Happy Birthday Monica, Alex, and Ropi

I know three others who have birthdays today and I want to wish them a great day.

Does this last birthday card translate across cultures?  In the US we can make a wish on a dandelion and then if you blow all the seeds off, the wish is supposed to come true.

Vegies and Good Neighbors

Yesterday I picked up our box of vegies and fruits from full circle farm.  It's a combination of a little bit of many different things, including things we don't usually get.  So yesterday I was online looking up turnip recipes.  We ended up with one called Red Kidney Beans with Turnips.


 We're going to have to talk to them about recycling the boxes though. 

Also that day, our neighbor came by with a jar of pickled green beans he made.  He uses them for martinis, but I've been eating them straight out of the jar.

The Human Toll From Our National Obsession and Ignorance about Sexuality

What is it about our inability as a nation to deal with sex in an adult way?  Despite the excessive use of sex in marketing of nearly every product, many US citizens aren't able to talk frankly, with knowledge, and without embarrassment about sexuality.

One side effect is politicians (we'll leave other professions for another day)  disgraced by the public disclosure of their sexual conduct.  Because of our cultural obsession with publicly denying real human sexuality in favor of  happily ever after fairy tales, these politicians  resort to twisted lies (from Clinton's "I didn't have sex with that woman" to South Carolina's Gov. Sanford's Appalachian trail story) rather than tell the truth.   In most cases, the deception becomes more problematic than the behavior.  

Here's an example from,  until recently, closeted gay California Republican state senator Roy Ashburn, who, apparently to cover his own sexuality, has voted his whole career against the rights of GLBT citizens. 

The following is a guest commentary by Sen. Roy Ashburn

Startled by the blurry reality of a red light glaring in my rear-view mirror at 2 am on the morning of March, 4, 2010, I knew my life was about to change.  The California Highway Patrol stopped me as I was driving drunk after leaving a gay club in Sacramento, California’s capital.   With my arrest and the media inquiry that followed, my deeply-held secret was no longer my own business.  My private life as a closeted gay man was now the public’s business, and I had a lot of explaining to do. [You can read the rest of the commentary by this 26 year Republican politician at GayPolitics which I found through BentAlaska.]

While his apology (you have to click on the link to get the whole thing) is welcomed by all who believe in equal rights, it only came after he was outed.  

The internet has made knowledge about sexuality and all its myriad variations (sort of like all the different flowers and birds and bugs in nature) much more accessible, and possibly more of our population has a more realistic picture of human sexuality than my generation grew up with.  But on the one hand,  the many misogynist lyrics and movies suggest  a lot of people may know more mechanics of sex than about the art of relationships.  On the other hand the denial of the many faces of human sexuality, most often by religious zealots,  suggests ignorance is thriving too.  Somewhere in the middle there must be a healthy mental and physical balance.

Fortunately, people like Dan Savage offer accessible and frank (and sometimes over the top) discussions of sexuality and relationships that were completely  unimaginable 26 years ago when Sen. Ashburn was first elected.  If he could have read columns like Savage's as a young man how different and more honest his life might have been.

UFO's In My Garden - More Flowers and Bugs

Here's an Unidentified Flying Object and I've got somewhat Unidentified Flowering Objects below.



The macro on my little Canon Powerpoint  gets me pretty good closeups that can be enlarged to see things normally invisible with the naked eye.

Pictures of flowers were going to be an easy post I thought.  Until I started trying to figure out what I was looking at.  I've spent way too long trying to figure out these flower parts.  These are things I normally can't even see.  

I'm hoping I can get hold of a biologist friend who can help me with the identification of these flower parts.

The illustration at the right, from  saburchill.com, might suggest that the green nub is the stigma and the little star shaped flower at the top could be (help!) also part of the stigma or polllen grain, or ???  See also the picture of the pollen grains on the lily stigma below flower functions at science-fair-projects-encyclopedia.  [Based on the diagram below from countrysideinfo I'm going to say that the green is probably the ovary, the star the stigma, but since the same parts of different flowers come in such different guises, unless you have someone who really knows, it's hard to tell from the diagrams.  So don't assume anything here is definitive.]

You can see an impatiens pod on this website, which I'm pretty sure is a later stage of the green part of the pink impatience flower in my picture above.  At the top this link has a discussion of getting seeds from impatiens and the pictures are at the bottom. 

To the right above you can see that impatiens flower from a little further back.  It also has a thrips on it. 

I had an image of that word in my head yesterday, but couldn't get the letters in the right order, but Jeff Lowenfels discussed them in his garden column today and then I looked them up online.  I'm pretty certain that's what it is.  Here it is a little closer, but they are really tiny. 

OK, now that you know your flower parts (that was a joke), let's look at this campanula.

The diagram at right/below and the text below come from countrysideinfo, a UK site, which I think clears things up much more.  

The female parts of a flower consist of an ovary, which contains one or more ovules, a style and the stigma. The ovary is at the base of the flower.
From the ovary, extends a tubular structure called the style and on the top of the style is a surface receptive to pollen called the stigma.
The stigma can take many different forms, most of them designed to help trap pollen. There are many variations on this basic structural theme.

The curly things have to be the stigma and suggests the star shaped thing on the impatiens is also the stigma.  And yes, more thrips on the campanula.  And the parts that look like they've collapsed are probably the stamens, or male parts.

OK, one more to check out.  A pansy up close.  So, what is the white hairy stuff?  Another form of stigma?  Surely the green seed pod is growing right inside there.

What's a Film Festival?

This is Part 2 of a three part post.
Part 1 was What is a scam?
Part 3 will evaluate the authenticity of the Anchorage International Film Festival and the Alaska International Film Festival.


What's a Film Festival?

I've gone through about 15 on-line definitions after googling variations of "What is a Film Festival?" I've posted eight below representing an array of perspectives:  the non-film related Wikipedia, several film festivals, a screenwriters' website, a state film commission, a major British newspaper's film blog, and a book on European Cinema. 

