AIFF2022: Dealing With Dad and Bering Family Reunion

 Watching movies from noon until 8pm leaves me a little spacey.  The wifi was working today in the auditorium at the museum, but there just wasn't much time between events.  There were lots of short films during the day. Please excuse mistakes, it's late but I want to get this up already.

I'm finding I am mentally resurrecting an old evaluation standard for films:  

1. There are films that are technically well made 
2. There are films that have something important to say or to contribute
3. Films that do both 1 and 2 well
4. Films that do neither
5. And most films fall somewhere in the continuum of both those factors

Dealing With Dad did both 1 and 2 well.  The film is technically good enough to easily fit in on Netflix or another streaming channel.  The acting and pacing are all high quality. Yet it's much more than a slick formula film. It's a poignant story told with love and humor. 

What does it contribute? The director Tom Huang said after the film that the story is adapted from his own family experience with a domineering immigrant father who works hard so his kids can have a better life.   After Dad gets laid off and goes into a deep depression, the two older kids fly home to try to deal with this only to find that Mom and the 30 year old younger brother still living at home find life much easier now that Dad just stays in bed all day watching television.  The family reunion reveals old tensions among the siblings.  The younger brothers accuse the older sister of being a lot like Dad.  The younger brother has a long time crush on a high school friend who just returned from the Peace Corps, but is afraid to ask her out until the older sister older sisters him into asking her out. (That was the one part that didn't ring true to me - she had been in three or four different countries.  And while a volunteer can sign up for a second tour of duty after completing one, it's not common, and the way it was described in the film, she seemed to move around from country to country as part of her assignment.) The mother has already set up the middle son, who's having marital problems, with a date.  While there are dynamics that may be more common in a Chinese American family, the story is really a universal one.  It moved along quickly moving from heavy drama to humor and back seamlessly.  The humor wasn't added on, it was just part of the relationship.  Often it was funny to the audience, but often not to the characters themselves.  I think it was easier to watch than The Last Birds of Passage, but Birds, probably had a much weightier story to tell.  

The other full length film was the documentary Bering, Family Reunion.  Bering followed Etta Tall, an Inupiaq woman from Little Diomede as she searched for her relatives from Big Diomede.  These are two islands a few miles apart, Little D in Alaska and Big D in Russia.  Before WWII people from the two islands visited each other frequently and there were many family relations across the two islands.  The Soviet Union, at the beginning of WW II removed the islanders to the mainland and maid Bid D into a military base.  When Gorbachev and Reagan opened the border between Alaska and the Soviet Union, some of the first to travel across the border were Inupiats going to visit their relatives they hadn't seen in many years.  We see how the plans were made, how a family company that arranges arctic travel got asked to look for relatives when in Russia, and slowly how the reunion eventually comes to be.  This film involves families who were cut off from each other by war and geopolitics.  It considers culture, language, and people's undying compulsion to find their families.  A little slow at points, the film nevertheless has very high significance, documenting this story, a story that has been repeated around the world as national governments ignore indigenous and minority people's needs.  

The first question in my mind was "How did a Mexican film maker come to make this story?"  It just seemed odd.  And it was the first question asked of the woman who'd carried a list of names to Russia with her when she went to the Russian far-east, who answered questions after the film. She was a friend of the film director Lourdes Grobet (who passed away in July 2022) who wanted to make this film.  You can learn more about her at the Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia site where the film was show in October.

There were lots of shorts.  Some were well made.  Some told important stories. Some did both.  Some left me scratching my head.  I'll note a few that I reacted to most.

Queen Moorea had to be the most compelling, and one of the longest.  It told the story of a high school homecoming queen who was born with a genetic condition that made her different.  It wasn't clear to me exactly what her disability was (it was mentioned briefly I didn't catch it.)  The film was another with the theme of people who don't fit in.  Another audience member after the film said that people tend to categorize people with disabilities by the disability and that often keeps them from reaching their full potential.  This film portrayed Moorea was living up to her potential.  

Never Again Para Nadia - shows how the Jewish community in a Rhode Island prison town team up with the local Latino community to protest against immigrants being housed in a local prison.  To be clear, they are protesting that the prison is nearby, but that immigrants are being put into this private prisons for the financial gain of the prison owners and their shareholders.  The film documents the protest, a car driving through some protestors whose driver eventually gets acquitted.  It's an important record as far as it goes, but more statistics on the private prison and its profits and the numbers of immigrants housed in the prison.  

I liked Sunday With Monica - an interesting short story of a movie that left this viewer wanting to know more about.  I'm guessing this could be an early version of a future feature film.  The divorced father picks up his daughters from his ultra-orthodox Jewish ex-wife and takes them to meet his non-Jewish girlfriend who has horses and a riding rink.  One daughter is drawn to the horses and the other is thinking how Mom wouldn't approve.  

