3. Hierarchy of penalties  - should be appropriate to the offense
    1. Banning from public meetings (online access is available and ability to make online written testimony means the person can still hear what is happening and can still participate, but without disrupting the public discourse.)
    2. Banning from making oral testimony at public meetings. Again, they can still submit written testimony, all of which should be available to the public.


This is a start.  Obviously there are legal issues to be resolved.  But I believe that the ability to watch the Assembly meetings online and to submit written testimony means that people who are banned from giving public oral testimony or even from attending meetings because of disruptive behavior, can still have access to their First Amendment rights. The rules, warning steps, and penalties have to be clearly stated, and even handedly meted out for this to work."



*I should note that Must Read Alaska is written by a former Alaska Republican Party communications director and she has been supportive of the disruptive actions of the group Save Anchorage. It is hard to find objective reviews online. Here is an Anchorage Press piece that gives some background.

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Stepping Back In Time

 Flying from Anchorage to Seattle in October is like stepping back in time.  The flowers are still blooming profusely and it's light at 7am.



We're here helping out with child care and food prep and other such chores while my son-in-law is out of town for work, so my daughter can concentrate on her own work.


The last two days, J managed to get out of bed early enough to walk our granddaughter to school.  Today she got to sleep in while I was up at 6:45am.  

Once getting out of bed is accomplished, it is pure pleasure to walk with Z to school.  






Only a few late and hardy bloomers were still smiling in Anchorage when we left, that's not the case down here.  (We hear it snowed after we left.)  While I'm pretty sure the ones above are hydrangea, I'm not sure what the ones below are.  But their dainty beauty helps lift my heart so beset with human failures.  




My granddaughter took the picture below.  Since it's her shot, I didn't crop it, and she's in school now so she's not here to make it look the way she wants.  Perhaps she'll want to make an adjustment later.  




Monday, October 03, 2022

What Words Are (And Aren't) In The US Constitution

[The gist of this post is to point out the many words that are NOT mentioned in the Constitution.  Since the so called 'Originalists' who have gained a majority of the Supreme Court want to base their decisions strictly on the words found in the Constitution, then it would seem they would have to overturn many past decisions - including Citizens United.]

 A few weeks ago I announced a contest about how often different words showed up in the Constitution.  I guess I was asking a lot more of readers than they were willing to do.  I only got one response - which was a comment suggesting I should have checked out the word 'gun.'  (Gun is not mentioned, 'arms' is mentioned once.) I figured enough people had gone over that already and the part that includes 'a well regulated militia.'  

My point here was to support the belief that the so called 'Originalist' faction is a sham created to give radical conservative Supreme Court Justices their own way to spin things.  As you go through the list below, think about how many words NOT mentioned in the constitution seem to have Supreme Court decisions that ignore the fact they aren't mentioned.  

[Originalists basically argue they want to interpret the Constitution by using the words the Founding Fathers wrote.  I've covered it in several earlier posts:

Thursday, February 25, 2016   I Think Scalia's Originalism Is Like Intelligent Design Of Constitutional Theories


Monday, March 20, 2017    As Neil Gorsuch Takes Center Stage, What Exactly Is Originalism About?


Monday, October 12, 2020     Revisiting Originalism ]


I took an online copy of the Constitution and the searched it for each of the terms.  Here's my list of words and how often they show up:



In Constittuion?

How often?

Contest Notes


YES

NO



MAN


0

Manner = 11

WOMAN


0


CORPORATION


0


INDUSTRY


0


PERSON(S)


49


CITIZEN


22


LIFE


4


LIBERTY


3


ECONOMY


0


CAPITAL


1

“Capital or otherwise infamous crime”

CAPITALISM


0


MARKET


0


MARRIAGE


0


DOMESTIC VIOLENCE


1

Along with invasion

BUSINESS


1

“Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business”

TAX


10

Tax or taxes

VOTE


36


COMMERCE


2

“Regulation of Commerce”

BANKRUPTCY


1


SECURITIES


1


SEX


1


RELIGION


1


CHRISTIAN


0


WELFARE


2

“General welfare”

THE PEOPLE


9


GOD


0








Let me mention the context notes first.
1.  Man - I also checked 'men' and 'women'.  'Manner' was the closest thing to 'man' that showed up. Basically the constitution never mentions 'man' or 'woman.'  It talks about 'persons' and 'citizens.' Even the 18th Amendment (women's suffrage) doesn't mention women directly.
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

No where could I find person to refer to anything other than an individual human being.  Not to corporations (which are never mentioned.) 

