San Francisco Shots

Went for a walk today with the SF grandkids.  Here ae some things we saw along the way.

The Easy Breezy yogurt shop was the kids' destination.  

They 

They were also checking out the hooded with Halloween decorations.  

 [I'd add that my nine year old grandson talked non-stop the whole way (about two hours) about his Minecraft creations.]

Reading - Demon Copperhead and If I Survive You

Demon Copperhead won a Pulitzer Prize and has had lots of publicity so I won't add much to what's out there, only to note some similarities to If I Survive You.

First I read Demon Copperhead for my bookclub.  A deep dive into being poor in Appalachia.  The hero in this David Copperfield inspired novel struggles to survive in a world shaped by addiction.  Author Barbara Kingsolver makes it clear that the addiction is the fault of the pharmaceutical companies whose owners and operators profit off of getting as many people addicted to opioids as possible.  Anyone who comes in contact with the health field and has some insurance of agency to subsidize their habit - foster kids, vets, the elderly, those employed with health insurance in any level job is fair game.  But Damon (Demon) has David’s (Copperfield) pluck and resilience as he bobs up and down in rural western Virginia, mostly.  (Thought I'd blogged about this one already, but I only mentioned it in passing.)

[As I move to If I Survive You, I'd say the main characters share struggling to make ends meet, being part of groups that are discriminated against (in Copperhead it's being from rural Appalachia) though Demon knows well who his cultural people are, just not his birth family.  Both are trying to overcome their own self doubts, though Demon seems more successful.  In some ways not having family may have given him an advantage over Trelawny who is in a constant fight with his father and brother.]

[I started this yesterday, but I'm adding a few notes today (Oct 3) but I'll leave what I wrote yesterday in the present tense.]

Now I’m on my second plane today and I’ve finished If I Survive You.  This book, by Jonathan Escoffery, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  It was among five and this one was at Loussac Library and available just before we left.  

It started out being about a youth, Trelawny, trying to figure out who he was.  Not personally, though, of course, that’s always there, but who did he belong to/with.  His parents and brother were born in Jamaica, but he was born in Miami and people keep reminding him that he speaks white which alienates him from the family and pretty much everyone else.  The Hispanics take him in at school, thinking he’s one of them and they pity him because his parents don’t speak Spanish. When they find out he’s Jamaican, they drop him.  “Am I black?” is a question he gets varying answers to until he gets to a midwestern college where everyone assumes, yes, he is.  

But then the book veers into many other directions.  The father/son and sibling relationships are painful to him and the reader.  It’s not clear to me to whom the “YOU” in the title refers - his father?  His brother?  The family?  Himself?  The world?  

The book took me around south Florida and introduced me to a lot of folks struggling with different ways to keep a roof overhead - musicians, an arborist, a boat captain for rent, school teachers, a nursing home flunky, and in the end a very wealthy couple with their own devils to overcome.  

It feels like this is more a collection of stories than a novel; the same characters run through most of the stories.  The one that haunts me most is “Splashdown.”  In it we see Trelawny's cousin finally meeting the father who he's never met.  But the nursing home chapter ("Independent Living") is a mini expose of that industry.  and the final chapter ("If I Survive You") is equally gripping and kinkier.  They all explore how the need for money causes people to do things they probably wouldn't and definitely shouldn't.  The last one adds a more direct example of privilege folks using a poor man for their own (apparent) gratification and that cause him conflicts between his moral standards, personal dignity, and money.  It essentially asks, how much money will it take to get you to do X?  When the money is small change to the offering party but significant to Trelawny.  

I don’t regret reading this book, but at the end I am haunted by the characters and their struggles. 

This is the United States we live in today, where there are a few people who have managed to vacuum obscene amounts of wealth out of everyone else.  Then there are others who would appear to live quite comfortably.  But over the last three or four decades, the rules of engagement have changed enough that more and more people are sliding out of the comfortable faction into the world of economic (not to mention psychic) struggle the characters in this book deal with daily.  

    

Thinking about this book as I reread what I've written - first on the plane when I finished the book and now as I add and edit - I know this is a book that I won't forget.  The scenes are so real that I almost feel like I was there.  

Chicago Pics And A Bit On Percy Julian

 This is basically going to be photos of the last couple days in Oak Park and surroundings.  

