Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup - October 17, 2009

I. Gordon Haber

Longtime opponent of aerial wolf hunting and many aspects of State of Alaska and Federal policies regarding wolves in Alaska, Gordon Haber, was killed in a bush plane accident north of Denali, near the east fork of the Toklat River. The pilot survived, but Haber was either killed in the crash or in the burning plane as a result of the impact.

Shannyn Moore, who interviewed him on the radio more than once, wrote a touching tribute to Haber and what he stood for, at Just a Girl from Homer:

He wasn’t a snuggly guy. He was serious, and locked horns on occasion. Most people who care so passionately do. His website was dedicated to his life’s work. His tweets were about the Toklat wolf “family” and his determination to see their recovery after a hunter killed the pack’s alpha male and alpha female.

I wonder when the wolves howl tonight…

do they know what an advocate, friend, lover of nature and defender of justice they have lost in the death of a man who knew them better than most?

We have lost one of the pack leaders in the war to defend the wolf…on the same land where he mapped their lives.

Rest In Peace Gordon Haber.

The Alaska Dispatch carried Craig Medred's tribute:

Biologist Gordon Haber loved wolves. Most of all, he loved the wolves of the Toklat pack in Denali National Park, and it now it appears that love has cost him his life.

Haber, 67, and Denali Park pilot Dan McGregor were flying to observe the wolves this week when their single-engine airplane disappeared. A search found it Thursday afternoon on a steep slope west of the East Fork of the Toklat River, Denali Park spokeswoman Kris Fister reported.

The 35-year-old McGregor walked away from the crash and confirmed that Haber was killed. According to the Associated Press, he was taken to a Seattle burn center.

Haber had been studying wolves in Denali Park since his days as a temporary park service employee there in the 1960s and kept a blog where he documented his work. Friends said that over the years he came to think of the wolves, particularly those in the Toklat pack, as family. He attributed to them a "culture,'' and repeatedly crossed swords with biologists in the park service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game who disagreed, and thought wolves should be "managed'' just like any other big game animals.

Haber was sued by a trapper after he let a legally trapped wolf out of the man's snare. A state court held for the trapper and ordered Haber and Friends of Animals, his sponsor, to pay $150,000. Haber was undeterred.

Other articles and tributes appeared in Alaska mainstream media. The best of them, so far, may have been that produced by Alaska Public Radio's Dan Bross.

I approached Gordon Haber for assistance in early 1993, when sculptor Peter Bevis and I were preparing for the Knik Philharmonic's Fourth Winter Tour. Peter and I intended to cast molds of wolf carcasses that had been flayed of their furs. Peter would then bring the molds back to his foundry in Seattle and cast them in bronze. We hoped to bring attention to how grizzly the practice of aerial wolf hunting was.

Haber told us where to look for carcasses in Fairbanks. Along the way, we made telephonic contact with the head of a group that was just then beginning to help Gordon, the Friends of Animals. Priscilla Feral, who was than and still is President of Friends of Animals didn't understand what Peter and I were doing.

At the time, Friends of Animals had initiated an ad campaign in travel magazines, asking people to boycott Alaska until our policies on wolf hunting and control changed. Later in the spring of 1993, after Peter and I had finished the project, and Peter had met a couple of times with Haber, I was called by Nancy Lethcoe, on behalf of a low-impact Alaska travel industry group. Friends of Animals was running their boycott ads heavily in magazines that specialized in low-impact tourism - hiking, backpacking, kayaking and so on.

Many companies were getting cancellations because of the ads. Yet the Friends of Animals weren't running ads in magazines like Sunset, which attracted customers to the rapidly growing cruise ship industry.


When I called Feral on behalf of the low-impact group, she launched a tirade at me that took me completely by surprise. She refused to even consider stopping running the ads in magazines that catered to a clientele who sympathized with both Haber and the Friends of Animals 100%. After a long, four-letter word laced rant, she hung up on me.

I was so stung, I sent letters of complaint to every member of the board of directors to the Friends of Animals. When, later in 1993, I told Haber about the incident, he laughed and laughed.


