Sunday, March 8, 2009
More Einstein - and a Poll on Israeli Expansion
This is one of my favorite Albert Einstein pictures. Supposedly, he is playing one of Mozart's violin sonatas, works he enjoyed through his life.I've got some favorite Einstein quotes, too. He has left us several famous statements, some made vocally, others from his voluminous correspondence.
He expounded on the relationship between science and religion numerous times, beginning in the 1920s. My favorite of these is from his book, The World As I See It:
A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
Zionists have culled from Einstein's many statements about a possible Israel, beginning in 1919. Many supporters of Israeli expansion cite Einstein as an endorsee of their model. Others assert he did not look positively upon some Israeli policies, from the very beginning of the nation's history.
One of Einstein's most comprehensive quotes doesn't appear on the web in its entirety. At least, I can't find the entire word string, after several searches. Apparently, Einstein made the statement on April 17, 1938, in a speech at the Commodore Hotel in New York City. There doesn't appear to be an on-line transcript of the entire speech. The first sentence of this statement appears widely, but this may be the first time as much of it as I'm quoting below appears on the web. It is cited in Bitter Harvest (3rd edition, New York: Olive Branch Press) by Sami Hadawi. The notes cite the quote as being from The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time (New York: Exposition Press, 1965) by Moshe Menuhin (the father of Yehudi Menuhin):
I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish State. Apart from practical considerations, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish State, with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain – especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish State. We are no longer the Jews of the Maccabee period. A return to a nation in the political sense of the word, would be equivalent to turning away from the spiritualization of our community which we owe to the genius of our prophets.
This statement is published here today as preface to a poll on Israeli expansion. I decided that as soon as the Obama administration was presented with new evidence of continuing Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, I would conduct a poll on that in Alaska.The Israelis have announced plans to greatly expand settlements. They did this just before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Middle East. To date, no official from the Obama administration has made a public statement about the expansion plans, which defy international law. We have wanly objected to continuing demolitions of Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
The ascending star of the man who has emerged as the main beneficiary of last month's Israeli election is Avigdor Lieberman, an unapologetic, forthright expansionist.
Here is the poll:Should Israel:
Be allowed to continue to expand
Be forced back to the 1967 borders
Be forced back to the 1947 borders
Frozen at current settlement levels
Be allowed to expel all non-Jews (from inside Israel) and expand (to occupy ALL the West Bank)
You can only vote for one category
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Saturday Progressive Alaska Blog Roundup - March 7, 2009 - Science Reporting
Back in January, as I started learning about the complexity of issues concerning the degradation of the living environment this winter for village residents in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, I was immediately frustrated by how little my science background prepared me. Since starting to learn, I've read scores of articles on the Yukon ecosystem and on the salmon habitat in the Northeast Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea.I fished the Copper River delta, Prince William Sound, the north Gulf of Alaska and the Straits of Juan de Fuca (in Washington state) commercially for salmon when I was in my 20s and early 30s. I've tried to keep up on so-called fishery issues ever since. I've watched some salmon runs keep on plugging, year after year, fairly consistently. I've watched others fade out, then come back, then fade out again. The Deshka is one of those.
I've watched upper Cook Inlet salmon runs disappear. When I first came to the Mat-Su Valley, you could go down to the boat launch at Goose Bay in mid-August, and watch hundreds of thousands of Coho move up into Knik Arm with the flood tide. They don't come anymore.
I was lucky enough to be skippering a tug boat through Southeast Alaska in early August 1999, when over 100 million salmon were caught. I'll never forget seeing some of the massive schools, jumping in the tide rips at sunset or change of tide.
Trying to get a grip on the truth of what is happening to the Chinook and Coho salmon runs on the Kuskokwim and Yukon Rivers shouldn't be out of reach of the scientific community. Covering these issues, though, has been out of reach of Alaska's mainstream media.
When progressive Alaska bloggers got involved in relief efforts for Emmonak and other lower Yukon communities back in January, I was absolutely terrified at how big a responsibility it is that we have taken up. Early on, I realized that if help in these communities is to be meaningful, it needs to center around restoring the larger ecosystems of salmon return that initially brought indigenous people and civilization to those areas thousands of years ago.