I'll pull out the basic characteristics that are represented in these definitions.  The actual definitions I used are
 below. You can skip down to see them.   But here I'm going to try to summarize the key points that seem to make up a film festival. 

WHAT?

1.  A film festival is a festival.  This seems pretty obvious, but nearly all the definitions stress it is a  gathering of people coming together - film makers, the public, industry professionals, producers, distributors, actors, various other film talents such as makeup, camera, lighting, etc., critics.

WHY? 

2.  To show films.  Again, they all emphasize the key focus is "an organized, extended presentation of films" (1 below); "films are screened" (2); "short or feature length films are shown" (3);  "Film festivals show films" (4);  "chance to see the latest movies" (5);  "a cinematic festival that features films"(7);  "filmmakers get their movies in front of a real live audience"(8)) 

2a.  Exposure for films ("to gain exposure and critical buzz and, in many cases, distribution."(3); "allowing their films to get some exposure"(5))

2b.  Market films ("To market completed film projects and scripts to distributors"(7);"get valuable press attention and exposure to prospective agents and buyers" (8))

2c.  Feedback/Networking ("audience making contact with filmmakers"(4);  "opportunity to schmooze producers, distributors and critics" (5); "an opportunity to network with filmmakers, directors, producers, writers, actors, investors, comedians, musicians, entertainers, politicians, and others who share an interest in the arts"(7); "have their films reviewed by professional critics."(8))

2d.  Education/Training ("sometimes panels or workshops related to film and the industry"(2); "Before or after each film there will be someone who will talk about the making of the movie."(4);"To learn new industry technology and to educate professionals and non-professionals"(7))

2e.  Prizes.  Awards were only mentioned in one of the definitions:  "sometimes sizeable cash award if they win" (8)  I found Christopher Holland's book Film Festival Secrets just as I was finishing this.  He covers pretty much these same why's (filmmaker goals) of film festivals but adds parties and travel.  He has a succinct overview of prizes:

It’s common for festivals to offer cash prizes for the best work of the season. . . Other festivals get sponsors to kick in prize packages worth more than the cash prizes . . . Even if there’s no cash involved, festival awards are a nice way to draw attention to your film.  More media coverage is given to award winners and you can draw future festival audiences to your film with some laurel wreaths on your poster. (pp. 8-9) 

2f.  To market the filmmaking possibilities of the festival location (" To provide funding for The Southwest Georgia Film Commission Office whose primary function is economic development by using the film and television industry as the vehicle. "(7))  This issue also comes up in a doctoral dissertation on a Korean film festival mentioned under "Some other longer discussions" below.)

WHO?

3.  Film people, money people, and the public. ("audience making contact with the filmmakers behind the movies . . . producers, distributors, and actors as well as film directors"(4); "producers, distributors and critics" (5); "the physical presence of large numbers of people"(6); "gathering of show business industry professionals and non-professionals. . . an opportunity to network with filmmakers, directors, producers, writers, actors, investors, comedians, musicians, entertainers, politicians, and others who share an interest in the arts." (7))

WHEN?

4a.  Duration from a day to two weeks. ("in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality."(1); 
4b.  Frequency usually annually. ("Film festivals are typically annual events."(1))

WHERE?

5.  Usually in several venues in one city.

WHICH?

6.  A wide variety of types of films.  Different festivals have different focuses.  ("The films may be of recent date and, depending upon the focus of the individual festival, can include international releases as well as films produced by the organisers' domestic film industry. Sometimes there is a focus on a specific film-maker or genre (e.g., film noir) or subject matter (e.g., gay and lesbian film festivals). A number of film festivals specialise in short films, each with its defined maximum length."(1))

Summary:  A film festival is a gathering of people to show and watch films in a single location (city) using one or more venues.  The main purposes are to get an audience for filmmakers and to let the public and critics see a wide variety of new films (and some older), particularly genres that normally aren't theatrically released.  There are opportunities for the participants to meet, discuss the films, filmmaking, and distribution of the films.  It also is a networking opportunity that can lead to connections for future work.  Festivals have awards for the best films in different categories.

I also noticed that there is some concern that some festivals have become too commercial or too elite.  For short films and experimental films, festivals seem to be a key way to get people to see their films.


Online Festivals

But another venue mentioned by one of the animated filmmakers at last year's Anchorage International Film Festival was online.  He mentioned he had over a million hits for his films at YouTube which he would never get at festivals.

So what about online film festivals where people don't come together in a single place and mingle with others to watch films?   This is a relatively new phenomenon.  Babelgum Online Film Festival states its purpose:

The Babelgum Online Film Festival was created to celebrate and reward the very best in international independent short filmmaking by providing exposure and cash awards for emerging talent. With its non-restrictive submission guidelines and international visibility, the festival supports and encourages talent and continues to provide a unique venue for filmmakers to showcase their craft.

CologneOff started as an online festival, but became a physical festival with an online component.

Shortsnonstop is a Canadian online festival.

These and others clearly state their online nature and post films for anyone to watch online.

What these online festival provide is exposure for film makers - perhaps a little more focused than simply putting one's film up on YouTube or on one's own website - and a chance to win a prize, though depending on how many submissions there are, this might be pretty remote.  They do not provide the face time one could get at a film festival and live audience reaction or the chance to meet producers and publishers and other film makers.  Though presumably they could see the films on line and contact the filmmaker via email.


So that's my relative novice overview of film festivals.  Below are the definitions I found online and are the references for the quotes above.


1.  Wikipedia:

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. The films may be of recent date and, depending upon the focus of the individual festival, can include international releases as well as films produced by the organisers' domestic film industry. Sometimes there is a focus on a specific film-maker or genre (e.g., film noir) or subject matter (e.g., gay and lesbian film festivals). A number of film festivals specialise in short films, each with its defined maximum length. Film festivals are typically annual events.