2.  Capital - This word is mentioned in the context of 'capital punishment.' Neither capital (in the sense of money) nor capitalism are mentioned in the Constitution. 

3.  Domestic Violence - is mentioned once.  Not to mean violence within a household, but rather more like the January 6 insurrection.  It's mentioned along with 'invasion.'

4.  Business - The only mention is in regards to  needing a quorum for Congress to conduct business.  It is not used to refer to business enterprises, just as the words 'corporation,' 'industry,' 'economy,' or 'market' are used.  

5.  Tax - is mentioned 10 times

6.  Commerce is mentioned twice - both times in the phrase 'regulation of commerce.'

7.  Welfare is mentioned twice.  First in the Preamble that lists 'promote the general Welfare' as one of the goals of establishing the Constitution.  Second, 'general Welfare' is one of the reasons for levying taxes.  

8.  


Considering all of the Supreme Court decisions that give corporations rights that are reserved for persons -most egregiously in Citizens United - it's hard to imagine how this is done by so called 'Originalists.'   I'm not a lawyer and I haven't studied the evolution of business law, but it seems to me attorneys wanting to overturn Citizens United might take an Originalist approach and point out that corporations are not even mentioned in the US Constitution.  Nor are businesses or enterprises.  

But 'regulation of commerce' is listed.  

Promoting the general Welfare is listed.  That would seem to be a strong bases for including things like universal health care and many other programs that improve people's lives.  


I realize the law is complicated. My suggestion that since corporations aren't mentioned in the Constitution and 'person' only refers to actual human beings, Citizens United should be overturned, probably faces many obstacles I've overlooked.   But the lack of these terms in the Constitution seems to me to be one more way to show the silliness of the Originalist approach.  

Saturday, October 01, 2022

People, Not Prisons - Stories, Poems, Songs, Heartbreak

 ACLU Alaska's The Alaska Prison Project Action Network (PRAN), hosted a People, Not Prison night a bit over a week ago.  


PRAN Goals

Substantially reducing the incarcerated population, especially among people of color, people with mental disabilities, and other vulnerable populations.  The human and financial costs of mass incarceration are staggering, and the burden falls disproportionately on the poor, the ill, and people of color.  However, the current fiscal crisis, overcrowding issues, and growing understanding about the correlation between rehabilitation and improved public safety create the best opportunity to challenge Alaska’s addiction to incarceration. 

Increasing public accountability and transparency of jails, prisons, and other places of detention.  Because places of detention are inherently closed environments housing the unpopular and the politically powerless, external oversight is critical to guard against mistreatment and abuse.  The business of detention, which creates financial incentives for both increased incarceration and harsher conditions of confinement, has made public accountability even more important.  The federal Prison Litigation Reform Act and flimsy state public records laws have significantly reduced judicial oversight of prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities, and resulted in serious abuses going unchecked.

Ending cruel, inhuman, and degrading conditions of confinement.  Far too many incarcerated people are held in conditions that daily threaten their health, safety, and human dignity.  Denial of adequate medical and mental health care, basic sanitation, and protection from physical and sexual assault are all too common.  Across the country, tens of thousands of prisoners are held in long-term solitary confinement, a disturbing practice used in Alaska all too often.  The devastating effects of such treatment, particularly on persons with mental illness, are well known. 

Expanding prisoners’ freedom of religion, expression, and association.  Prisoners’ rights to read, write, speak, practice their religion, and communicate with the outside world are often curtailed far beyond what is necessary for institutional security.  Not only are these activities central to the ability of prisoners to retain their humanity, they also contribute to the flow of information between prisons and the outside world and thus provide a vital form of oversight of these closed institutions.