Gina is a brief portrait of a homeless woman in LA. We get to know this woman a little beyond what we might imagine of her if we just saw her on the street.  The Pastor who befriended Gina while handing out food to the homeless and eventually is impressed with Gina again reminds us not to judge people through our stereotypes, but to get to know them as people.  

Rain was a beautiful chocolate of a film - lots of beautiful animated images of rain and a little girl who plows through the puddles.  

And then there was Snowflakes another light animated film made for the Make A Wish Foundation, about a little girl with cancer just admitted into the hospital.  Another girl invites her to play but she's not in the mood, but does eventually get enticed.  It was all pretty innocuous, but I couldn't help being struck by the perfect faces - pretty lips, big eyes, and what appeared to me as lots of make-up. Someone connected to the film was there and answered questions.  My wife discouraged me from asking whether these perfect, make-upped images of very young little girls didn't perhaps send the wrong message.  So I didn't.  But someone else asked less directly about how the images of the little girls came about and we were told the animator determined that.  To be clear, their heads were shaved, but they were still model quality.  

AIFF2022 - Saturday Review - Big Crow and White Crows and More

[After sleeping on this, I've added a few thoughts on Crows are White.  They are [bracketed]].

Got to the museum a little late (gave up trying for the 10am Children's program) and there was nothing showing in the auditorium.  They'd had a glitch and so we got to see most of Big Crow.  A lot of amateur footage, but it was edited together to tell a powerful story about a young woman who took her Pine Ridge reservation team to win the state championship.  Her death soon after brough lots of folks together and inspired lots of improvements for the reservation and relations off reservation.  Sad but inspiring.  

I was going to post a few short posts, but then the wifi no longer worked.  (Later I found out I could get it in the museum, but it was spotty in the auditorium.  

And I got hijacked by Crows Are White and I want to focus on that movie, but first a quick overview of the rest of the day, which all took place in the museum. 

The woman collecting the audience ratings of the films said that the morning kids program, really was very dark and the only thing kid about it, possibly, was that it was animated shorts.  

Big Crow I wrote about above.  I liked it.  

Then came three shorts made in Alaska.  The first Sabor Artico: Latinos en Alaska was about Latinos in Alaska.  Interesting, but not exceptional film making.  

Safe Enough  was a about the Sitka summer arts camp and highlighted a number of the young artists attending.  The theme seemed to be that this was a safe space where these artistic teens could actually be themselves and explore who they were.  It was safe, unlike the world they binomially live in.  It was uplifting, except that this escape only lasted two weeks.  I couldn't help thinking that it shouldn't be so hard to envision communities where people who had unique talents could feel comfortable.  And then I thought about how most people are just better able to conform, but that they too are denying who they really are to fit in.  A film that stimulates you to move your understanding of things further is, in my book, a good film.

And the third short in this program, Kakińiik was by Patrick Hoffman whom I spoke to and whose video I put up before I went to bed last night.  It's always tricky when you interview someone before you see their film.  Sometimes the film doesn't work for you and you have this connection, albeit short, with the film maker.  But that wasn't a problem in this case.  This was a beautiful film, made up of a series of talks by women getting traditional Inupiat tattoos and how the tattoos connect them to their ancestors and their culture.  There are also a couple of vignettes by the tattoo artist - talking about the styles of tattoos, traditional food and its relation to doing tattoos, and her own thigh tattoos.  Each vignette is preceded by a stylized screen, which confused some of us in the audience the first time who weren't sure if this was the end.  It wasn't.  And we weren't fooled the next time either.  It was like a book with several chapters separated by this artful page.  

Then we got to Crows are White, which swept me away.  Spoiler Alert:  I'm going to write about the film in ways that assume the reader has either seen it or won't be able to see it.  But in another way, it's the film itself that is what is so enjoyable and thought provoking and what I write shouldn't change that experience.

This was a film done in the style of a This American Life piece, with a narrator outlining the project and how things proceed throughout.   The filmmaker, Ahsen Nadeem, narrates in a voice and tone not unlike Ira Glass, but the story he's pursuing, turns out to be his own. There are so many aspects of this film that are both amazing and bizarre.  People who are noble and flawed.  The photography was exquisite as was the music. 

Crows AreWhite refers to a story someone tells about a monk who tells his disciples that crows are white, and while they all know this isn't true, they cannot contradict the monk.  They must say, yes, crows are white.  

My take is that the film is about people being forced to deal with contradictions to their understanding of how the world works.  Ahsen's basic contradiction is that he's fallen in love with a non-Muslim and he knows his parents will disown him if he marries her.  But we don't know this until after we've been set up to believe there are more general spiritual issues he's pursuing rather than answers to his very personal dilemma.  [A film version of the guy climbing the rocky mountain to ask the monk on top the meaning of life.]