2.  From the Revolve Film Festival in North Carolina:

Q: What is a Film Festival exactly?
A: It’s an event where films are screened over the space of a few days. Usually there are visiting celebrities, parties, and sometimes panels or workshops related to film and the industry. Each festival cultivates its own personality, reflected by its size and programming.

3.   From Screenwriting's glossary

Film Festival

A festival of short and/or feature-length films shown over the course of between a few days to a few weeks. Festivals are places for films and filmmakers – particularly in the case of independent films – to gain exposure and critical buzz and, in many cases, distribution. Perhaps the two best-known festivals in the world are Sundance and Cannes.

4.  From New Jersey State Film Festival's Film Festival 101

1. What is a film festival and what makes it different from going to see the latest blockbuster?
   Surprise: a film festival is not just about seeing films (although there are over 50 films showing between Thursday and Sunday). It is about the audience making contact with the filmmakers behind the movies.We have two “sidebars”—which are special film programs brought to the festival from other festivals. This year there are a host of famous producers, distributors, and actors as well as film directors. Before or after each film there will be someone who will talk about the making of the movie. You will come away with the kind of insider information you can’t get in the lobby of a megaplex.
2. Film festivals show films that you may never get a chance to see anywhere else.
   For example, on Saturday from 10 AM to 5 PM at the Beach Four you can watch dozens of short films—animation, documentaries, experimental, and short fiction—all for just $10. That’s 7 hours of wild, beautiful, funny, moving, crazy, and sometimes just plain weird independent films made by over 100 New Jersey film artists. You won’t like all of them, but you will remember many of them because they will make you think, see different images, and open up parts of your imagination you didn’t know existed.

5.  From The Guardian's Film Blog:

As a regular film festival-goer, I often find myself asking: "What is a film festival for?" The replies vary depending on whether one is a film-maker, critic or member of the public. Film-makers may answer that it gives them an opportunity to schmooze producers, distributors and critics, while allowing their films to get some exposure. Critics and film-goers may say it gives them the chance to see the latest movies before anyone else in their country. Alas, the biggest draws at a festival are usually films that will most likely be shown sooner or later at the local multiplex.

6.   From Thomas Elsaesser's book European Cinema  (p. 94)

What is a (film) festival?  As annual gatherings, for the purpose of reflection and renewal, film festivals partake in the general function of festivals.  Festivals are the moments of self-celebration of a community:  they may inaugurate the New year, honor a successful harvest, mark the end of fasting, or observe the return of a special date.  Festivals require an occasion, a place and the physical presence of large numbers of people.  the same is true of film festivals.  Yet in their iterative aspect, their many covert and overt hierarchies and special codes, film festivals are also comparable to rituals and ceremonies. . .

7.   From the South West Georgia Film Commission:

What is a Film Festival? 

A film festival is a cinematic festival that features films.  It is a gathering of show business industry professionals and non-professionals.  The JOKARA Family Film/Video Festival will provide its attendees with an opportunity to network with filmmakers, directors, producers, writers, actors, investors, comedians, musicians, entertainers, politicians, and others who share an interest in the arts.

 The Purpose of a Film Festival

Each town in Southwest Georgia is uniquely different and has much to offer to the film and television industry in terms of locations.  In addition to the beautiful topography and possible location sites, the state of Georgia has great tax incentives and offers extra incentives to those who will shoot their projects in the Southwest Georgia region.    

 According to the Southwest Georgia Film Commission Director, Ralph Wilcox, who is also the festival’s director and a 30 year veteran actor in Hollywood and on the New York Broadway stage,  this festival is multi-purposed:http://www.kylegilman.net/2007/01/11/why-make-short-films/

 §          To market completed film projects and scripts to distributors, whether major studios (i.e. Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Sony, Paramount) or independent distributors (i.e. Wal-Mart, Blockbusters)

§          To learn new industry technology and to educate professionals and non-professionals in the areas of acting, cameras, lights, sound, scriptwriting, hair and makeup, and wardrobe 

§          To provide marketing and exposure opportunities, whether one is a writer, director, actor, editor, etc… 

§          To provide funding for The Southwest Georgia Film Commission Office whose primary function is economic development by using the film and television industry as the vehicle. 

8.   Entertainment.howthingswork explains film festivals this way:

What are Film Festivals?
Film festivals are events staged by universities, private organizations, local governments, arts associations and/or film societies. They provide an opportunity for unknown filmmakers to get their movies in front of a real live audience and to have their films reviewed by professional critics. Filmmakers whose movies get accepted into a festival also get valuable press attention and exposure to prospective agents and buyers, not to mention a sometimes sizeable cash award if they win.

Some other, longer discussions:

1.  Shorts filmmaker Kyle Gilman discussing festivals and short films and the potential online market for short films.

2.  A Korean film industry veteran, SooJeong AHN's, doctoral dissertation (pdf) for the University of Nottingham on the Pusan International Film Festival and the role of non-Western film festivals in national identity, marketing of regional films to the West, and other somewhat different perspectives of film festivals.

Protesters Invite BP to Join Oil Addicts Anonymous

As I was riding home - fortunately, just before it started to rain hard - I came to this scene at New Seward Highway and Benson in front of BP Alaska's  headquarters in Anchorage. 

Since I was on my bike, it was easy to stop and ask what was going on.  They pointed to Josh as their spokesperson.



[Viddler was having trouble so I uploaded to YouTube today.]

HA! Brave New World: It Looks Like Being Too Clean Can Hurt You

Despite my flip title, this piece from Nature [this comes from the Nature News section and is not from the actual scientific report in Nature by Alejandro Reyes, Matthew Haynes Nicole Hanson, Florent E. Angly, Andrew C. Heath, Forest Rohwer, & Jeffrey I. Gordon] says there's a world of bacteria and viruses living inside us that do work for us we couldn't live without. 