Expanding access to justice for incarcerated Alaskans. Access to justice is an essential right for all victims of abuse, especially those who have been abused while incarcerated. But all too often, the prison system creates barriers to counsel and legal resources. The Alaska Prison Project works to assist incarcerated people seeking relief from abuse by fighting to limit new policies further restricting prisoners’ access to the courts and counsel, assisting prisoners in understanding the processes by which they must pursue relief for any harms they have suffered, and representing classes of prisoners seeking relief from abuse.



There were several several other partners - Keys to Life, the Learning Inside Out Network (LION) -and probably some others I missed.  Keys to Life is

 "Dedicated to Empowering, Creating and Strengthening an Inclusive Community through Rich Arts and Cross-Cultural Experiences."

Storytelling is a big part of what they do.  For the People, Not Prisons night they highlighted their Lullaby Project where they work with women prisoners, talking to them, getting them to write, and then pairing them up with a musician who works with them to take their words and put them into a song, which is recorded and given to their child(ren).    The women pick the style of music they want.  That evening a band and vocalists played four or five of those songs.  


The LION project had a box that generated poems.  Their overall goal is:

"The Learning Inside Out Network supports education and creative collaboration between people who are inside and outside of Alaska’s jails and prisons. As a grassroots group, we catalyze community wellness projects and advocate for individuals and families affected by incarceration."


There were also art pieces.  We were told that the prisoners cannot get paid for the work they do in prison, but they had agreed to donate any proceeds to the Prison Project Action Network.  I understand reasoning that would keep prisoners like Michael Cohen from profiting by writing a book about his years with Trump, but in this case it seems petty and even counter productive to rehabilitation goals.  






And there were also stories and poems that prisoners had written and paper where readers could leave notes for the prisoners.  Here are a couple.  These are high resolution images so if you click on them they'll get larger.


And there were live stories told by ex-prisoners.  Trevor Stephano told about being imprisoned as a juvenile and how the structure of the prison system puts pre-trial people who could not get out on bail with seasoned criminals who know how to take advantage of them and recruit them into prison gangs.  (It's been a little over a week and I may not be conveying it quite like he said it.)  If I remember correctly, Trevor has gotten a college degree and is working at a law firm now.



Jacqueline Shepherd wasn't a prisoner, but was caring for some children of prisoners and visited a number of prisons to see their fathers.  She talked about experiences getting in to see prisoners.  Her very first visit she had on a tank top and a work suit jacket.  She was told she could only wear one layer.  She felt the tank top was inappropriate, but so was the suit jacket with nothing underneath.  But the rules were the rules.  She also had a parka and ended up wearing that with nothing underneath.  She told another story about a woman with a month old baby in line in front of her.  The guard said she couldn't bring in the baby bottle with milk.  The woman only spoke Spanish.  She had a four hour visiting slot and the baby couldn't go that long without eating.  Sorry, no liquid.  Eventually they worked out that she could bring in dry formula and as she was getting it out, some spilled onto the floor.  She was given a broom to sweep it up.  

I'd had a somewhat different frustrating experience.  I flew to Oregon to visit a friend who was in prison.  We'd gone through all the paper work and he'd been told I was approved to visit.  But when I got there, they didn't have the paperwork and I couldn't visit.  Had to fly back to Alaska and come down another time.  










Dimitrios Alexiadis talked about the difficulties for prisoners getting out of prison.  How hard it is finding housing that will take an ex-con, and the same with employers.  



It was both difficult and uplifting hearing first hand about the problems with our prison system and the work that people are doing to help individual prisoners and to change the system itself.  The timing made it doubly meaningful because I had just posted about how corrupt and ineffective prisons are.   

One other event of the evening was the reading of the names of people who have died in Alaska prisons this year.  I got the list so I could post it here for us all to think about.  

