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Saradise Found - Chapter 6 -- Addled Oxycontin Addict & Viagra Abuser Complains About Jeb Bush & Mitt Romney Hating Palin

Three Recent YouTubes on the Torture Debate - Updated -- Four YouTubes

Rachel Maddow and Philip Zelikow (April 21st) - Part One:


Rachel Maddow and Philip Zelikow - Part Two:


Condalezza Rice at Stanford (April 27th):


Here's Rice yesterday, answering a 4th grader's question about torture, at a Jewish School in Bethesda, MD (thanks to commenter basheert):

CC Back on the Alaska Airways and Internet Already - This Afternoon

Award winning community activist and commentator, Camille Conte, will return to the air today. Here is one of the announcements:

Well, something very organic will unfold today at 5:00 pm. It's an adventure and a risk for we don't know exactly what's going to happen or if it will work at all! And you're all invited for the ride.

KWMD 104.5 FM.

CC

KWMD can also be listened to at:

90.7 FM Kasilof,

104.5 & 87.74 FM Anchorage

107.9 FM Mat-Su

As my favorite Alaska blogger, Steve Aufrecht, observes:

This is a community non-profit radio station that has been shoestringed by Jeremy
Lansman. Mostly they play progressive programs downloaded from around the country and they've been short on local community programing. They want to go that way, but it takes time and money. So this is a chance not only to hear CC again, but also to get some attention to the station.

image - CC

The Anchorage Daily News - Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted

Today's edition of the Anchorage Daily News contained further proof that Alaska's leading newspaper died last week.

Monday's "Our View" editorial seeks to pre-judge some of the known ethics complaints against our governor. Rather than attempt to evaluate some of the better operative ones on their merits, or present some new facts, the editorial states:

State ethics law is not a megaphone for crying foul every time the governor or any other elected official does something someone doesn't like.

The ADN editor is correct. The state ethics laws are meant to help set standards for our elected officials. The governor has done a few things I like, and hundreds of things that I don't like. I haven't filed any ethics complaints against her, though. I don't foresee filing any either.

What some have noted about Palin and the large number of complaints filed is that the complainants, with the exception of the Governor herself, when viewed as a group, seem to be onto a pattern of abuse of the system by the Governor and her husband, of the resources available to the governor and her family. She appears to have taken advantage of state resources, time after time, and used them for personal gain in a way unlike any of her predecessors.

Many of us, upon learning that Palin had set up the Alaska Fund Trust, looked at her move rather cynically. After all:

1) She got her "Maverick" chops by not only filing an ethics complaint, but by then making her act public knowledge.

2) She campaigned for Governor in 2006 as a person who would reform ethics in Alaska.

3) When she became governor, she had Wev Shea and Ethan Berkowitz work up a white paper that looked into legislative branch ethics.

4) When she became a national ticket candidate, she bragged about how she had swept away the good old boys whose ethical conduct had gamed the system.

5) When she became a national ticket candidate, she attempted to derail or defang a legislative council investigation already underway, with her executive ethics complaint against herself.


The ADN editorial fails to note that the people who look into these complaints are Palin appointees. It fails to note that all of the governor's problems were entirely self-inflicted. It fails to make a fair distinction between our rights as citizens, and our duties. Frankly, with the ADN getting more secrecy-friendly every day, we need more from citizen activists, not less.

The ADN's editorial concludes with:

If you file a complaint against a legislator and then blab to the media about it, your complaint is automatically dismissed. That protection doesn't apply to ethics complaints involving the executive branch. It should.

So, when it appears to many citizen activists that we need tighter executive ethics codes, all the ADN can suggest is that we loosen them.

Independent commentator Paul Jenkins, in one of his rare post-Voice of the Times appearances at the ADN, wrote last week that:

It turns out that the embattled and lovely Sarah P. -- her nascent national political career dangling over a cliff -- finds herself increasingly under attack, accused of breaking state ethics law more than a dozen times. (Not counting the one she filed against herself during Troopergate to get the Personnel Board, which she appoints, to handle the case.)

Chief of staff Nizich says the pesky complaints are orchestrated by "opponents," offering entrepreneurs yet another T-shirt possibility to go along with "Haters" and "Lying Blogger." Palin has been forced to set up a legal defense fund, the Alaska Fund Trust, to help defray her rising and significant legal costs (and, dang it, that fund itself now is the subject of an ethics complaint despite its high-falootin' name).

In the face of all that, what does she do? Does Palin loose ankle-biter Meghan Stapleton at SarahPac to joust with "opponents" while she retains her dignity as governor and potential president?

Not a chance.