Another contradiction is that as a Muslim, he searches for answers from a Buddhist monk.  But he learns that the head monk, Kamahori, he wants to pose his questions to has taken a vow of silence.  And these monks are the ultramarathoners of Buddhist monks.  They take a vow to walk a certain distance every day (something like 20 kilometers) and they have to do this until they've walked the equivalent of walking the circumference of the world.  And part of the vow is that if they miss a day, they have to commit suicide. 

Ahsen himself comes across as sincere and disarming not unlike ira Glass. But when you think about it, he's also so full of himself that he thinks he has the right to interrupt the lives of monks in this Japanese monastery with his film crew and persistence in trying to meet with the head monk.  He gets kicked out when his cell phone rings during a secret ceremony they've allowed him to film. [But you can also ask why did the monks give him permission to film them in the first place?  They are supposed to be focused on enlightenment and to not care about what others think. To indulge him?  To spread Buddhist wisdom? To get publicity for the monastery? To increase their income?]

That's when he meets Ryushin, a monk assigned to greet visitors and answer questions in the monastery gift shop.  Ryushin is probably the most honest and likable character in the movie.  And his life dilemma is not unlike Ahsen's.  His father and grandfather had been important monks at this monastery, but he really would rather be a sheep farmer in New Zealand, he thinks.  But while he professes to be unhappy, he doesn't obsess on the contradictions.  Yes, he's a monk, but he takes a drink now and then, loves ice cream, and goes to heavy metal concerts.  

Another character who is relatively normal is Ahsen's girlfriend and later wife.  I particularly cheered when she questioned Ahsen's taking cameras in to film his parents when he tells them he's been married to a non-Muslim for three years.  Seems crass to her. But she understands that this is necessary to complete the film he's spent so much time on.  

This could have been a mockumentary - a fictional documentary spoofing documentaries.  [Part of me was wondering if it was while I was watching and hoping it was.] But all the contradictions and conflicts between what people ought to do and what they really do and how they reconcile it is what makes this such a good movie.  And, of course the beautiful cinematography and the unexpected but perfect music. 

Everything together works to make this an outstanding film. 

And up through this point of the festival, all the films were about people who didn't quite fit in the societies they lived in - the nomads in Friday nights Last Birds of Passage, the Lakota reservation girls gaining self confidence and pride through basketball, the Latinos in Alaska, the campers in Sitka, and the Inupiat women regaining their heritage through traditional tattoos.

A Body Is a House of Familiar Rooms

The afternoon shorts program didn't impress me.  The one film that stood out - The Body Is A House Of Familiar Rooms  - did so because of the colors and patterns that were so striking. 

Also the paper programs are now available.  Here's the Sunday schedule.

And finally, there's You Resemble Me which rounded out the night and I'm still processing that one.  My biggest difficulty was subtitles when they weren't on dark backgrounds.  A truly heartbreaking film of Arab refugee sisters put into foster homes with a disastrous result in one case.  

AIFF2022: Busy Saturday Starts With Kids Program, Ends With Recommended French Film - All at Museum

I started thinking about the Anchorage International Film Festival late this year, so I'm not as organized as I have been in past years.  

My sense, from reading the online program, was that there are a lot fewer films, turned out to be correct.  Just 75.  But the positive spin is that none are shown in conflict, so you can see them all.  

Friday night's Turkish film The Last Birds of Passage, was a poignant narrative feature on a Turkish minority group that travels 400 kilometers with its goats and camels to the summer grazing grounds and 400 back.  The migration in the film is faced with lots of obstacles - from within the family and from changes in the landscape they have to cross.  The filmmaker was there for a charming Q&A by Zoom after the film and is scheduled to be in Anchorage Wednesday.

I haven't figured out how to find a page on the website that shows all the films for one day AND when they are playing.  So I've tried to  put that altogether here.  

But here's the Saturday lineup - all at the Anchorage Museum Auditorium

Saturday

10am  Shorts - Kids A Bonanza

Birthday Wish • 

Footprints in the Forest • 

Rain • 

Santa Doesn''t Need Your Help • 

Snowflakes • 

SPIRIT: A Martian Story • 

The Social Chameleon

12pm  Big Crow  -  

"Born in 1974 on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, SuAnne had become one of the state’s best basketball players by age 14. By the time of her tragic death in a car accident at age 17, her wisdom, leadership, and determination had made her a household name across the Great Plains. 27 years later, SuAnne’s legacy has proven legendary - everyone you meet on “the Rez” has a story about how SuAnne’s spirit continues to galvanize the Lakota in their fight to reclaim their language and save their culture, embracing what Su called “a better way”. From AIFF website

2pm  Shorts - Made in Alaska

Kakiñiit •  I talked to the director Patrick Hoffman at the opening.  His film is about traditional Alaska Native tattooing.