These findings, preliminary as they might be, demonstrate that despite all we do know about how the human body functions, there is still so very much more to know. 

More than 10 trillion bacteria normally inhabit the gastrointestinal tract, where they synthesize essential amino acids and vitamins, produce anti-inflammatory factors and help break down starches, sugars and proteins that people could not otherwise digest. Within and among these bacteria live bacterial viruses, or bacteriophages, which affect bacterial numbers and behaviour as they either prey on bacteria or co-exist with them, shuttling genes from one bacterium to another.

This microscopic dynamic ecosystem affects our lives in ways we still do not fully understand. Indeed, the rise in the incidence of food allergies in Western societies has led to hypotheses that extreme hygiene disrupts the ability of microbes to colonize human guts, resulting in a lack of tolerance to usually harmless foods. 

. . ."This human ecosystem is quite important because it determines what we can do and what we can eat," says [Edward] DeLong [at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.] "That's why we should care about this." 

A brief NY Times editorial alerted me to this article.   Though the original Nature News article isn't that long or technical itself.  The actual scientific article requires payment if you aren't a subscriber to get more than the abstract.

Kate Gale Leaves Gnawed Bones for Peggy Shumaker

Last Thursday we walked over to the Arts Building at UAA to hear poetry.  Kate Gale, who created and runs, as I understood it, Red Hen Press, read red hot poetry.  Her poems are in your face and challenge the listener on themes not usually rendered so directly in poetry or elsewhere.   (I found the Red Hen website to be visually interesting - the icon of the hen is white, though the words are red - and incredibly slow to open.)

She read in one about luring someone out of the prison of his high rise office, to fly out the window to freedom.  It was a powerful poem.  She did preface it by explaining that she wrote it when she was trying to convince her husband to leave his secure job with a good salary.  Just leave it and join her in pursuing poetry and making the Red Hen Press work.  In a poetry reading you can get such context from the poet that you normally wouldn't get in a book of poetry.  But without the preface, a reader has more freedom to interpret the poem more personally.

It wasn't like one imagines a poetry reading.  Rather it felt as though she was exposing her heart with just the thinnest veil of words between herself and the audience.

Then Peggy Shumaker came to the podium.  We'd all been given copies of her book Gnawed Bones at the beginning of the reading and she told us now, that they were only on loan so we could read along.  She asked audience members to pick a poem for her to read.  Someone would call out a title, then she'd ask what page, and read.  By the third of fourth poem people were calling out page numbers, which is a lot less poetic, but it moved things along faster.  I liked the idea of this - involving the audience more - but somehow it was less intimate. It was like the audience members were fetching a ball and then dropping it at her feet waiting to be petted.

And each time, Peggy would go to the page, see the poem, and smile as she recognized it.  Then she read it.

I'd read one of the poems in the book before things started.  It was about visiting a sick relative in the hospital.  Since a good friend is sick in the hospital, it particularly hit home.  But I didn't ask her to read it.

Shumaker's reading was much more like I used to imagine poetry readings.  I don't have her poems in front of me so it's hard to say exactly what it was about them, but the poems and the delivery sounded very much like 'poetry' in the sense of something distinct from real life.  She read everything in a voice and rhythm that one associates with teachers reading poetry.   

It was unfortunate that Shumaker didn't proceed Gale.  I think that would have worked much better.  As it was, it really felt that after Gale, all that was left for Shumaker, was gnawed bones.

But don't take my word for it.  You can listen to podcasts of Thursday evening and many of the other presentations this week. Note:  the link goes directly to the podcast for Gale and Shumaker.  For the others look for July 2010 podcasts.   There is one more reading Tuesday night July 20, 2010. 

What's a Scam?

This is the first of what I think will be a three part series looking at

1. what's a scam?
2. what's a film festival?
3. A comparison of the authenticity of the ANCHORAGE International Film Festival to the ALASKA International Film Festival.

So, what is a scam?

[Note:  I am not an attorney and what I write here represents the facts I have been able to gather and my interpretation/opinion of those facts.]


The answer seems to boil down to deception.  A scam is an activity in which one party deceives another party to gain some advantage.  Another factor seems to be that this tends to be more elaborate than a simple lie.  There is a scheme of sorts in which a person is seduced through misleading representations into an agreement.

One issue that comes up is whether an activity has to be illegal to be a scam.   From what I can tell, the answer is no.

It is like the relationship between unethical and illegal.  Something can be unethical (seen as morally wrong by most people) without being illegal (in violation of the law) and the same seems to be true of a scam.

A 1987 Appeals Court Decision (McCabe v. Rattiner) said:

". . .we observe that the word "scam" does not have a precise meaning. As the district judge said in his bench ruling, "it means different things to different people ... and there is not a single usage in common phraseology." While some connotations of the word may encompass criminal behavior, others do not.2 The lack of precision makes the assertion "X is a scam" incapable of being proven true or false. Cf. Buckley v. Littel, 539 F.2d 882, 895 (2d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1062, 97 S.Ct. 786, 50 L.Ed.2d 777 (1977) ("[t]he issue of what constitutes an 'openly fascist' journal is as much a matter of opinion or idea as is the question what constitutes 'fascism' or the 'radical right' ").

Scam versus Fraud

In common usage the words tend to overlap, but fraud is the term defined in the law.   From Fraudlaw.org, a site aimed at residents of Washington and Oregon:

 Most people think of fraud as a [sic] evil practice.  But “fraud” as used in law means simply action or lack of action that is punishable by law.  Fraud is defined by the legislature and the courts.  It includes outright deception, and sometimes almost “accidental” misrepresentation.  In some circumstances (like investments) fraud includes failure to disclose or to tell the whole truth.  Sometimes the law makes people like officers and directors and those who assist in furthering the fraud liable even if they did not know about the fraud. 