Lawrence Lobdell
Luke Dennis
Kitty Douglas
Leefisher Tukrook
Jarvis Sours
James Wheeler
Austin Wilson
David Bristol
Nastashia Minock
RobertVann
Bernie Alexia
James Keith Rider

The point was made that when prisoners die, their obituaries highlight their worst mistakes.  We were admonished to consider what our obituaries might look like if we had to highlight our worst mistakes.  

Prisons are expensive and effective only to the extend that they keep dangerous people away from the rest of the population and they employee guards and make a profit for private prison companies.    We have these prisons because 

  • people believe prisoners are bad people and deserve to be punished
  • they are out of sight so we don't see how demeaning, dehumanizing they are
  • we are fed a regular stream of scare stories from the media - usually fed by law enforcement public relations offices - and so politicians campaign on being tough on crime
  • because we don't spend the money up front on education, helping poor families, and physical, mental and emotional health

This list could go on and on, but these are a few of the reasons


Friday, September 30, 2022

Moose Loopish

 A friend told me the other day that he averaged 60 miles or so per day over 13 days in France on his bike this summer.  I've been doing much shorter rides.  But he got me thinking I should do the Moose Loop - a loop along the Anchorage bike trails that remembers, physically, the outline of a moose's head. Most of it is on trails but there is still a gap between the end of Campbell Creek trail and the Kincaid trail.  It's about 32 miles altogether if you do the northern loop.  




Tuesday, September 27, 2022

AIFF 2022 Poster And Reaching Avanos (Metacyclicly) [UPDATED September 28, 2022]

My brain has been wandering.  I've got half a dozen posts either in draft form or in that wandering brain.  But sitting down to type them up here has been a challenge.  For one thing, I just got a copy of the 2022 Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF) poster.  


I think it looks great and I'm trying to find out the artist [UPDATE:  Jessica Thorton] so I can give credit here.  The festival will be all live this year, not much Bear Tooth, a lot of museum if I remember right.  


My summer biking Anchorage trails in real life/from Istanbul to Cappadocia in my head is complete. 

Actually, Cappadocia is a region with several major towns..  The biker whose map I was following on RidewithGPS ended up at the far end of Cappadocia in the town of Avanos.  Here are some pictures from https://visitmyturkey.com/en/avanos/.



These are out in the country side nearby.  From Wikipedia:

"Old Avanos is riddled with a network of small underground "cities" which may once have been residential but are now mainly used by the many pottery enterprises. Although there is no documentary evidence to prove when these structures were carved out of the earth, it is probable that work on some of them began in the Hittite period.

As Venessa, the ancient Avanos was the third most important town in the Kingdom of Cappadocia (332BC-17AD) according to the geographer Strabo.[5] Although it was the site of an important temple of Zeus, nothing remains of it today. [5]In Roman and Byzantine times Avanos had a large Christian population who were responsible for the rock-cut Dereyamanlı Kilisesi. [6]Unusually, this is still occasionally used even today."

Avanos, by the route map I was following, is 891 km from Istanbul.  I made it to 897 km on Saturday and today went on to 912 km.  (900 km = 559.23 miles)  Weather permitting, I'm now hoping to hit 1000 km (621 miles).  I thought that was pretty good for the summer until I talked to a friend the other day who did over 600 miles in 13 days in France.  Oh well.  

But I'm hoping that by 2024 at the latest I will have been to Istanbul and Avanos in person.  


Then there's the follow up on the Words in the Constitution post.  


Dimitrios Alexiadis

I've also got pictures from an ACLU event on prisons and the people in them that was co-sponsored with several other organizations that work with prisoners.  Just putting up pictures is relatively easy, but there were important messages as well.  But if I wait too long I'll forget the details.  

And more.  But the bike, the yard, Netflix (watching the rescue of the Thai soccer team from the flooded caves series now - finished two episodes and the international cave divers have reached the boys, and there's still a bunch more episodes to go; enjoying trying to catch as much Thai as I can; don't think this is a spoiler since we saw this live in the news a couple of years ago), and other things steal from blogging.  Oh yeah, got my bivalent booster and flu shot the other day too.  Slightly sore arms, but that was all.