At the panel on subsistence at UAA this Wednesday, Larry Merculieff told one of his powerful stories. I'll try to do him justice in a paraphrase:
A village elder met a state-employed pilot who was involved in flying over the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, counting moose and caribou as part of a predator control program. The pilot spoke of the difficulty in figuring out why numbers of those "game" animals were down.
The elder told him, "The water levels are down from climate change."
The pilot replied, "That's not what I'm supposed to be looking for. We need to know if there are too many wolves and bears."
The elder said, "The water levels have severely reduced the browse brush and plants for the moose and caribou."
The pilot complained, "We don't have anyone who looks for that. I'm not trained to notice plant changes or water levels."
The elder, shook his head. "The beavers have moved their dams to deal with the reduced water levels."
The pilot impatiently noted, "That's the responsibility of another group. We don't concern ourselves at all with beavers."
The conversation continued, as the chief noted one important change to the ecosystem after another to the rather dense, but well-intentioned pilot.
Government and corporate bureaucracies are sort of like the way the pilot described his situation, in Larry's story.
How well are our progressive Alaska bloggers doing at being better at covering science compared to Alaska's mainstream press, TV and radio? Not well.
On emerging issues like the YK Delta crisis, though, we need to do better than the mainstream sources, because their ability to cover this is dwindling rapidly during a very critical time.
We can't all just go out and become scientists. We can attempt to help foster a pro-science environment at our blogs. And we can take every occasion when we meet scientists who are knowledgeable about climate change issues, to encourage them to contribute to high traffic internet coverage of discussions and meetings on environmental and ecological issues.
About the same time I realized how vertical my learning curve on the science of saving the Yukon and Kuskokwim salmon stocks might be, I also realized how little the state of Alaska's government and Governor Palin have to do with the most critical short-term and long-term solutions that might be available as remedies.
I regard her as a pernicious icon for groups who are hostile to science, suspicious of Alaska Native civilization, and intent on stepping up resource extraction from rural Alaska, to further enrich urban Alaska and powerful corporations, that will promote her if she succeeds. Being as she and her backers represent something that can do more harm than good at this point to Alaska's rural residents, I'm not out there daring her people to step up efforts to help Emmonak or Nunam Iqua.
I first started thinking about this issue of science reporting and blog coverage in early 2008, when the Palin administration thwarted Rick Steiner from gaining access to scientific correspondence on Polar bear classification. The only place where it was initially covered, besides Progressive Alaska, was at the Alaska Ear.
I'll keep revisiting this.
Upcoming Valdez Workshop on Trans-Alaska Pipeline Oversight
--- by Gabe ScottDownstream stakeholders are cordially invited to a Trans-Alaska Pipeline Citizen Oversight Workshop, March 10- 11, at the Valdez Civic Center.
Cascadia Wildlands Project’s Alaska field office, and Copper River Watershed Project, are hosting the consensus-building workshop that will involve subsistence, sport and commercial fishermen, conservationists, tribes, ANCSA Corporations, business-owners, and other downstream residents
Our mission as citizens, twenty years after the Exxon Valdez, is to work together on proactive measures to ensure that never again will such a disaster take place. While improvements have been made in Prince William Sound since the spill, the complacency in government and industry has again creeped in, especially on the TAPS.
As citizens, there are two key things we all have in common:
1. we want to keep the oil in the pipe;
2. we aren’t willing to just cross our fingers and hope.
The Goal of the Meeting is to reach consensus on priorities for improved safety of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and initiate a plan of action to make that happen. Informal discussions among stakeholders have focused on a Citizen Oversight Council, similar to the one in Prince William Sound that was formed as a demonstration project after the Exxon Valdez. At that time, Congress found that similar Citizen Oversight Councils should be formed elsewhere as well. This promise has never been met.
If we are the change we've been waiting for, lets step up and make it happen. Hope to see you in Valdez!
Download Meeting Materials Here:
Background on Citizen Oversight:
> Fineberg Research (the most comprehensive, reliable source of information on the TAPS)
Who Has Put a Hold On the Holdren and Lubchenco Science Nominations?