The discussion goes on to distinguish levels of fraud based on intent:

1) Fraudulent Misrepresentation (Deceit);
2) Concealment and Non Disclosure;
3) Negligent Misrepresentation; and
4) Innocent Misrepresentation. 

It goes on to list:

The 9 elements of Oregon fraud are:

1)  A representation; [I'm assuming this means what was represented to the hearer?]

2) Its falsity;

3) Its materiality; [Again, I'm assuming this is whether a point in the representation is relevant or important to the action taken.]

4) The speaker's knowledge of the representation's falsity or ignorance of its truth;

5) Intent that the representation be acted on in a manner reasonably contemplated;

6) The hearer's ignorance of the falsity of the representation;

7) The hearer's reliance on its truth;

8) The hearer's right to rely on the representation; and

9) Damage caused by the representation.

Musgrave v. Lucas, 193 Or 401, 410, 238 P2d 780 (1951); Webb v Clark, 274 Or 387, 391, 546 P2d 1078 (1976).

On the website GeorgeSMayScam, the writer offers a long example where something can be legal, but still a scam.  He claims to be a former employee who left in good standing:

The George S. May International scam is elaborate [sic] scheme focused on small to medium sized businesses that have some difficulty making a profit or enough profit among other issues.  The most important thing that GSM wants to know is how much money is in the client’s checking account.  If there is not enough money in the checking account, the question is how much does the client have in securities or other quick to liquid assets.  They then tailor a plan to take ALL of the client’s available money.
Everything is done legally and is therefore protected by law.  The forms are long, detailed, and lawyer proof.  The signatures are all in place before services are rendered or one cent is collected.
So, you may ask, “What is your problem?  If it is all legal, why are you calling it a scam?”
The definition of the word scam, according to Webster’s dictionary, is a "deceptive act".  See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scam.  This is how the term is used here.  If a company has a practice of getting clients to sign a contract without completely informing and explaining verbally all of the zingers in the contract, it is deceptive. 

 He then goes on to detail the many ways the legal contract was designed so that the customers couldn't get out of the requirement to pay George S May.  I can't vouch for the person who wrote this post or the facts about the George S May company (though I was directed to the site by a friend whose company hired May and says the description is accurate in his case, though he thinks in some cases a business might benefit from such an audit, though probably not from the way they are charged), but the mechanics he describes help show how a legal scam might work.

There are a lot of types of fraud (Wikipedia has a list of about 22).  Personally, I would argue that it's a scam when

• a customer is asked to sign a lengthy contract 
• that has lots of 'gotchas' hidden in the small print 
• that the seller knows 
• the client would likely not sign if he understood them all

I would include in this hidden fees and penalties etc. in credit card contracts, cell phone contracts, and car and home loan agreements.

Wikipedia also distinguishes another related term:

A hoax also involves deception, but without the intention of gain, or of damaging or depriving the victim; the intention is often humorous.

What is the buyer's responsibility?

Surely,  buyers have a responsibility to pay attention to the agreements they sign.  But in this day and age we know less about the people with whom we do business.  Many aren't local.  Some products are hard to live without (credit cards are often required say to rent a car or buy airline tickets online where they are cheaper) but they come with long complicated legal contracts.  I guess I would just ask readers,

"Before you signed or clicked 'agree' did you read all the fine print in your...

1. credit card contracts? 
2. bank accounts contracts?
3. the agreements that come with software downloads?

To what extent do our schools teach people to be savvy consumers?  US college students' literacy has declined rapidly.  The Washington Post reported in 2005 that in a test that

measures how well adults comprehend basic instructions and tasks through reading -- such as computing costs per ounce of food items, comparing viewpoints on two editorials and reading prescription labels. . .  Only 41 percent of graduate students tested in 2003 could be classified as "proficient" in prose -- reading and understanding information in short texts -- down 10 percentage points since 1992. Of college graduates, only 31 percent were classified as proficient -- compared with 40 percent in 1992.

One might argue that if most college graduates (not to mention non-college grads) aren't  proficient in reading, how can their signatures on such contracts be considered informed consent?  And changes in laws regarding credit card agreements and lending practices suggest that Congress agrees that conditions in these contracts are unreasonable.


However, at some level, consumers do have to take some responsibility to be informed when they make decisions.


So, next comes Part 2:  What is a film festival?

[UPDATE Sept 2, 2019 - Here's a link to 2017 DasKurzFilmMagazin ShortFilm.de post on film festival scams.  It links to this post which is how I found out about it.]

3 Jing Si Aphorisms by Master Cheng Yen

OK, I'm stalling.  I've got a couple of posts I'm working on but they aren't ready yet, so this is just to post something.  But it should be a relaxing and reflective break.

I'll share a little from a book I was given while on an overnight layover in Taiwan.  The link shows some pictures of the Tzu Chi Foundation temple I stumbled on where I was given this book, written by a Buddhist Nun.

"Master Cheng Yen has always led a simple and virtuous life.  In her frugality, she made candles and bean powder to maintain a living.  In 1966, she established the Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, and over the years this organizations has concentrated its activities in the major areas of charity, medicine, education, culture, international relief, bone marrow donations, community volunteerism, and environmental protection."

The book has the aphorisms in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese.  Here are a couple:

To regard ourself lightly

is prajna (wisdom).

To regard ourself highly

is attachment. (p. 22)

El vernos a nosotros mismos con modestia

es Prajna (sabiduría).

El considerarnos altamente

es aferrarse a uno mismo.

We must carry out our tasks 

according to principles,

and not let our principles be

compromised by our tasks. (p. 38)

Debemos llevar a cabo nuestras tareas
de acuerdo a nuestros principios
y no dejar que nuestros principios
se vean comprometidos por nuestras tareas.