II. Erin and Hig's Book Tour

Historic Alaska figures Erin McKittrick and Bretwood Higman have begun their book tour this week. They are the only people that we know of to walk, ski, bicycle and pack raft from Seattle to Unimak Island. They also kept a marvelous blog along the way, taking thousands of photographs and hours of video. Now, A Long Trek Home, their book, is out. Here's their local and regional schedule:

1. October 13-14: Seldovia (details to be determined)
2. October 15 at noon: Soldotna Rotary club
3. October 15-16: Homer (details to be determined)
4. October 17, 1-3 pm: Cover To Cover Books in Seward
5. October 21 at 6 pm: Title Wave books in Anchorage
6. October 22 at 6 pm: REI in Anchorage
7. October 29 at 8 am: Interview with King 5 news in Seattle
8. October 29 at 7 pm: REI in Seattle
9. October 30 at 9 am: KUOW Seattle public radio interview (Weekday)
10. October 30 at 7 pm: Bellingham Village Books
11. November 5 at 6:30 pm: Ballard (Seattle) Public Library
12. November 9 at 7:30 pm: Powell’s Books in Portland
13. November 11 at 7 pm: REI in Portland
14. November 13-18: Eugene (details to be determined)
15. November 20-22: Midwest Mountaineering expo in Minneapolis (two presentations, times to be determined)
16. December 1: Juneau (details to be determined)

III. More rural and fisheries blogs?

A new fisheries blog has emerged that appears to be so good that I'm going to list it sooner than usual. Tholepin is from Kodiak. Hopefully it will stay as vital as it appears to be, right out of the gate.

Alaska Public Radio Network covered the fact that the Federal Government is stil months, if not years, from making a decision on whether or not to accept Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell's request to declare theYukon River a disaster area because of the collapse of the runs there. If this were happening to white people, I think the government would react more quickly.

Tholepin observes, regarding the recent publication of damning by-catch photographs (yes, like Abu Graibh, there are more pictures):

The fact that it has been happening for years...remember we had shrimp, king crab, tanner crab...doesn't make it any more righteous. Now it appears that there may be pictures of a huge king salmon tow out Uyak way this summer. If these can be found, verified, and published...the ship will hit the fan.


We will be working out a reward method for those brave souls who will turn in the dirty draggers. Brave crew will keep their cell phones handy. Pictures could be worth a thousand bucks.

Update - Sunday 5:00 p.m: I had a long, fairly productive phone conversation a few minutes ago with Priscilla Feral, the president of Friends of Animals. I apologized for characterizing her solely based upon an unpleasant series of contacts sixteen years ago. She apologized for treating me the way she did back then. She eventually remembered that I had contacted her in 1993 on behalf of the then-president of The Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association, whose members were then losing a lot of business to the Friends of Animals' anti-Alaska ad campaign.

However, Priscilla reminded me that "the campaign worked." It was the last full year of the Hickel administration, and Priscilla Feral believes that the results hamstrung Hickel's wolf control efforts until the succeeding Knowles administration was able to implement some sane policies regarding game management.

She will be up in Alaska for Gordon Haber's memorial on November 7th, and we hope to meet.

Rachel Maddow Skewers Parasitic GOP Fear Monger, Tim Phillips

Former Bank Regulator, William Black, on Democracy Now Yesterday

This is an important interview, highly recommended!


Meanwhile, it has been announced that President Obama has hired Adam Storch, one of the key people in siphoning public funds into Goldman-Sachs last year, helping to make G-S even bigger, so that they'll once again be able to argue that they're "too big to fail."

Storch, who is 29, will be in charge of the Security and Exchanges Enforcement Division.

Oh, boy! Here's some more information, via Glenn Greenwald:

This is all consistent with the observation of Desmond Lachman -- previously chief emerging market strategist at Salomon Smith Barney and IMF deputy director -- regarding "Goldman Sachs's seeming lock on high-level U.S. Treasury jobs," which he cited as but one of the many "parallels between U.S. policymaking and what we see in emerging markets."


In October of last year, a Goldman Sachs Vice President, Neel Kashkari, was named by former Goldman CEO and then-Treasury Secretary Hank Pauslon to oversee the$700 billion TARP bailout. In January of this year, Tim Geithner hired a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, to be his top aide and Chief of Staff. In March, President Obama nominated Goldman Sachs executive Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates futures markets, even though (or "because") Gensler confessed to lax regulation during the Clinton administration over the very derivative instruments that caused the financial crisis. In April, Goldman hired as its top lobbyist Michael Paese, the top aide to Rep. Barney Frank on the House Financial Services Committee which Frank chairs.