[cross-posted at Oxdown Gazette]An anonymous Senator has put a hold on the nominations of John Holdren to be White House science advisor, and on Jane Lubchenco to head NOAA. The office of the early suspect, NJ Senator Bob Menendez, denied Thursday that he has a hold on the nomination. Nobody now knows who placed the hold, or why.
During the early February nomination hearing before the U. S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, opposition to the nominations appeared to be tepid, with few Republicans even bothering to show up. The only Senator to question either of the nominees twice, was Alaska Democrat, Mark Begich, who queried Lubchenco about climate change and fisheries issues in a friendly way. Soon after the nomination hearing, CQ Politics cited strong support for an immediate voice vote:
The panel approved both nominations by voice vote.
John D. Rockefeller IV , D-W.Va., Commerce chairman, said he and ranking Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas are seeking to have the nominations confirmed on the Senate floor by voice vote as soon as possible.
“Speed is important here,” Rockefeller said.
Then, early last week, the Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin noted:
[Sen. Menendez] has placed a "hold" that blocks votes on confirming Harvard University physicist John Holdren, who is in line to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, Obama's nominee to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. According to sources who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, Menendez is using the holds as leverage to get Senate leaders' attention for a matter related to Cuba rather than questioning the nominees' credentials.
But Thursday, people were claiming Menendez had no hold on the nominations. Late Friday, TPM's Elana Schor wrote:
A source close to the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that there is, right now, no hold from Menendez on the nominees. It remains unclear when the hold evaporated -- sometime between the WaPo's original report on Tuesday and today, it seems. But either way, the nominees would have been quickly cleared if Menendez were the only original objector. So the search goes on.
Earlier Friday, she had written:
The likely source of the culprit would seem to be the Senate Commerce Committee, although that panel approved the nominations last month. "I am unaware of any GOP Commerce Committee members who are raising questions," one Senate source said via email.
But other sources pointed me to Commerce -- so just in case, I reached out to all the Republicans on that committee. The next likely source of the slowdown would be GOPers on the Senate environment committee, particularly given Holdren's progressive views on climate change, but Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) office did not return a request for comment on the nominations.
Imhofe, giving scientists a problem? Naaaahh!
And there's a remote possibility that Sen. Olympia Snowe is involved in the holdup. The Maine Senator has been on the Fisheries subcommittee for over 13 years. She has butted heads with NOAA several times over restrictions to the New England commercial fisheries, as the populations of oceanic fish and shellfish in the Northeast offshore areas plummeted. Questioning Lubchenco last month, Sen. Snowe complained about the Gloucester regional office of NOAA's role in the reduction of catch time for the commercial fishing industry:
She said the groundfish industry's interests in New England had developed a "lack of trust" in the regional office of NMFS, which is headed by Patricia Kurkul. "Rightfully so," Snowe added.
She offered an abbreviated summary of the schism, skipping the repeated recent lectures delivered to NMFS by a federal judge in Boston, who has rolled back the regulatory scheme of 2006 with orders that the agency do better than pay lip service to regulatory options that might provide some relief for the working fleet.
Instead, Snowe focused Lubchenco on NMFS' march toward the implementation of its Interim Rule to restrict fishing for the coming year — to bar it entirely from the region's southern waters and severely constrain it elsewhere — in response to discouraging data about the recovery of some stocks in the mix of 19 groundfish species.
The senator seemed exasperated that NMFS "totally dismissed" a 15-1 recommendation from the policy-making and advisory New England Fishery Management Council to regulate more lightly in the coming year; instead, she continued, NMFS' action would leave federal permit holders with "20 days" to fish — "three weeks to make a living."
The offshore seafood harvesting industry in New England is in serious denial about whether or not Atlantic fish stocks are making sustainable comebacks. Commercial fishery interests and their allies are attempting to erode Lubchenco's credibility as a scientist by citing her longstanding ties to the Pew Charitable Trust's Pew Oceans Commission and the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative:
To many in the fishing industry, data that comes financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts is data to be doubted, and in Lubchenco, many in the industry see a proud Pew partisan who is about to take authority over the nation's fisheries and its remaining fishermen and women.
Lubchenco has been a Pew fellow, a member of the Pew Oceans Commission and the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative that evolved from it. In these endeavors, she was teamed with Leon Panetta, the former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama's choice to be CIA director.