I always thought the Continental divide was in the Rockies and up on through Canada and Alaska, but the folks in Oak Park think it's there.

I think John Dewey got it just about right.

We walked about 2.5 miles yesterday to meet J's brother and sister-in-law for lunch, so we saw a lot of things we'd have missed in a car.  Like these church doors.

A dog park in Oak Park.  Our friends ran into friends they hadn't seen in a long time and it seemed like a happy coincidence.  Numbers were exchanged.

I seem to be the only one excited about the new Halloween decoration on our friends' balcony.  

This only makes sense if you know that Frank Lloyd Wright lived in Oak Park and there are lots of his buildings (mainly houses) in town.  I think some of my Anchorage friends are trying to make this point as the Assembly is taking on redoing the zoning codes.  Right-sizing isn't necessarily NIMBY.

Today, October 1, we went to Evanston - just north of Chicago - for a birthday party and walked along Lake Michigan by Northwestern University.   It was a warm day!

Downtown Chicago is in the distance.

We drove along the lake to downtown. 

Best I could do from the car.  

As we wandered on home we passed through a part of town known as Ukrainian Village.  I believe the rest of this sign said "Institute of Modern Art."

Finally, our friend took us by a large house and yard in Oak Park.  It was bought by Percy Julian.  

Julian was a chemist with degrees from Harvard, and Vienna. From Science History:

 

"A steroid chemist and an entrepreneur, Percy Julian ingeniously figured out how to synthesize important medicinal compounds from abundant plant sources, making them more affordable to mass produce.

In the 1930s chemists recognized the structural similarity of a large group of natural substances—the steroids. These include the sex hormones and the cortical hormones of the adrenal glands. The medicinal potential of these compounds was clear, but extracting sufficient quantities of them from animal tissue and fluids was prohibitively expensive. As with other scarce or difficult-to-isolate natural products, chemists were called upon to mimic nature by creating these steroids in the lab and later by modifying them to make them safer and more effective as drugs. . .

"Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama, the son of a railway mail clerk and the grandson of enslaved people. In an era when African Americans faced prejudice in virtually all aspects of life, not least in the scientific world, he succeeded against the odds. Inadequately prepared by his high school, he was accepted at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, as a sub-freshman, meaning that he had to take high-school courses concurrently with his freshman courses.

Majoring in chemistry, he graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1920. After graduation he taught chemistry at Fisk University for two years before winning an Austin Fellowship to Harvard University, where he completed a master’s degree in organic chemistry. After Harvard he returned to teaching at West Virginia State College and Howard University.

Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of the house.  But there are lots of pictures of Julian and of the house in Oak Park.  

The point of this being, that the family may lose the house because his daughter is having trouble paying the taxes.   From Chemical and Engineering News:

"The family home of Percy Lavon Julian sits on a corner lot in the Oak Park suburb of Chicago. Julian was already a renowned organic chemist when he bought the two-story stone house in 1950. His daughter, Faith Julian, remembers a time when the home was not just the center of their family life, but also a place where her father thrived as a scientist and entrepreneur until his death in 1975. Despite multiple racist attacks to push them out of the neighborhood, Percy Julian would not leave his home, she says. “My dad never wanted to move. He loved this house,” she says.

Now Faith is fighting to stay in the Oak Park home, where she still lives. Taxes, home repairs, and medical expenses have left Faith struggling to maintain ownership."

You can read more of the details at the link.

Frank Lloyd Wright is, rightfully, an icon in Oak Park, Illinois.  His house and the many buildings he designed and were built in Oak Park attract a lot of tourists.  

Like many important, but unsung Black American scientists, Julian's house and legacy are not as celebrated in Oak Park or other places  One would think that the city leaders of Oak Park could work with the Chemical community and Black organizations to work out a way to preserve the house and let his daughter live there as long as she wishes.  Certainly there are pharmaceutical corporations that have earned tens of millions of dollars if not much more, from his discoveries.  

This is precisely the sort of thing that people like Ron DeSantis are trying to make sure the students of Florida never know about. 

Here's an August 2023 Editorial at OakPark.com that offers some hope things will be positively resolved.  

To Chicago, Habrae, Hidden Lake, And Reza's

We're in Chicago with old, old friends.  Actually they aren't older than we are, but we've known them for a long time.  