According to ABC News in October, 2008, Goldman "spent more than $43 million dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions to cultivate friends and buy influence in Washington, D.C. since 1989" and their "bankers have been the country's top political campaign contributors this year." "They are almost in a class by themselves," said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director for the Center for Responsive Politics. As Michael Moore has been pointing out, Goldman was the number one source of funding for the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. The bailout of AIG -- which resulted in massive federal government monies to Goldman -- was engineered at a meeting between Paulson, Geithner and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Last year, Goldman paid top Obama economics adviser Larry Summers $135,000 for a one-day visit to Goldman.

Sen. Hollis French, Alaska 2010 Gubernatorial Candidate, to Speak at Mat-Su Dems Egan Dinner This Evening

Alaska State Sen. Hollis French will be this month's featured speaker at the Egan Dinner, hosted by the Mat-Su Area Democrats. Here's the announcement:

October Egan Dinner

This coming Friday, October 16th, at 6:00 p.m. we will be meeting once again at the Glacier Canyon Grill in the Grandview Inn, 2900 E. Parks Highway in Wasilla.

Our special guest will be Alaska Sen. Hollis French. He is one of three Democrats who are running for Governor of Alaska in the 2010 election. The victor of the August 24th primary will go on to face the GOP primary victor in the November 2010 final.

Candidate Bob Poe came out to the Valley and spoke to an Egan Dinner last winter. We're hoping that former Alaska House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz will be November's guest (November 20th). He spoke to us when he was running for the U.S. House, back in early 2008.

Here's a link to Sen. French's 2010 campaign web site.

Here's a recent statement from Sen. French, about equal rights in Alaska:

The Struggle For Equal Rights For All of Alaska's Citizens Is Not A New One

In 1945, a state senator from Juneau speaking on an anti-discrimination bill said, "Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites, with 5000 years of civilization behind us?" Elizabeth Peratrovich, who was the guiding force behind the bill, responded by saying, "I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind the gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights." Peratrovich's remarks are credited with pushing Alaska's Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, one of the first anti-discrimination laws in a United States territory, through to passage.

Our constitution's promise of equal protection under the law is still in the process of fulfillment. It seems as though each generation must renew the effort, expanding the boundaries of equality through activism, political discourse, or civil disobedience.

A few years ago, the civil rights issue being discussed in Juneau was whether same sex couples should enjoy the same [employment] rights as heterosexual couples. In 2005 the Alaska Supreme Court ruled unanimously that they should, but some legislators objected, and in 2006 they introduced measures to amend our constitution to shrink the meaning of 'equal protection under the law.' I fought that measure as a member of the Judiciary Committee and I fought it again when it came up for a vote before the full Senate. The debate spilled over into 2007, when an advisory vote asking whether our constitution should be amended was placed on the ballot statewide and it narrowly passed. In response, another constitutional amendment was introduced in the Legislature, and I was proud to help other like-minded legislators defeat it.

This year's effort to expand the meaning of 'equal protection' was the ordinance passed by the Anchorage Assembly that would have prohibited discrimination in jobs and housing based on sexual orientation, much the same way that discrimination is prohibited based on race, gender, age and religion. As we all know, the measure was vetoed by Mayor Sullivan and the Assembly was one vote short of an override. That setback for the civil rights of Alaska's citizens will someday be righted; perhaps through a citizen's initiative, or perhaps through the election of a new mayor, or through the election of one more equal-rights minded assembly member.

Thus, the struggle goes on. The tide of history is clear, though. We are on the right side of this issue, and we will prevail.

Here's his campaign announcement speech from YouTube:

What Financial Reform Should Look Like and Doesn't

--- by Hugh

According to this post, the White House is kicking off its push to sell its financial reform package. The problem for us, not so much the Obama Administration, is that there is no reform, and certainly none of the needed reforms, among the proposals. The one positive component is the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). It is a good idea that has already been considerably weakened. Barney Frank has been circulating a draft supported by the Administration which would eliminate the CFPA from requiring financial services providers from making available simple “plain vanilla” versions of their products or that their communications with their clients be “reasonable.” The abandoning of such products in mortgage writing led to the bubble and bust which drove our economy over the cliff. If there cannot be reform here, there really will be reform nowhere. In other words, even the centerpiece of Obama financial reform is a hollowed out consumers agency.