She also lists herself as a director of the Pew trust-financed SeaWeb, which describes itself as existing to "raise awareness of the world ocean and the life within it," according to Nils E. Stolpe, a columnist for National Fisherman, who has been reporting on the Pew campaign for many years.
The Gloucester Daily Times published an article last week (from which the above Lubchenco-Snowe dialogue quotes have been extracted), by Richard Gaines, that goes into the New England fishing industry's possible objections to Lubchenco's NOAA appointment. If the hold expires - dies a natural death - at the beginning of this coming week, a lot of speculation on Holdren's and Lubcenco's appointments will become moot. But if the hold continues or is renewed, people might start asking Snowe's staff whether or not she's in on it.
An important meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council is coming up at the end of March and beginning of April, concerning the by-catch of King salmon and other fish in the Bering Sea, by American midwater trawlers. It will pit the Seattle-based industrial fishing fleet against the mostly Alaska Native subsistence and commercial users in the Yukon, and Kuskokwim Rivers. It will be the most extensive, most public revisiting of the by-catch paradigm in years.
Not only are a number of Alaska Native groups and associations pushing for a severe reduction in by-catch by the fleet, they are very well organized. Combined with the high profile public awareness of poverty and cultural issues in the Yukon-Kuskokwim River delta this winter, the status of the NOAA director (NOAA oversees the groups responsible for managing the offshore by-catch) may have an important impact on the course of the Anchorage meetings.
Friday, March 6, 2009
After You Apologize - Leave Rush Limbaugh Alone!
Speaking of apologizing to Rush Limbaugh, boy did these people really insult him. It happened 19 years ago, but I hope they're STILL apologizing:
hat tip - Jane Hamsher
Saradise Lost - Book 2 - Chapter 33 - The Issue of Apologies
Part One:On Thursday, Alaska Newspapers ran another letter by Emmonak elder, Nick Tucker. He expressed outrage at the way Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is handling the ongoing crisis in the lower Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers. Here are excerpts:
First off. I am outraged.
Think of this: Did Martin Moore and I have to go meet Gov. Sarah Palin there in Russian Mission and Marshall? Why did she not come here to Emmonak?
It took away the most precious time of my life to have to be absent from my granddaughter’s and nephew's first Yup'ik dance in Alakanuk that evening.
[snip]
About whom and to whom was she referring that top leadership in what village(s) should be changed? This is a blow to all rural villages telling each one of us that our past and current leadership isn't worth being there!
[snip]
I have faith in my fellow rural villages and their leadership. They have brought their villages to where and what they are today with challenges greater than most in our vast state. Is it not embarrassing enough to have to cry out, let alone be put down by our state leadership? I think all rural Alaska deserves an apology and never to be treated like this again. We are unique to the state, contribute our rich resources into the state and urban cities and barely have anything in return to improve ourselves.
On Anchorage's KTUU-TV last night, Palin's new Rural Affairs Coordinator, John Moller, was asked about Tucker's concerns:
In response to the letter, Palin's rural advisor, John Moller, said efforts are ongoing in Emmonak.
Moller said he spoke to Tucker three times while in Emmonak, and at that time, Emmonak had already received thousands of pounds of food from both state and private resources.
Moller was interviewed this week by Alaska Newspapers' Statewide Editor, Alex DeMarban. It is the first in-depth interview with Moller. Moller seems sincere but way out of his depth in this new post, that has either been left without support, vacant or - a now appears to be the case - clueless, for its entire life. Here's a bit of the Moller interview:
what I found when I got out there is there really wasn’t a shortage of food per se, and there wasn’t a shortage of heating fuel per se. There’s a shortage of cash. The economy is in dire straits.
[snip]
DeMarban: Are there specific ideas that stick in your head?
Moller: An awful lot of examples. Tourism. It was real obvious when I was there that there are some basic services that can be provided, from appliance maintenance person, small engine repair, that type of stuff was very obvious. I found out there was a boiler guy in Emmonak that was certified to work on boilers. The caveat is there’s no economy. Nobody can pay for his services necessarily.
DeMarban: Can you name one idea, or generally describe one idea you might look at?
Moller: One idea is the propane idea, and I’m not the expert on the gas line so that’s some information I’m going to pass on. Propane is a resource that’s readily available of which we already have an infrastructure in place. Now, I’m not the expert at it.