We thought it would be easy getting here on a non-stop flight out of Anchorage.  For the non-stop route, we were willing to fly overnight.  In the end, after lots of to-ing and fro-ing (one hour delay, get on plane, taxi from gate, sit on tarmac, return to gate, need to fix some mechanical issue,  some people want to get off because they've already missed their Chicago connections, then everyone told to get off, then several new estimated departure times, then four hours from original flight time, the flight is cancelled) we were quickly put on a 5am flight to Seattle with a tight connection to a Chicago flight, which we made.  And later we got an email with a $200 credit for each of us on future Alaska Airlines flights.  For people who were soured by Alaska Airlines because of these delays, it's a bittersweet reward.  But for people dependent on Alaska Airlines like we are, it's a decent apology gift.  

But our friends were patient on their end and got us to a great Thai restaurant in Oak Park for dinner and home to crash.  

We shared sticky rice and mango for dessert.

Thursday they took us to Hidden Lake.  It's in DuPage County and abuts the Arboretum.  

They were trying to get us somewhere that got us into woods without too many urban distractions.  

And they did a pretty good job.  The trees are so different from Anchorage trees.  No spruce, no birch, no cottonwood.  Not sure what they all were, but it felt exotic to this Alaskan.  It seemed there were some maples.  Probably in the arboretum there would have been labels, but we just wanted to walk around and enjoy.  A few trees are just beginning to turn, but barely.  Temps in the low 70s.  And lots of birds, but for the most part not easy to catch with the camera.  I think the one below is a flicker, but I'm not completely sure.  

Lots of late flowers like this clover.

But there is a villain in this story.  

These are the same white flowers, but they weren't quite in focus so I played with Curves to get this version.  

And then we lucked out on dinner.  We'd passed a sign for Reza's on the way.  Sounded like a Middle Eastern place.  Even better, it turned out to be Persian and we had a delicious dinner with an accommodating waiter, and lots to take home for lunch today.  This one was a chicken kabob.  

Reagan Told US in 1983 NOT to "Both Sides" In The Face Of Evil

[Video excerpted from speech to National Association of Evangelicals, March 8, 1983.  Full speech available here.]

While Reagan was distinguishing between the United States and the Soviet Union, he was warning people not to step back and treat both sides as equal.  He was saying the US was on the side of good and the Soviet Union was on the side of evil and you can't just offer both sides as equally worthy.  

Today we have a Democratic Party, with all its inconsistencies and flaws, basically standing for the United States and the freedoms and the democracy that were established in the US Constitution.  Opposing it are the Republican Party, essentially a cult ruled by a leader who has ties to Reagan's evil empire*, who lies, who makes false accusation, who foments violence, who favors white nationalism and fascism, and who is attempting to tear down the US Constitution and the US Government.  

United States journalists have long argued for 'objective' reporting of the news. It's part of the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics.  

"Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant."

Generally, this has meant both major political parties are given equal time, and 'responsible' spokespersons for different sides of an issue are cited.   

But when one of the major political parties has become anti-democratic and does so with lies and misinformation that obfuscates and distracts from the important issues, then both sides journalism exacerbates the problem. They are basically polluting the public forum.  Much of the media has yet to adjust to this change in the Republican party.  

The media still  try to 'objectively' present opposing arguments.  Even when one side favors the basic principles and freedoms in our Constitution and the other side would ignore the Constitution when it conflicts with their goals.  

I think I'm being a bit generous here, ascribing this presenting of both sides equally as an attempt to be 'objective.'  

Despite indisputable evidence that the Republican party has become an anti-democracy cult, many mainstream media treat both parties as though the were equally valid points of view.  

This is like giving the pro-slavery side equal time with the equal rights side. "Well, now let's consider the upsides of slavery."  Oh, yeah, I forgot.t Republicans have actually done that.    Or like giving the child pornography proponents equal time and respect to the anti-child pornography side.  

Many Evangelical Christians are among those who are supporting this anti-American, pro-Trump voice. 

So I just wanted to offer this warning from one of their heroes - Ronald Reagan - against both-sidesing issues.  The video above comes from a speech to  the National Association of Evangelicals on March 8, 1983.  [And it appears that those loyal to Reagan are losing favor in Trump's GOP.]

Here's more of Reagan's comments from the transcript of that speech.

"So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride–the temptation of blithely..uh..declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil."