Sabor Ártico: Latinos En Alaska (Arctic Flavor: Latinos in Alaska) • 

Safe Enough

4pm  Crows are White - Museum

"For over a thousand years, a secretive Buddhist sect has lived in an isolated monastery in Japan performing acts of extreme physical endurance in their pursuit of enlightenment. In CROWS ARE WHITE, filmmaker Ahsen Nadeem is struggling to reconcile his desires with his faith and sets off to the strict monastery in search of answers. Ahsen is not immediately welcomed and the only monk who will speak with him is an outcast who prefers ice cream and Slayer to meditation. Together they forge an unlikely friendship that leads them to higher truths and occasionally, a little trouble. Shot over five years on three continents, CROWS ARE WHITE is an exploration of truth, faith and love, from the top of a mountain to the bottom of a sundae." From AIFF2022 site.

6pm - SHORTS: Different Kind of Love Stories

Burros • 

Honeymoon at Cold Hollow • 

Jelly Bean • 

Lead/Follow • 

Peanut Factory • 

Star-Crossed • 

The Body is a House of Familiar Rooms • T

oo Rough

8pm  You Resemble Me - Museum - This one got strong reviews from people I spoke to.

"Cultural and intergenerational trauma erupt in this story about two sisters on the outskirts of Paris. After the siblings are torn apart, the eldest, Hasna, struggles to find her identity, leading to a choice that shocks the world. Director Dina Amer takes on one of the darkest issues of our time and deconstructs it in an intimate story about family, love, sisterhood, and belonging."  From AIFF website.

Blogger Put Warning On 2009 Post Here

I got this message Wednesday morning: 

Your post titled "Sullivan's Unity Speaker Swann Paid Enough for One Muni Job" has been put behind a warning for readers

Inbox

Blogger <no-reply@google.com>

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allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "Sullivan's Unity  

Speaker Swann Paid Enough for One Muni Job" was flagged to us for review.  

This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains  

sensitive content; the post is visible at  

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to adhere to Blogger's Community Guidelines. Once the content is updated,  

you may republish it at  

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This will trigger a review of the post.

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I've been blogging here since 2006. That's 16 years.  I have never gotten such a warning before.  

My posts are by internet standards high in accuracy, with lots of clarification and qualification and understatement.  

I can think of three possibilities here:

1. Blogger has changed its policies and now is monitoring content more than before
2. They've been doing this all along but the low key and carefully couched way I write has never been a problem
3. There's a new vigilance and strategy by the Right to go after what they perceive as enemies.

If I had to guess, I'd pick numbers 2 and 3.  

Why?  The coiners of the term 'cancel culture' have been particularly unhappy about clampdowns on racist, sexist, and other discriminatory posts as well as the spreading of outright lies.

 (I object to indiscriminate use of the term 'conspiracy theory' because conspiracies do exist - when people work together behind the scenes to commit crimes.  Using the term 'conspiracy theory' to mean crazy makes people exposing actually conspiracies seem crazy too.)

This has become more of an issue since Trump was banned from Twitter.  And as Twitter's new owner is releasing bans on racist language and outright lies and intentional misinformation, I've also been seeing Tweets by reasonable, truth seeking progressive Tweeters who are being cancelled by Twitter.  Going back and looking for those examples is too time consuming, but here's a thread from progressive blogger Seth Abramson on how progressive bloggers are seeing huge drops in followers while misleading COVID and racist and Nazi accounts are being reinstated.

I've generally flown under the radar here.  The one time I was told to take down a post, it was from an attorney for the so called Alaska International Film Festival (mimicking the legit Anchorage International Film Festival) saying I was slandering his client.  My attorney's reply quickly ended that threat.  That was in 2010.  

Recently I - not the blog - got noticed by Right wing hyperbolizers when I sent an email to the Anchorage Assembly and it was pretty much posted verbatim on Must Read Alaska.

I went to the post and now it had a door, so to speak, that warned readers and required them to click the box that said they wanted to proceed.  

I'm guessing this could be part of the Right's cancelling efforts which flagged the 2009 post questioning how much Lynn Swann was paid by Anchorage Mayor (then) Dan Sullivan to speak here. Or it could Lynn Swann's booking company finding it on Google and protesting.  Or it could be someone who just found this old post and thought the title was misleading.