Somebody decides to beef about the SarahPac ethics complaint on an official state Web site. That is your Web site and mine. It belongs to all Alaskans. We pay for it. It is more than a little disturbing that her office, apparently swept up in some kind of vengeful tizzy, would bring to bear state resources to castigate, harangue, insult and accuse individual citizens who make legal complaints.

I'm no lawyer, but state law seems pretty clear: "A public officer may not ... use state time, property, equipment, or other facilities to benefit personal or financial interests. ..." Without much doubt, state time, property, equipment and other facilities were used to toss that hissy.

Clearly, with Paul Jenkins speaking in favor of the rights and duties of public activists and muckrakers, and the ADN suggesting those citizens go away, we have entered the next stage of the ADN's editorially induced death spiral.

Looking for the Next Mr. Goodweimer

Privatized corrections is a racket. It always was, and it always will be. There's no way around it. There are, from time to time, little islands of well-run halfway houses and prisons in the shark-infested seas of privately run correctional institutions, but they are the exception, not the rule.

Since the mid-1980s, Alaska has been unable to run a fully state-owned, union-operated set of jails, prisons and halfway houses. The new paradigm, set up by former Governor, Bill Sheffield, has enriched a few, provided very low-wage, low-benefit employment for thousands of Alaskans, housed thousands of inmates and "residents" in-state, and shipped hundreds of millions of Alaskans' dollars out of state.

Before the privatized correctional paradigm existed here, Alaska's prisons cost more to operate than most other systems in the country. That was one of the initial reasons given for creating the privatized halfway house system, Allvest. The person who ended up being the main owner of Allvest, Bill Weimer, is now in prison.

Between about 1990 and 2006, Weimer donated a lot of money to many Alaska politicians, Republicans and Democrats, as he sought to expand his system, or create a more profitable relationship for his enterprises and the state. Cornell Corrections, which bought out Weimer's Alaska interests, now donates heftily, usually to Republicans.

The state has a contract with Correctional Corporation of America to house hundreds of prison inmates outside of Alaska. That company donates very heftily to Republican politicians, nationwide, and in Alaska.

Sending Alaska inmates Outside for their terms of incarceration was always a bad idea. Especially the idea of sending them to the cheapest possible facility. Every single dollar spent on housing an inmate in Arizona is one less dollar spent in Alaska.

These hundreds of millions of dollars that have been paid to private contractors in Arizona, had they been spent in the Mat-Su Borough, or in Whittier (the Buckner Building) or in Delta, would have been then re-spent several times in the communities that provided the services and the workforces to guard the inmates.

As I watched the push for sending inmates outside happen, alongside the push by the likes of Weimer to have privatized prisons in Alaska to complement his halfway house empire, I realized that between Weimer's anti-union stance and the push to get inmates in privatized systems, either here or Outside, the Republican-dominated subtext was largely anti-union. Alaska's GOP would rather enrich the stockholders at CCA and Cornell than do anything that might create more union jobs in Alaska for highly trained career employees.

Just think of how many hundreds of families could have gotten good union jobs in Alaska, had we expanded the existing state-run system, rather than send all those hundreds of millions to the lower 48. Those union workers would have had kids, taken their kids to locally employed orthodontists, ballet teachers, gun stores, barbers and restaurants.

As the ground gets broken for the new Goose Creek Correctional Facility, and the existing contract for out-of-state services to CCA expires, it may be time to ponder why the state is looking for the next Mr. Goodweimer.

note - the author worked for Bill Weimer for almost seven years, and held stock in Correctional Corporation of America for several years.

image - Bill Weimer

PA Arts Sunday - What Randy Fleischer Has Done For the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra

Saturday night, Randall Craig Fleischer concluded his tenth season as music director and conductor of the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. Only Maurice Dubonnet (1968-1981) held the baton for a longer span.

Fleischer inherited a highly disciplined ensemble from George Hanson, who had especially devoted attention to building the string sections to a higher level of discipline and internal cohesion. The wind and percussion playing by the ASO has been at a fairly high level for years, but Fleischer has been able to put the whole package together and steer it in an adventurous direction far more than had any of his predecessors.

Hanson was thought by some to be adventurous. He programmed both Gustav Mahler's 2nd and 5th Symphonies. Neither had been played before in Anchorage. The 2nd, especially, is a big, expensive undertaking. It was performed magnificently. Hanson, however, wasn't very interested in creating new music. The only commissioned work during his five-year tenure, was a work commissioned before Hanson was hired, John Luther Adams' Sauyatugvik - The Time of Drumming. Hanson's performance of this fascinating work, that went on to win a listeners' choice award in the United Kingdom, was wan and ill-informed. Similarly, Hanson seemed uninspired by Alaska in general.