There is more that is not in the clip I have at the top, but in the full speech. Reagan (below) is supporting the rights of 'minority citizens,' he's arguing against racism and anti-semitism, something else the Republicans today no longer agree with.

There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens…for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country. [Long Applause]

I know that you’ve been horrified, as have I, by the resurgence of some hate groups preaching bigotry and prejudice. Use the mighty voice of your pulpits and the powerful standing of your churches to denounce and isolate these hate groups in our midst. The commandment given us is clear and simple: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” [Applause]

Reagan is not a president I admire, for many reasons.  I don't endorse mucht of this speech.  And it's tricky to quote parts that appear to support the point you are making.  

But Reagan is clearly telling this Evangelical audience that when there is a clear choice between good and evil, treating both sides with equal respect, as though they are equally valid, is wrong.  

We're there now, yet media are giving Trump prime time interviews.  And often using Right Wing lies as counterbalance to stories on President Biden.  

I think they understand these are not normal times and the old rules don't work, because one side doesn't follow any rules, other than obeisance to Trump.  They are trying to figure out how to report in these perilous times.   

I think they are also carefully looking at their bottom line and calculating the number of eyeballs and clicks the GOP crime scene will generate for them.  

*I'd note that Reagan was talking about the Soviet Union which has been replaced by Russia.  But much of the evil still exists.  Putin was spawned by the Soviet KGB.  And just watching the destruction of Ukraine by Russia makes it clear that Russia is ruled by an inhumane war criminal.  

I'd also like to acknowledge that I discovered the Reagan clip while watching the Netflix series SpyOps, Episode 3, Operation Pimlico.

Panhandling, Inflation, Clouds

 Despite three different topics in the title, this isn't going to be a long post.

1.  It's ok for firefighters, but not for the hungry

Lake Otis and Tudor is one of the busiest intersections in the city.  I also have to get across it on a couple of my regular bike rides.  

Two weeks ago it was crawling with firefighters raising money for charity.  Though collecting money in Firefighters' boots seems a little gross.  They didn't look like new, unused boots.  

That's an admirable activity.  But they were doing it standing in the intersection.  Some in the middle, others between the right turn lanes and the through traffic lanes.  

Photo by ADN photographer Marc Lester

Eighteen months ago, signs like this caused a stir in Anchorage.  

The ADN article tells us:

"The municipality spent more than $8,000 to post anti-panhandling signs at dozens of Anchorage’s busiest intersections in December — but the city law cited on the sign was found unconstitutional by a state court years ago."

"Corey Young, a spokesman for Mayor Dave Bronson, said the signs are meant to 'keep pedestrians away from dangerous situations in the roadway.'” 

It appears from the article that this was done by the mayor's office without consulting affected  departments like the Police Department.  I don't think anyone disputes the idea that there's an element of danger involved in walking the lines of cars at busy intersections, but the courts had said it couldn't be prohibited. 

If the mayor's office thinks this is dangerous, why are they letting the Fire Department do this?  Did the mayor's office even know the Fire Department was doing this?  

Or maybe we should ask if the original signs were an attempt to make those experiencing homelessness less visible to the general public, and danger wasn't the real issue.  

2.  Who's responsible for inflation

I like seaweed.  I don't eat it everyday, but I do now and then.  Last week I went to the Korean grocery story on Fireweed and Eagle to get some more seaweed.  Here's last year's empty package.

And the new one I got last week.  

The weight and number of servings are both the same.  It's at least a year since I bought the first package of seaweed there.  But the price of both is still the same!  

While national chain groceries have been rapidly raising their prices, this local Korean grocery is charging the same amount as they did a year ago - $9.99.  A similar product at Carr's, for instance, is advertised:

This is a total of .92 ounces for $8.99.   The Korean store seaweed is 65 servings at .07 ounces per serving, or 4.55 ounces!  One is $9.77 per ounce  and the other is $2.20 per ounce.

But my point isn't that you can get seaweed much cheaper at the local Korean grocery than at the chain store.  

It's really about inflation.  We know prices have gone up rapidly in the chain store groceries.  But on this item, the Korean grocery has kept the price the same for over a year.  No blaming inflation to raise the price, and adding further to inflation.  [But it's true that I don't know how much the Gimme packages were selling for a year ago.  It's possible that no one increased the price of seaweed.]