When I got the notice I carefully reread the post and couldn't figure out how Blogger could consider it a violation of their standards.  OK, the title of the post is misleading, but the body of the post explains why I titled it that and the first paragraph updates things to explain that a commenter added new information which made the title moot.  Did they really want me to change the title?  In this day when people post totally false stories that endanger the public and our democracy?  

Maybe someone flagged it and no one at Blogger actually read it.  So I reread the email to figure out how to communicate with them.  My only option seemed to be to click on an appeal link, which I did.  No way to actually add my thoughts.

Then later yesterday I got a new email saying the post had been reinstated.

Your post titled "Sullivan's Unity Speaker Swann Paid Enough for One Muni Job" has been reinstated

Hello,

     We have re-evaluated the post titled "Sullivan's Unity Speaker Swann  

Paid Enough for One Muni Job" against Community Guidelines  

https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy. Upon review, the post has been  

reinstated. You may access the post at  

http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2009/09/sullivans-unity-speaker-swan-paid.html.

     Sincerely,

     The Blogger Team

I guess someone at Blogger actually read it and realized it was as offensive as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which, if it falls open face down on the rug could be a problem. 

This was a 2009 post that really has no great relevance at all today, except maybe that it refers to a Black ex-football player and failed Republican political candidate.

In any case I want to note it here now.  The GOP has taught us well that we should not ignore the early warning signs.  I hope this is a one time exception to things.

AIFF 2022: Anchorage International Film Festival Begins Friday With Turkish Entry At The Bear Tooth

I once was totally on top of the Anchorage International Film Festival each year.  I've fallen behind this year, but this should get you into the mood.  

You can get tickets for individual films or passes for the whole festival at the AIFF website.  $100 passes for all films is a good deal if you have time to see more than eight or nine films.  I checked a couple and they were $12 each.  

Venues will be mostly Bear Tooth and the Museum.  

Also, check on the AIFF Facebook Page.

Feature Films

NARRATIVE FEATURES  - Note:  Three of these are by women film makers.  

“Dealing With Dad” by Tom Huang • USA

Interview with Director Tom Huang from Oxford Eagle

“The Last Birds of Passage” by Iffet Eren Danisman Boz • Turkey

OPENING NIGHT FILM, FRIDAY DEC. 2, 2022 

From an article on this film from Business Mirror.  It seems pretty relevant to issues faced by Alaska's ancient peoples.

"In one scene in the film, the nomads are invited to a kind of cultural festival in the city. They are declared as the real Yoruks, an identity important for them. Their presence is applauded and people take their photographs as if they are museum specimens. In real life, the director admits to a prejudice these people experience. It is a discrimination that is more subtle and implicit, and which comes out only in conflicts that arise because of the fact that there are people who move from one place to another, their incursion into lands not ably validated by license or ownership. Thus even on the way to the mountains, these people have to be careful not to tread on plantations owned by other people. Their supply of fresh and clean water is also endangered because mining and other human activities that allow humans to stay put have occupied lands and endangered the surroundings."

“Where Life Begins” by Stéphane Freiss • Italy, France 

From Home MCR:

"26-year-old Esther, the daughter of a rabbi from Aix-les-Bains, joins her ultra-Orthodox family on their annual trip to a farm in southern Italy, where they perform the sacred task of harvesting lemons. While Esther is expected to marry a man she does not yet know, her budding friendship with Elio, the farm owner, encourages her to follow her desire to leave religion and live life on her own terms. Set in the beautiful Italian countryside, Where Life Begins is a tender yet thought-provoking exploration of tradition, family and self-realisation."

 

The Wind & The Reckoning” by David L Cunningham • USA

From Cinema Clock:

"1893. The Hawaiian Kingdom has been overthrown by a Western power just as an outbreak of leprosy engulfs the tropical paradise. The new government orders all Native Hawaiians suspected of having the foreign disease banished permanently to a remote colony on the island of Moloka'i that is known as 'the island of the living grave'. When a local cowboy named Ko'olau and his young son Kalei contract the dreaded disease, they refuse to allow their family to be separated, sparking an armed clash with brutal white island authorities that will make Ko'olau and his wife, Pi'ilani heroes for the ages."

“You Resemble Me” by Dina Amer • USA

From the Press Kit (download at bottom of this page):  

SYNOPSIS

Cultural and intergenerational trauma erupt in this story about two sisters

on the outskirts of Paris. After the siblings are torn apart, the eldest, Hasna, struggles to find her identity, leading to a choice that shocks the world. Director Dina Amer takes on one of the darkest issues of our time and deconstructs it in an intimate story about family, love, sisterhood, and belonging.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

As a Muslim Egyptian woman living in the West, I’ve struggled to reconcile pieces of my identity that feel contradictory. I am a woman who has spent the majority of my life praying discreetly in public spaces (airports are the hardest). And yet I don’t look like what most of society envisions as a Muslim woman. I don’t wear a hijab and I love Cardi B. Throughout my life I’ve lived through the shadow of how the failure to reconcile a Muslim Western identity with such clear contradictions can result in a haunting headline. [This is just a short excerpt]

I couldn't get an embed code, but here's a link to the trailer.  I'd recommend watching it.