Fleischer, though he is also music director at the Allentown (Ohio) Symphony and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic (New York state), seems to have enjoyed the Alaskan aspects of his decade here. Although he hasn't entered the Iditarod sled dog race or attempted to summit Denali, his achievements with the ASO warrant high praise.

Early on, Fleischer created a commissioning club. Each year the club, Musica Nova, provides the money for the commissioning of a new work. This year saw the sixth new work from this series, Fanfare, by the young New York City composer, Alexandra DuBois.

Two of the works commissioned, my Piano Concerto, in 2003-2004, and John Luther Adams' Dark Wave, in 2006-2007, were by Alaska composers. Additionally, Fleischer himself has provided two new, multimedia works, Triumph in 2007, and Echoes, in 2008. Both of Fleischer's new works incorporate Native American elements as their core.

For next season, Musica Nova has commissioned California composer Gregory Prechel to write Exposition on the Anchorage Museum. I suppose this is to complement the late May 2009 opening of the newly expanded Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. Prechel was recently described as:

well suited to write the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra’s first commission. Mr. Prechel received his composition and orchestration training at California State University Long Beach, and has studied privately with well-known Hollywood orchestrator Albert Harris and award-winning television and film composer Alf Clausen.

Gregory Prechel has composed, arranged and orchestrated over sixty works for symphony orchestras, provided music for Disney feature films Spymate, The Lion King and Air Buddies and composed for documentaries including the film Monganga set in the Congo using authentic African instruments with symphony orchestra.

Mr. Prechel has composed, conducted, arranged, worked as recording consultant or orchestrated for television shows including The Simpsons, American Idol and Futurama among others. Mr. Prechel has also composed, arranged and orchestrated for the Walt Disney Company Theme parks, working on numerous projects including arrangements for Christina Aguilera and LeAnn Rimes for Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary.

That biographical information was provided by Fleischer's Youngtown Symphony, for program notes to their recent (January 24th) premiere of Prechel's Impressions of the Butler Institute of American Art.

This stream of new art, some of it about Alaska may be Fleischer's greatest accomplishment with the ASO. His earliest triumph was the labor of love in bringing Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps to Anchorage for the first time.

An important aspect of his growing legacy here, though, has been his attention to works by Mozart and Beethoven. Yesterday's concert began with a performance of Mozart's elegant Symphony No. 36. Earlier this past season, the orchestra performed Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3.

No previous ASO director has been able to get Mozart to work this well, this consistently with the ensemble. Even last night's performance had flaws, but the orchestra clearly enjoyed their own efforts, as Fleisher gave it a brisk approach, rather than the more languid Karl Bohm interpretation often taken with orchestra's of the ASO's caliber. Mozart, because of the intonation exposure it places upon the string sections, seemed in the past, to almost be disliked by the orchestra. clearly, that is no longer the case.

The other composer Fleischer has really brought home to the Anchorage Symphony is Serge Prokofiev. Fleischer has mounted the epic cantata, Alexander Nevsky. His 5th Symphony, was fairly good. Last season's performance of Prokofiev's 2nd Violin Concerto was the best performance of that work - one of my personal favorites - I've heard. Next season will see excerpts from the ballet, Romeo and Juliet.

Hopefully, Fleischer will undertake more Prokofiev, a composer for whom he seems to have a special affinity. Each year, for instance, Anchorage musical organizations get together and produce Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker as a full-length ballet. No other full-length ballet by a classical master ever gets done here. A suitable candidate is Prokofiev's hilariously comedic Cinderella.

Another work that came from the same cultural background as Mozart and Beethoven (Classical era Vienna) is Franz Schubert's monumental Symphony No. 9. Fleisher will end his 11th season with the Anchorage premiere of that work.

[I hope to begin the Anchorage Civic Orchestra's 2009-2010 season, by conducting Schubert's Rosamunde Overture and 5th Symphony, along with the Alaska premiere of Alexander Glazunov's Violin Concerto (with Walter Oliveros as soloist).]

Short of having the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra's conductor being a full time post, Randy has had far more local impact than any of his predecessors. He certainly deserves to be considered a true Alaskan for his contributions.

Ed Schultz - We Need a Liberal on the Supreme Court

Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup - May 2, 2009 -- The Week the Anchorage Daily News Died Edition

This was a sad week for southcentral Alaska media. On the first anniversary of the 2008 coup at KUDO that brought an end to progressive radio's finest Alaska hour (or, more precisely, seven hours per day), KUDO's owners decided to end all their locally produced talk radio.

Last year, when Carey Carrigan came on board at KUDO, and program director Aaron Selbig was fired by Carrigan, the changes merited a story in the Anchorage Daily News. During the year since that article, not only did KUDO go through many changes, so did the Anchorage Daily News.