Each time we forgive others, 
we are, in fact, sowing blessings. 
The more magnanimity we show,
the more blessings we enjoy. (p. 182)


Perdonar una vez
es ser bendecido una vez.
Cuanto más perdonemos,
más seremos bendecidos.

The title of this post is the title of the book and there isn't Western publication information in the book.  However, there is a link to the tzuchi.org for those want to know about this Eastern humanitarian organization. 

Why Do People Have to Spend So Much?

The Anchorage Daily News had an AP story Monday entitled, "More Americans' credit scores sink to new lows" By Eileen AJ Connelly.

Figures provided by FICO Inc. show that 25.5 percent of consumers — nearly 43.4 million people — now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It's unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use.

 The unemployment rate is only around 10%, so this isn't just people out of work.  And there are situations where people have emergencies that get them under water.  But I look around at all the people driving new cars and trucks, talking on i-Phones, buying daily lattes, and I'm sure you can add to the list.  

People seem to forget the advice that David Copperfield got from Mr. Micawber.

"My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr Micawber, "you know.  Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, results happiness.  Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. . . "***

 Of course, Mr. Micawber knew this well because he was just out of debtors' prison.

There are lots of ways to get by for much less. As Micawber's advice suggests, it's not just poor people who are in debt, but people at all levels spending more than they take in.

To help such people, I would note that there is a fair amount of free entertainment in Anchorage these days.

At the University of Alaska Anchorage's   Summer 2010 Author Readings  various authors from Alaska and beyond are giving readings from their work. It goes on for another week.  Details are in the link above.  The parking at the University for summer evenings is free.  But walk or bike if you can and save on your gas bill.  Here are the speakers for the rest of the event.

An evening with Red Hen Press (Los Angeles)
Alaskan poet Peggy Shumaker and Kate Gale, founder, Red Hen Press
Thursday, July 15, 8 p.m
UAA Fine Arts, room 150

MFA Students open-mic reading
Friday, July 16, 9-11 p.m.
UAA Gorsuch Commons, room 106


Special event: "Things I Didn't Know I Loved"
Saturday, July 17, 8 p.m.
UAA Rasmuson Hall, room 101


Nancy Lord and Valerie Miner
Sunday, July 18, 8 p.m.
UAA Fine Arts, room 150

Anne Caston, Rich Chiappone and Sherry Simpson
Monday, July 19, 8 p.m.
UAA Fine Arts, room 150

Jo-Ann Mapson, Derick Burleson and David Stevenson
Tuesday, July 20, 8 p.m.
UAA Fine Arts, room 150

Careful, the rooms and times change.

And Sunday I saw the World Cup final game free at the Bear Tooth.


The Anchorage Press is also free and has long lists of events going on in town and how much they all cost.

I imagine that students these days who face impossible college bills and graduate with $20,000 or more debt might simply give up on trying to save.  Many of them grew up without having to scrimp to get by and never learned how. 

Doughroller has 75 tips for saving money. 


***  From Wikipedia, before the British went to the decimal system in 1971:

the pound was divided into 20 shillings and each shilling into 12 pence, making 240 pence to the pound.

Learning Something's Up Through Sitemeter

I'm not sure I even want to post about this.  I suddenly got a lot of hits today for the "helen louise mcdowell sanctuary, anchorage." I did a photo post on the park last year April when it first opened to the public as a sanctuary.

I have had people getting to this blog googling for the sanctuary every now and then, but never three in a row, and then more, and more, and more.  Something's up, I thought.  So I  googled to see what else comes up with that search.

The lovely park bordering the New Seward Highway just before it gets to 36th (headed north), it turns out, was where a young woman's body was found this morning. Not the sort of news I generally cover. But being alerted to news by google searches is a blogging side effect to note for the record. My sympathies go out to the family. I can't think of much worse news for them.

Trailer Park Foreclsoure Sale = Opportunity for Trailer Condos

This blog's basic theme is about how we know what we know. We all tend to hunker down and protect our own view of the world, most of us believing it is the only truly correct one.  It's easier not to have to think too much, but it also leads to lots of problems when we can't see alternatives to our own truths and possibilities.


Here's the plan.  

I did a recent post on a trailer park in Anchorage that is shutting down.  There were even a couple of comments from people who had lived in trailers saying it was just what they needed at the time. 

Then I noticed this foreclosure notice in the Anchorage Press.

Here's a trailer park with 24 occupied trailers, valued at $1 million (land only.) Minimum bid is $850,000.  Though the trailers aren't included in the appraisal, it says they are included in the sale.  So I'm thinking. . .

One million dollars.  Divided by 24.  That comes to about $42,000 for each trailer plus the land.  Who really wants to buy a trailer park full of tenants?   Collecting rent from 24 tenants in trailers probably isn't the most profitable use of 2.4 acres of land in town.  But if you want to develop this land, you're going to have to kick 24 families out of their homes, families who are living in low cost housing they aren't likely to be able to replace.

People in the trailer parks aren't homeless and most aren't unemployed.  They just don't earn enough to buy more permanent housing.  So, what if Alaska Housing were to bid on this property and then set up a kind of trailer condo association?  The people in the trailer parks, for $42,000 each, could buy their trailer and the land it sits on like a condo.

Using an online mortgage calculator, we get:

1. $2,500 down  (Permanent fund checks are coming in October, so any trailer with two Alaskans in it will be able to come up with most of that amount.)
   
2. I've heard interest rates are down to 4% now, but that wasn't available on the mortgage calculator I used.
   
3. A ten year loan makes more sense than 15 for a trailer, but they didn't have that option.
   
4. So $422.61 per month (obviously a rough estimate) and these people are in their own place with a cooperative arrangement with the neighbors to maintain the trailers and the property.  I'm guessing that's less than they pay for rent now.

And the minimum bid was $850,000 so there's a chance it might go for less than a million.