From the AIFF Facebook page, here's some other films at the Bear Tooth

Cancelled Wiz Leads To Seattle's Pacific Science Center

 The Wiz was not high on my todo list.  It wasn't even on my todo list.  But when invited to accompany my daughter and granddaughter to see the Wiz, I, of course, said yes!

The ferry into Seattle was jammed with Seahawks fans.

We made our way to the Art Museum restaurant for lunch and while eating my daughter got a voice mail saying that the afternoon performance of The wiz wasn't.  An hour before the show we learn it was cancelled? That's even more bewildering because looking on line today I find this at the 5th Avenue Theater site:

"Masks will be encouraged but optional for audience members at The 5th for performances of The Wiz. We strongly recommend and encourage the wearing of highly effective masks such as N95, KN95, or KF94.  Please CLICK HERE for further details.

Please note, the performances of The Wiz on November 19, 20 and 27 matinee have been canceled."   

If the matinee was cancelled last weekend, why didn't they notify us sooner?  (I suggested to my daughter that they hadn't sold enough tickets and she responded that they'd been sold out.)

Oh well.  Flexibility.   

The Pacific Science Center at the site of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair was my granddaughter's immediate alternative destination.  That meant a short rail ride to the monorail, then the monorail to the Space Needle.  

A walk over to the Science Center and to the laser show.  

I was underwhelmed.  I  expected a laser show in 2022 to be more than lots of moving squiggles and primitive cartoons backed with lame electronic music.  (Note:  I like good electronic music.)

A bathroom break.  This was probably the best surprise of the Science Center.  Most surfaces had great sciencish cartoons.  Though this one leaves a sexist conclusion that lacks some key context.  Did they have this same example in the women's room?  (I think you can click on this to enlarge and focus it, but I won't know until it's actually up.)

Then we engaged in various science activities while waiting for a 4pm planetarium show.  Some time in my favorite spot - the butterfly garden.  

Parts do look like they were built 60 years ago for the World's Fair.  

A four o'clock planetarium show was going to get us to a late ferry back to Bainbridge. And we found out that planetarium had an open house, so to speak, where people could drop in and ask questions.  So we got to visit various planets and moons.  It's been a while since I've considered how amazing and humbling the universe is.  All those stars and planets out there that we only have a tiny inkling about.  

From there, we wandered over to the Space Needle.  It seems the women decided that this was a good opportunity for my  granddaughter to go to the top of the Space Needle since both her parents have separate reasons for not taking an elevator 60 stories up in order to look 60 stories down and Grandpa was a perfect escort.  

It's been 60 years since I went to the top of the Space Shuttle, when three friends and I drove up to the World's Fair in 1962 in a '32 Model A Ford.  My memory of being up there is rather hazy.  

But I remember yesterday pretty clearly still.  There are three public floors.  In the top one you can wander around inside with glass walls, drinks, snacks, photo opportunities, or wander around semi-outside, with large glass walls and benches.  The picture above was from that level.  

I'd point out that if you find the green ferris wheel you can see one of the ferries to Bainbridge and Bremerton right behind it.

Here's another view of that outside top area of the Space Needle.

Then there is a middle level that didn't seem to have windows, but did have bathrooms.  

Finally, the lower level also had windows all around.  And it had a ring of floor, sort of like a ring around Saturn, that was glass and slowly rotated.  That took some instinct erasing to step on.

Then back on the monorail to the light rail and a walk back to the ferry where we encountered the Seahawks fans once again.  You couldn't tell their team had lost.  They were loud and chanting - one person shouting "Sea" and the crowd answering "Hawks."  There also seemed to be some testosterone at work.  Though a women managed to push one of the excited ones back until a security officer took him off somewhere. 

And finally, as the ferry left the terminal in downtown Seattle, we could look back up to the Space Needle - that tall tower just left of the center.  

A long and busy day with two of my favorite people.  

Obituaries Should Be Published At Least A Year Before People Die

 As I read the obituaries in the Anchorage Daily News, I come across people that I really, really wish I would have known and could have talked to about their apparently incredible lives.  Waiting until they are dead means I've missed the opportunity.  