When KUDO talk host Camille Conte was awarded The Nation Magazine's 2008 "Most Valuable Local Media Personality" honor, the Anchorage Daily News failed to mention Conte's elevation interview Conte.

The Nation is one of the world's most distinguished periodicals. It has been in publication since July, 1865. Among the magazine's contributors have been Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr, Bertrand Russell, Langston Hughes, Henry Miller, Franklin D. Roosevelt - and hundreds of other notable Americans. Why the ADN failed to see Conte's award worthy of an article beats the hell out of me.

Southcentral Alaska's progressive bloggers have all been given ample reason to criticize actions or lack of actions by the ADN over the past year or so. Progressive Alaska has been particularly critical of decisions by editors Matt Zencey and Pat Dougherty. The newspaper's failure to even note the demise of local progressive talk radio is lamentable. Coupled with the newspaper's endorsement of Dan Sullivan to be Anchorage's next mayor, it was an even more pathetic week.

The endorsement came out in Thursday's morning edition. By early Thursday afternoon, ADN editor Zencey was aware of the emerging controversy regarding Sullivan's negligent, possibly criminal actions at his bar in the early morning of October 5, 2006.

Today's - Saturday's ADN carries a story by Don Hunter, about the Eric Croft-Dan Sullivan mayoral race. It is a rather incurious piece of journalism. By the time Hunter posted it at 11:35 p.m. Friday, he could have visited two of our progressive Alaskan blogs, and gotten a better handle on how this story is unfolding than he gave the ADN's readers.

His story's commenters seem to have learned more about Sullivan from articles at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis , The Alaska Report and The Mudflats, than from the ADN.

How pathetic is that? The ADN is charging their readers a lot of money for doing a lousy job on this. Mudflats and Celtic Diva give you more accurate, more detailed, more truthful information for free.

Unless the Anchorage Daily News comes up to the level of The Mudflats, Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis and Just A Girl from Homer on this story - before election day - we may come to regard the week of April 29th - May 5th 2009, as the week that not only KUDO's local heart died, but as the week the Anchorage Daily News' soul perished.

Mark Colavecchio - Big, Lying Sack of Shit

That's him. The guy to your left.

He's on KFQD in the late morning on weekdays, and on some other station early in the mornings, with another guy. The other guy is called Bob.

I've only listened to the other program, the Bob and Mark Show, a couple of times. That was because my son Alaex was on the program, along with other members of the band, Static Cycle, in which Alex played lead guitar last summer.

Anyway, I caught Mark lying on KFQD yesterday, time and again. He was flat out lying to a caller named "Phil." They're discussing the incident where the Anchorage Daily News' choice for the next Anchorage mayor caused a situation that could have easily led to the deaths of several people.

Here's "Phil" and Mark, at about 16 minutes into his second broadcast hour on Friday, May 1st:

Phil: Do you want the guy who let this happen - and, indeed, he was involved with this - to be in charge of the Anchorage Police Department, liquor enforcement, and so on?

Mark: How do say he was involved in this?

Phil: He's refusing to talk about it.

Mark: He owns the place.

Phil: He's one of ten owners. He didn't tell the other nine about this. Many just discovered this yesterday.

Mark: That's not true. They knew about this - in October of 2006, they all knew about it, Phil, when it came out.

Phil: You're sure about that?

Mark: I'm positive about that, because I talked to them all yesterday. ..... You know what, Phil? By the way, in those court documents, it never names Dan SULLIVAN.

Phil: I know that.

Mark: OK.

Phil: He was the only "Dan" working there at the time.

Mark: He's NOT! There's another one. He wasn't working. He wasn't working - he was there.

Phil: Are you saying that the "Dan" referred to in the court documents is not Dan Sullivan?

Mark: That is correct, sir.

Phil: Huh...

Mark: Oh, yeah! Well!!

Phil: I really doubt that.

Mark: OK.

Mark then hung up on me.

Here's AK Muckraker's transcription of part of the testimony Mark and "Phil" discussed:

Q. Do you know someone named Dan Sullivan?

A. Yes.

Q. What was your understanding of his role?

A. Dan was the person who interviewed me for the position there. I understood him to be pretty much the main owner and the brain child I guess, of the pub. It was his idea, and he really wanted that location and all of those things. So, I considered him to be my boss.

Q. On the morning of October 5th, what time did you get off?

A. I think I clocked out at around 1:00. I know my last table had cashed out. I had dropped the bill shortly after 12:30 and clocked off by 1:00 and then…and then, um…hung out. I, I chatted with Dan for a while.

Q. Was he there that night?

A. He was there until I left.

Q. And so you checked out, and what happened then?

A. I sat at the bar and had a drink with Dan and chatted with him, and another bartender named Jennifer, and we…

Mark Colavecchio, you're a lying sack of shit.