De Marban: Is that in reference to a line coming from the North Slope?
Moller: It’s general statements and comments coming from rural Alaskans. We’re going to build a gas line, how do we get this gas, this propane to our communities. It’s why can’t we tap our own resources.
"We're going to build a gas line......"
Moller does, in the interview, seem to have a glimmer of a clue on a few issues involving the dysfunctional rural economy, but his answers on fisheries issues appear so clueless, I find it hard to believe that he was put on the advisory board of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council for what he knows.
Nick Tucker is not going to get an apology from the Palin administration, certainly not from the governor. It is telling, though, that Palin, who passed up so many highly qualified women and men, and ended up appointing Moller to this post, feels fit to pass judgement en masse on rural Alaskan village and community leadership.
Two:
Governor Palin is being sued over her failure last year to issue a Juneteenth proclamation:
A federal lawsuit was brought against Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin demanding retroactive issuance of the 2007 Juneteenth Proclamation and public restitution.
The holiday observance, which celebrates the freeing of the last remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, has been adopted in 29 states and was signed into law in Alaska in 2001. The bill specifies that the "governor shall issue a proclamation observing the day."
Sarah Palin has refused to issue the proclamation for 2007 retroactively.
The lawsuit is being brought by Charles Royal, a musician who met Sarah Palin in 1991 when The Duke Ellington Orchestra toured Alaska. On that occasion, Sarah Palin told Royal that she does not "talk" or "mess with" Black men.
Charles Royal went to the media with his experiences on October 7, 2008, after he became aware that the vice presidential candidate was the very same Sarah Palin. He didn't believe she was suitable for high office. That's when he became aware that she had failed to comply with the Juneteenth Proclamation in 2007 and that several Alaskan citizens had been trying, unsuccessfully, to consult with the Governor regarding her race record in Alaska.
Royal filed a complaint with Talis Colberg a week later regarding the Juneteenth failure. Colberg forwarded the complaint to the Personnel Board and they replied that the complaint fell outside their jurisdiction because it didn't involve matters of personal or monetary gain. In other words, it didn't involve Sarah's famous "ethics".
Royal maintains that "The focus of this action is to hold Governor Palin accountable and to uphold the integrity of our emancipation holiday".
In an e-mailed response from Sarah Palin's Press Secretary Bill McAllister, the governor's office admits the failure by claiming it was a "clerical error".
Clerical error or not, she should probably apologize to Alaska's African American community.
Three:
I hope that Gov. Palin uses the opportunity afforded by accepting the Juneau area Democratic Party leadership recommendation of Rep. Beth Kettula to fill the vacant Alaska Senate seat of Kim Elton, to apologize to Elton for her highly inappropriate remarks, made on March 2.
Four:
The good news for Palin is that nobody expects her to also apologize to Rush Limbaugh.
Yet.
HACA & Bridge Builders' Anchorage Mayor Candidate Forum - TODAY!
The Hispanic Affairs Council of Alaska (HACA) and Bridge Builders of Anchorage will host a forum with Anchorage mayoral candidates on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at the Fairview Recreation Center (1121 East 10th Avenue) from 5:00p.m. – 7:30 p.m. The event is open to the general public.
“We are extremely grateful to the candidates for accepting our invitation and we are looking forward to giving the members of our community an opportunity to become more informed about their choices in the upcoming election” said Angelina Estrada‐Burney, HACA’s President and member of the Bridge Builder’s board of directors.
This is not the first time that HACA and Bridge Builders have partnered to host a community event. In 2008, both groups hosted forums for the community to meet Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Ted Stevens. HACA also hosted a highly successful U.S. House of Representatives Candidates Forum during the last election.
Established in 2007, and inspired by a meeting of Hispanic leaders and members of the board of the Rasmuson Foundation, HACA’s mission is to empower, unite, and educate Hispanic/Latinos in economic, education, health and social services and justice through statewide community outreach, coalition building and promoting cultural awareness.
Bridge Builders of Anchorage was established in 1996 to build a “community of friends” among all racial and cultural groups in Anchorage. Their mission is to make Anchorage the first city without prejudice.