It would also need a condo fee (though taxes were in the calculator.) It seems Alaska Housing could work out a deal so that people have the option of contributing manual labor as part of their condo fee.

So, these low income folks would be able to afford to own their own place and develop some equity - not just in the trailer, but in the land itself.  They would have an incentive to keep up their property and to work cooperatively with their neighbors to maintain all the common land and everyone's property value.

They would use the skills they have (these people may be poor, but it doesn't mean they're unskilled) and learn what they need (the Housing Authority or the local Community Council could help here) to run the condo associations.  These activities might well lead them to take a more active part in larger community politics.  

Sure, there are lots of details to work out.

The people working for the State of Alaska on public housing and homelessness have rules to follow, but wouldn't it be nice if we had a Governor and Legislature that could work quickly and cooperatively to take advantage of unexpected opportunities and allow an agency to do something innovative and beneficial? It isn't impossible.  It's just that we haven't demanded this from the people who we elect as our representatives.  They really do respond to voters.  It's just that most voters don't ask much of them. 


Or, in the meantime, someone with an extra million dollars (there are such people) could do a really good deed, by making this investment in the people in these trailers.  Remember, she wouldn't be giving them the million, but would be selling them their homes at a price most could actually afford.  

What Color is his Parachute? Remote is Relative

Andrew Sullivan has a guest blogger posting from Dutch Harbor.

by Dave Weigel

UNALASKA, AK -- When I agreed to blog here for a week I gave a quick word of warning: I was set to spend a week in Dutch Harbor, the remote fishing town made globally famous by 1) the series "Deadliest Catch" and 2) fish.

"Remote" is a word we like to misuse, like "awesome" or "ironic" or "electable." You go to a hunting cabin in West Virginia and you say you're in a remote location. But I am about as far from the great mass of humanity as I could be right now. This is obvious if you open a map and notice that the island is closer to Pyongyang than it is to Seattle. . . [it goes on here]

He parachuted in from DC and thinks he's remote. Of course the people who come from Dutch Harbor think DC is remote.   And maybe being far from the great mass of humanity gives one a chance to connect with the earth and life as most humans knew it before they all moved to the big cities.  But as long as he can get to Dutch Harbor's bars and internet, he's still far from where he can truly bond with nature.  And by the way, most of the guys with the Alaska T shirts aren't from Alaska.  [You have to read the rest of his post to get that.]

The center of the universe is where ever 'home' is. If you look at a map of the US and draw a line down the middle, Chicago is clearly to the right, or east, of that line. But as the settlers all started on the East Coast, they thought Chicago was in the Mid West.  And they still call Chicago the Mid West even today.  They think the East Coast is the Beijing of the New World.  Growing up in LA, I was always confused by references to us in 'the Far West.'  I lived there.  It wasn't far at all.  It seemed that New York was more appropriately the Far East.


So what is Dave Weigel doing in Dutch Harbor?  I guess he was trying to get as far away from his known world as he could.  The Washington Post reports:

David Weigel, who was hired by The Washington Post to blog about conservatives, resigned Friday after leaked online messages showed him disparaging some Republicans and commentators in highly personal terms.

Weigel, whose tenure lasted three months, apologized Thursday for writing on a private e-mail exchange that Matt Drudge should "handle his emotional problems more responsibly and set himself on fire." He also mocked Ron Paul, the Texas congressman, by referring to the "Paultard Tea Party."


The Daily Caller reported more inflammatory comments on Friday, with Weigel writing that conservatives were using the media to "violently, angrily divide America" and lamenting news organizations' "need to give equal/extra time to 'real American' views, no matter how [expletive] moronic." When Rush Limbaugh, who has called for President Obama to fail, was hospitalized with chest pains, Weigel wrote: "I hope he fails."[to continue reading the post]

I guess the editors don't read too many blogs.  Weigel probably assumed that it was ok to    write like that in private since most bloggers do it publicly on their blogs.  But if this was supposed to be "Inside the conservative movement" why did they have someone who doesn't sound at all like an insider.  Or maybe this is a glimpse into what it looks like on the conservative inside.

The Washington Post Ombudsman, on a story about the firing, raises a similar point.

. . . But his departure also raises questions about whether The Post has adequately defined the role of bloggers like Weigel. Are they neutral reporters or ideologues?

And, given the disdainful comments in his e-mails, there is the separate question of whether he was miscast from the outset when he was hired earlier this year. . .

So Dave, if you have some time in Anchorage on your way home, give a shout and meet some not very remote Alaskan bloggers. 

How much are polar bears worth as a species?

There are lots of ways to go about answering this question.  I'll just pursue one line of reasoning.

My governor thinks that  "hundreds of millions" is too much to try to protect the polar bears' environment.  Actually, the Anchorage Daily News reported,

An independent economic review*, paid for by the state and a private corporation, estimates the designation will cost hundreds of millions of dollars in added expense for the oil industry and lost revenue for state and local governments.

Much of the ADN story comes right from the press release on the Governor's website, which says the results of the report (not the report itself) have been released.  There's a link to his letter to the Secretary of Interior in which he says "hundreds of millions or even billions in just the next 15 years" (as opposed to the Interior Department's estimate of $650 million over 29 years).

So that's just costs to Alaska and oil companies in Alaska.

But what is a reasonable price for human beings to pay to maintain polar bear habitat in the world?  Let's assume that 'hundreds of millions" is about $400 million.   What can you get for $400 million?

 

 

 

1. One day of war in Iraq. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Four auctioned pieces of art.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    
3. 1.5% of all pizzas consumed by Americans in one year.  ( Pizzaware says Americans consume 3 billion pizzas a year at $30 billion.)  I bet that's less than all the left over slices that got thrown out. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Knik Arm Bridge with a couple hundred million to a billion to spare.  (Official bridge site says $650-700 million.  An anti bridge site says federal highway report puts total costs at $1.5 billion.)
   