3.  Clouds

Anchorage has been having weather this month.  By that I mean wind and rain and sun all fighting it out.  I put up some cloud pictures two weeks ago.  Here are from one this week's bike rides.

Same corner as top pic but with little traffic and no fire department panhandlers. 

Taku Lake

4.  Biking.  And since I've mentioned bike rides, I reached my 1000 km goal for the summer (since April) and then got to 1100.  Getting most of my rides done on the local bike trails and getting regular views of places like Taku Lake make the riding a pleasure.  For lots of folks 600 miles is not that much, but it's kept me out exercising regularly all summer.  

Got A Teacher Who Made A Difference In Your Life? Reach Out And Let Them Know

 I got this email yesterday morning:

Dr. A:

It's been many years since we last connected.  My last memory was the day in your office (Spring 2002 perhaps) when you suggested I apply for the Presidential Management Internship program.  You took time that day to complete the faculty portion of the application as it had to be postmarked by midnight.  It's amazing how a seemingly small moment can have such a dramatic impact on one's life. I have worked for the Federal Government for much the time since and have had a successful career that has allowed me to grow in ways I would have never imagined. 

Thank you.  

Teaching is such an important job, whether it's primary school or graduate school.  You have the chance to change people's lives.  Whether it's helping them believe in themselves, giving them the tools to think critically, helping them understand how some aspect of the world works, or supporting them to take the next steps of their lives.  

And while a good teacher works hard to prepare a lesson and how to present it, you never know what random comment or action will have the most impact.  A number of times students have told me how something I said really made a difference.  And usually it was something off the cuff, not a part of the prepared lesson that clicked for that student.  

This email comes 20 years later!  I've often argued that student teacher evals should be done five or more years after the class, when the student has had time to process what actually took place and can more objectively assess a class and teacher.  I've had several cases where students have told me that the first few classes they thought I was too demanding, expecting too much of them, and that it was only after a year or more that they finally realized what I was up to and suddenly it all made sense.  

Teachers' pay in money these days is paltry compared to the education required for the job, the time and effort good teachers put in.  Teachers' real pay is psychic, the knowledge they've made a difference.  So pay up and let your teachers know.

Think about a teacher who made a positive  difference in your life.  I know that all of you can think of at least one or two such people without any effort.  Look them up, find their contact info and tell them.  Do it now.  

And support schools and teachers who are under attack from the anti-Woke mob who are afraid of letting students search for truth, who are afraid of anyone who believes things that expose their own hypocrisy.  

It's important to know that the Right has been crusading to move public tax money from public schools to private school for a long time.  All the attacks on school budgets, curriculum, teachers, LGBTQ+ content and kids, they're all aimed at making public schools so bad that voters agree to fund private schools with public money.  If you haven't read this Washington Post story, you should.  

And it's why letting teachers know that you value their work is critical, so they don't simply quit, but rather hang in there until we get past these attacks and reestablish the importance of public education.  If the teachers are driven away, we'll lose this fight.

The Wind And Clouds Fight It Out In And Over Anchorage

 

Anchorage doesn't have a lot of what I'd call 'weather.'  By that I mean that generally things a relatively calm.  It rains, but not too hard.  Snow falls quietly.  In the Anchorage bowl the wind generally is a light breeze at most.  We almost never have thunderstorms.  No tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards.  

But this week we are a weather battleground.  The first several pictures are from my Tuesday bike ride.  It wasn't particularly windy on the ground, but clouds were moving furiously, seemingly trying to cover up the blue and block the sun.  Was I going to get my bike ride down before it started raining?  (I did.)

It rained Thursday morning and I assumed that I'd be driving to Grow North Farm for the weekly vegetable pickup, but the sun came out about 2pm.  So did the wind.  Here are the trees in the backyard in the wind.

But the sky looked blue enough, the clouds not too threatening, that I biked to get the veggies.  It wasn't bad most of the time.  Lots of tree debris on the trails, but basically little stuff.  

On the way back, as I was about to cross the Glenn Highway, it looked like there was rain coming down to the west (I didn't quite catch gray curtain in the photo),

 but to the east, the sun was dappling the Chugach range.  

This morning it's both cloudy and quite windy again.  It rained a bit, but not now.  But I want to get this up before the power goes out.