And this thought was reinforced when I saw this note about Alfred Nobel's premature obituary:

"To prepare for your next cultural activity in Värmland, ask yourself this: what would you do if you read your own (accidental) obituary? In Alfred Nobel’s case, an obituary published by mistake on a French newspaper made him re-examine his whole life. See, the Swedish chemist held 355 different patents and one of them was for the invention of the dynamite. But after a long career producing firearms and weapons for sale, he decided he didn’t want his legacy to be “the merchant of death”. So he funneled all of his considerable fortune to form the Nobel Prize Institute, which awards 'outstanding contributions to humanity'”.

Not only do early obituaries give the living a chance to meet interesting people before they die, but, in Nobel's case, it gave him the opportunity to reflect on his life and legacy.  

There are a number of folks today who might be able to repair some of the damage they've done in the world if faced with their obituaries a year or more before they die. 

And then there are people who might be able to edit what their children write about them.  We could publish an obituary cliche list that people could use to be a bit more authentic.  First obituary cliche entry would be: "he married the love of his life."  

I ran across this excerpt at Culturetrip.tcom while trying to find out more about Värmland, the county where the Story of Gösta Berling takes place, preparation for Monday night's book club meeting. I've put up some quotes from Gösta Berling in the last post.

Giving Things Away This Thanksgiving

We're on Bainbridge Island visiting with family for Thanksgiving.  I've been walking more than biking just because a) most roads here are either up or down or both and b) bikes get, if at all, narrow space on the side of two lane roads.  

The other day I walked past this gifting and receiving stand.  It's on a small dead end street that doesn't get much traffic, but there is a walk way that goes through to a main road.  

This one is a nice idea, but I suspect it will have little impact on recycling, but perhaps it will cause people to think about buying stuff.  

Other related efforts that seem to have a bigger impact are Freecycle and Buy Nothing.

"Freecycling is when a person passes along, for free, an unwanted item to another person who needs that item. From silverware to mobile homes, people worldwide are choosing to freecycle rather than discard. The practice frees up space in landfills and cuts down on the need to manufacture new goods. Thousands of groups dedicated to connecting people who want to give away something to people with a need are forming worldwide. Here are three steps you can take to join the freecycling movement."

And Buy Nothing.

THE BUY NOTHING PROJECT is an international network of local gift economies. Buy Nothing offers people a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a worldwide network of gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are real-life neighbors. We believe that communities are more resilient, sustainable, equitable, and joyful when they have functional gift economies

Both use the internet to help neighbors give away what they don't need and find things they need.

And as we celebrate Thanksgiving, with businesses salivating for Christmas sales,  it's a good time

Inflation could steal Christmas, but shoppers are finding ways around it  (Washington Post)

Jaclyn Peiser

to remember that our capitalist system is a huge Ponzi scheme which requires organizations to grow constantly and to compete for 'market share.'  People who actually have jobs that pay well mostly have way more stuff than they need.  This economic model exploits and pollutes our natural environment.  And causes the wealthy (those with 'enough' money) to often be poor in time and interpersonal relationships.

So use today to think about what you have, what you need, and what you could do without.  I think about a friend who barely earns enough to keep housed and fed, yet pays a monthly fee on a storage unit with stuff he never uses.  

Here's a post I wrote in 2007 called Not Consuming isn't just about Being Cheap. I'd note that since then I did get a cell phone.  

A Lesson In Simple People Power From Sweden, Late 1800s

The Story of Gósta Berling by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlof is the story of people in rural Sweden in the late 1800s.  People deal with evil spirits and the word of God, the beauty and the dangers of nature, and the challenges of making a living in the northern regions of earth.  There are rich people and poor, good and evil, hard workers and lazy.  

It shouldn't be surprising how much human beings then and there are like people here and now.  

The villagers have walked out at the end of the Sunday services in the local church.   Their protest is quiet and simple and effective.  A lesson for us today to think of ways to creatively make our protests known. 

This excerpt takes place in a later chapter called The Drought.  It's late summer and there has been no rain since June.  Crops are dying, forest fires are burning.  People are getting desperate.  All are questioning if it is their behavior that has caused God to withhold the rain.  

"It was a Sunday in August. The service was over. The people wandered in groups along the sunny roads. On all sides they saw burned woods and ruined crops. There had been many forest fires; and what they had spared, insects had taken.  

The gloomy people did not lack for subjects of conversation. There were many who could tell how hard it had been in the years of famine of eighteen hundred and eight and nine, and in the cold winter of eighteen hundred and twelve, when the sparrows froze to death. They knew how to make bread out of bark, and how the cows could be taught to eat moss.

There was one woman who had tried a new kind of bread of cranberries and corn-meal. She had a sample with her, and let the people taste it. She was proud of her invention.

But over them all floated the same question. It stared from every eye, was whispered by every lip: “Who is it, O Lord, whom Thy hand seeks?”