   
5. What Americans spent last year to see Transformers:  Revenge of the Fallen ($402,111,870)
   
   
6. Half of Alaskans' Permanent Fund Last year ($875 million total to divide)  or we could spread it out over several years.  I know Alaskans consider this their money, even the ones who accuse Obama of being a socialist.  But not even to save the polar bear? 
   
   
7. 4.5% of what Americans spent on veterinary care for their pets in 2007.  We spent $10 billion on vet care in 2007.  ($41 billion altogether on pets.)  I know that pets are family members to their owners, but I'm sure some of this wasn't necessary or even prolonged a pet's suffering.   We can spend it all on cats and dogs and birds, while we let the polar bears disappear?

Think about your great-great-grand kids studying history 100 years from now and asking questions like -

"You mean they spent the money needed to save polar bears on  pizza? to buy four paintings? to see a movie?. . .?"

OK, I understand this is just the money the governor says it would cost our economy and oil companies to fulfill the conditions of the Endangered Species Act and not all it would cost to save the polar bear.  (And we don't know that his numbers - vague as they are - are accurate either.  And he doesn't consider the benefits that would accrue because we make the effort to save one of the most magnificent animals on earth.)  And I recognize that the Governor challenges whether these actions would even do anything positive for the bears.  The point though is to say that if we wanted to save the species, there's slack in our budgets to do it.

A point I don't get into here is that human thinking and economic incentives are set to the keep the status quo.  We could create alternative life styles that would be more earth friendly without sacrificing living rich human lives (and lots of people around the world are working on this), but it does mean making perceived sacrifices and Americans like what they have.  We focus on what we would give up, not what we would gain.  And the companies. that sell them what they have, bombard them with advertising to make sure they keep buying more.

Sure, there are lots of questions that can be raised about the Endangered Species Act and polar bears, but I think that our governor thinks small and short term on this issue.  To frame this as jobs versus polar bears is stunted thinking.  Once the polar bears are gone even a couple billion dollars (which we do have sitting in the Permanent Fund) won't bring them back.  What happened to being good stewards of the earth? 



*The 'Independent'  economic review was done by Econ One Inc.

Econ One Research, Inc. provides economic research and consulting services. The company focuses on areas such as contract disputes, antitrust, intellectual property, patent infringement, regulation, and unfair competition. Its clientele includes Atkinson & Thal, Keker & Van Nest, American Central Gas Co., Enron Corp., GE Capital, Hughes Electronics Corp., IBM Corp., PepsiCo, Inc., US Department of Justice, and The World Bank. The company caters to airline, energy, oil and gas, healthcare, retail, and telecommunications industries. Econ was founded in 1997 and based in Los Angeles, California with an additional office in Texas.

They've done a lot of consulting for the Alaska Department of Revenue on the gasline and also for the legislature. They're heavy on economists.  It would be interesting to see how much money this company has made from its Alaska government work and whether the interest in future contracts might have influenced how they calculated costs in this report.   We know this happens, even egregiously, as when  Arthur Andersen switched its Enron accountants for ones more willing to agree with Enron's calculations.  Enron was another of Econ One's clients - did they help Enron cause the California blackouts? Probably not, but they do energy and gas work and it's worth asking.  It would also be interesting to know which private company helped pay for the report.  Don't have time for that now.

[Update:  I missed that when I first read the ADN article.  It says:

Arctic Slope Regional Corp., an Alaska Native corporation, also paid for the report, prepared by Econ One Research Inc.]

This License Plate Took Me a Little Longer to Figure Out

 Perhaps because I thought my neighbors were more devout.  First I thought it was about someone who likes food.  But that was a stretch.

I'm usually pretty good at this. I started reading letter language when someone gave me a copy of CDB long ago.

    Maybe this is how novelists pick up characters.  They take a license plate like this and imagine the person who paid money for it.

Four Years Today - This all began with turn indicators

On July 12, 2006, the first post went up on What Do I Know?  Probably no one except me saw it.  There's one comment, but it didn't go up until October.

There were 93 posts from July  to December 31, 2006.  There were 526 in 2007, 739 in 2008, 624 in 2009, and 391 so far in 2010.

So here's the first post:

What do turn indicators indicate?

Why are there people who don't use their car turn indicators? It's such a simple thing to do - just flip the thing up or down. Then the vehicles behind and in front know you're going to turn. Also the pedestrians. Watching at a corner I cross a lot, I see that most cars do use the indicator. But why doesn't everyone? Some ideas:
1. Just don't think about - no one ever told them it was important
2. Lazy (you've got to be really lazy to not flick the thing up or down)
3. Already got the steering wheel and (fill in the blank - coffee, cell phone, etc.) in the other hand
4. Think it doesn't matter because no one's around
5. Think it doesn't matter because they're in the left turn only lane, so of course they're turning left (is that ok?)
6. Want to keep others guessing.
7. Just rebelling against all rules

So, do you have some other reasons?

I think people should just be trained to do this when they learn to drive, so it becomes completely automatic for any sort of turn or lane change.

So does it mean anything when someone doesn't use it? Are non-indicators just more self absorbed than others? Do they have more trouble thinking about how their actions affect others? It's so easy to do and such a civil thing to do - saying "just letting you know I'm turning."

Anyway, watch when you're at a corner and see what percent use their turn indicators. Will it be different for different cities? Different countries?

1 comments:

Desmond said...

i am sure it is different in differnt country. e.g. in Beijing, it would be 30%...

There was one more post that month: Spittle Bugs

The posts for August 2006 were (remember, these are in reverse chronological order):

• Free shuttle from airport to downtown SLC
• World Trade Center II
• World Trade Center - Part I
• Best Secret Powerpoint Tip
• Dirt
• Verifying
• Going Digital

 My first picture was posted on August 6, 2006.  (August 6 is a special day in our household, but I think that's coincidental.)