“We are extremely grateful to the candidates for accepting our invitation and we are looking forward to giving the members of our community an opportunity to become more informed about their choices in the upcoming election” said Angelina Estrada‐Burney, HACA’s President and member of the Bridge Builder’s board of directors.
This is not the first time that HACA and Bridge Builders have partnered to host a community event. In 2008, both groups hosted forums for the community to meet Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Ted Stevens. HACA also hosted a highly successful U.S. House of Representatives Candidates Forum during the last election.
Established in 2007, and inspired by a meeting of Hispanic leaders and members of the board of the Rasmuson Foundation, HACA’s mission is to empower, unite, and educate Hispanic/Latinos in economic, education, health and social services and justice through statewide community outreach, coalition building and promoting cultural awareness.
Bridge Builders of Anchorage was established in 1996 to build a “community of friends” among all racial and cultural groups in Anchorage. Their mission is to make Anchorage the first city without prejudice.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
20th Anniversary of the Exxon Valdez Spill Art Exhibit Opens Tour Friday in Homer
The most energetic and comprehensive effort to mount a multimedia art exhibit, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, opens Friday afternoon at the Bunnell Street Gallery in Homer, Alaska.According to the exhibit's curator and Bunnell Street Gallery artistic director Asia Freeman, "Alaskan artists were asked to create new work that addressed the spill in their own style and media."
There will be works by over 30 visual artists, working in paint, sculpture, photography, video, printmaking, beading and mixed media. There will be performing artists, and a new soundscape by Alaska-born composer Matthew Burtner.
The show, titled SPILL A 20TH ANNIVERSARY REMEMBRANCE OF THE EXXON VALDEZ OIL SPILL, MARCH 24, 1989, will move from Homer to Kodiak, Cordova, Kenai-Soldotna and Anchorage over the course of the next six months.
In an article by Katie Emerick in today's Homer Tribune, Freeman further describes aspects of the exhibit:
"The show is really about choosing not to forget about accountability. [The spill] was an environmental holocaust that all kinds of people in the science, fisheries, eco-tourism and art worlds continue to feel and mourn.
"There is a profound emotional response for several of the younger artists. It really didn't seem to be an issue to them that they weren't there directly or immediately connected to the spill. Alaska is their mother.
"You are allowed to be angry about something that happened to your mother," Freeman explained. "It's a very visceral response. People go from being really angry to being really sad to still looking for ways to redeem and protect. I find it interesting how the spill itself lives on."
The Tribune's Emerick describes one work:
Michael Walsh, a local artist with one of the more unusual installations in the exhibit, constructed an outhouse with a video in the toilet showing archival footage of the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the mid '70s. Looped over half the footage are dancing strippers and images painted on the toilet including Ted Stevens and Sarah Palin. Walsh said they're the inspiration behind the installations title, "Drill, Baby, Drill."
While controversial, Walsh sees the piece as deeply symbolic of an event that has continued to trigger political debate and expose governmental negligence.
"It was my attempt to make a statement about how many Alaskans feel about oil and what I feel about it," Walsh said. "So many people here feel good about where we live and take pride in our communities. We take care of each other, and when the oil industry has so much money wrapped up in this society, it creates greed and mismanagement."
Walsh said it was his intent to focus his piece on the present and future of the oil industry, and not about Exxon specifically.
On Tuesday, I helped UAA colleague Sean Licka pack his contribution for shipping to Homer. Afterward, I spoke with Asia Freeman about my hopes of visiting the exhibit in Homer.
Having participated twice now in art about the Exxon Valdez oil spill, I've mixed feelings about not being a part of this one. On the one hand, I probably have more to say. On the other hand, having written the first serious musical portrayal of the spill, I've spoken to enough people emotionally devastated by that orchestral piece or my later electronic musical background to Peter Bevis' installation of bronzes, I feel that I've said enough.
When people see these images, it can be cathartic, or it can lead to melancholy, depression or to flashbacks. If I had a say in it, all the top 500 employees and board members of Exxon in 1989 would have to watch videos of all the art exhibits about the EVOS - for week or months on end - just like this:
Here's a link to a real video that will be at the Bunnell Street show - Eleanor, by Tim Geers.
image at top - oiled fish floats by Sheryl Maree Reily of Fairbanks
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