A man in the gloomy crowd which had gone westward, and struggled up Broby hill, stopped a minute before the path which led up to the house of the mean Broby clergyman. He picked up a dry stick from the ground and threw it upon the path.  

“Dry as that stick have the prayers been which he has given our Lord,” said the man.

He who walked next to him also stopped. He took up a dry branch and threw it where the stick had fallen.

“That is the proper offering to that priest,” he said.

The third in the crowd followed the others’ example.

“He has been like the drought; sticks and straw are all that he has let us keep.”

The fourth said: “We give him back what he has given us.”

And the fifth: “For a perpetual disgrace I throw this to him. May he dry up and wither away like this branch!”

“Dry food to the dry priest,” said the sixth.

The people who came after see what they are doing and hear what they say. Now they get the answer to their long questioning.

“Give him what belongs to him! He has brought the drought on us.”

And each one stops, each one says his word and throws his branch before he goes on.

In the corner by the path there soon lies a pile of sticks and straw,—a pile of shame for the Broby clergyman.

That was their only revenge. No one lifted his hand against the clergyman or said an angry word to him. Desperate hearts cast off part of their burden by throwing a dry branch on the pile. They did not revenge themselves. They only pointed out the guilty one to the God of retribution."

“If we have not worshipped you rightly, it is that man’s fault. Be pitiful, Lord, and let him alone suffer! We mark him with shame and dishonor. We are not with him.

It soon became the custom for every one who passed the vicarage to throw a dry branch on the pile of shame.

The old miser soon noticed the pile by the roadside. He had it carried away,—some said that he heated his stove with it. The next day a new pile had collected on the same spot, and as soon as he had that taken away a new one was begun.

The dry branches lay there and said: “Shame, shame to the Broby clergyman!”

Soon the people’s meaning became clear to him. He understood that they pointed to him as the origin of their misfortune. It was in wrath at him God let the earth languish. He tried to laugh at them and their branches; but when it had gone on a week, he laughed no more. Oh, what childishness! How can those dry sticks injure him? He understood that the hate of years sought an opportunity of expressing itself."

The book's copyright is long over and you can read the book at Gutenberg.org or you can listen to a Swede reading it in English at the Internet Archive here.   This chapter is Part II, Chapter XVI.

Who Pays For It Scam? The Propaganda Campaign

This video is good.  It will take about 30 minutes of your time.  It's better to watch it, but go ahead and listen to it while you are doing other mindless tasks you can do without thinking.  Kneading bread, putting away dishes, working out, or if that's not your thing, baking a cake.  

I'm not even asking you to listen to the whole thing, because I think once you start it you'll watch the rest.  

He takes fairly complex stuff and makes it pretty simple.  BUT, since we all have been so programmed, you do have to think a little bit to understand the programming - Who Pays? - and how the question is only asked for social welfare issues and not for military spending or tax cuts, particularly tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy.  

Some key themes that come up:

• Long term programing through repetition of "Who pays?" and "What about the debt?"
• How this programming evolved - from trying to convince average folks (didn't work) to convincing news media and members of Congress (works).  
• How media then use the fake think tank 'experts' as 'experts' on news programs.
• How news media are either unable to counter these ideas or bought and paid for so the won't.  Even PBS and NPR get caught up in this.  

All done with humor.  Ideally, when you watch or read news, you'll think about this video and not be taken in so easily.  He's talking about the relentless attacks of "Who Pays For It?" for social programs but not other government expenditures.  But you should be thinking about framing on all the other issues as well.  

One thing that emerges in the video is how little viewers actually know about the background of the guests on most media news programs - don't know their past or even current involvement with organizations that have a vested interest in the topic.  So here's Maza's Wikipedia page to start your awareness of who he is.  

OK, Carlos Maza is no Hasan Minaj*, but probably if he had Minaj's budget, staff, and researchers, he might get there.  If you don't know who Minaj is, you can watch his Patriot Act series on Netflix which picks a national issue and gets rid of the smoke and mirrors so you can see the wizards behind each scam he covers.  More recently he did The King's Jester on Netflix - also fantastic.  Maza covers some similar ground, but technically at a much more basic level.   No Netflix?  Here's a bit of The King's Jester on Youtube.  Well, I just watched it so I wouldn't be steering you wrong.  This appears to be a show where he worked with some of the material for King's Jester, but didn't really pull it all together into the show that talks about the importance of standing up to powerful people. And the personal risks.  The King's Jester is terrific.  This Youtube piece is, well, okay.  

*I realize there is some talk online about Minaj not treating some staff well. But the reports are really vague. I'm not saying there is nothing there, but given the kinds of people Minaj takes on, one can also see them doing campaigns like this to cut off his message. Patriot Act was not renewed by Netflix.