Obama’s reform plans do not address any of the fundamental failures and dysfunctions which characterize the casino capitalism that has severely damaged much of our economy and threatens to push it into depression. Last year in December 2008, I wrote out a list of proposals which, unlike Obama’s non-reform reforms, were meant to address and fix our financial and economic situation. I have added to it over time. With the Administration bringing up the subject of financial reform, I thought it would be a good time to revisit what reform would really look like.

Nationalize banks and or bank holding companies, i.e. put them through bankruptcy

1. Re-initiate normal lending, i.e. local community based lending practices
2. Evaluate toxic assets (at mark to market pricing) and solvency
3. Remove discredited executive leadership
4. Recapitalize and re-privatize or set up as a public utility for vanilla banking activities
5. Reduce fees
6. Initiate forensic audits of financial institutions, investigate and prosecute fraud at all levels (both fraud in lending and control fraud)
7. Enforce Prompt Corrective Action to place financial institutions into bankruptcy or receivership regardless of size
8. Require bondholders to share in losses in any re-organizations

Audit the shadow banking system, especially Money Markets

Nationalize the Fed (it is currently working for the benefit of banks and not the wider economy)

1. Eliminate conflicts of interest
2. Remove the Fed’s de facto use by the Executive as its own funding instrument and return the power of the purse to Congress
3. Bring the Fed into line with the Constitution
4. Yearly audit and publication of the Fed’s activities; increase monthly and quarterly reporting requirements
5. Require that the Fed can only take on to its balance sheet assets that are marked to market

Nationalize the ratings agencies and consolidate them into a single independent entity

1. Eliminate conflicts of interest (they are currently paid by those they provide ratings to)
2. Make explicit that ratings do not substitute for the fiduciary responsibility of investment and financial institutions

Homeowners and the housing market

1. Offer a re-issue option on mortgages (all types on first residences) with a cramdown based on pre-bubble values (approx. 40-50% discount on face value, varies by market) at long term fixed rates.
2. Foreclosure moratorium
3. Allow conversion to renting
4. Future mortgages must follow truth in lending requirements, verify applicants creditworthiness and information, and disclose all fees and costs in advance
5. Establish a warrant system for mortgage writers with proof of insurance and/or reserves

Derivatives

1. Must be registered with the CFTC to be legally enforceable and must trade on a federally regulated US exchange
2. Reserve requirements and limitations on leveraging
3. Limitations, not on net positions, but on overall nominal ones

Collateral Debt Obligations (CDOs)

1. Simplify contents to a single asset class
2. Define ownership of the underlying assets
3. Ban re-rating sub-tranches upward and spinning them off into new CDOs
4. Ban movement of individual “mortgages” within a CDO
5. Ban CDO squared

Credit Default Swaps (CDSs)

1. Nullify naked swaps
2. Amortize risk on equity backed types
3. Phase out and convert to regular insurance

Futures

1. Increase margin requirements
2. Ban non-commercial traders
3. Monitor for excessive speculation: High volume trade notifications and total exposure reporting by traders

Special Investment Vehicles (SIV)

1. Must be kept on balance sheet. (This effectively eliminates them.)
2. Must be marked to market

Regulation

1. Re-imposition of Glass-Steagall
2. Limits on size of banking and insurance institutions: Any institution which is too big to fail is too big. Increase anti-trust investigations and actions
3. Re-institution of the uptick rule to prevent predatory shorting of a company’s stock
4. Ban naked shorts; and CDS used to undermine a company (another reason to get rid of them)
5. Sliding scale of fees on trades that increases with volume to decrease volatility and tamp down on speculative plays by hedge funds (and investment banks trading on their own account)
6. Limitations on direct executive compensation, limit bonuses, limit stock options and draw out any payouts
7. Require independent boards of directors
8. Make both CEOs and board members criminally liable for criminal activities of the company and civilly liable for losses unless reported immediately to regulators and with relinguishment of control
9. Redefine and limit the meaning of corporations as legal individuals
10. Ban investment banks from trading on their own account
11. Outlaw frontrunning done with fast computers
12. Reinstitute mark to market in accounting; disallow mark to model
13. Disallow write downs of debt in accounting
14. Disallow booking the projected profit of a contract at its beginning but phase it in over the life of the contract
15. Registration and reporting for hedge funds and private equity firms
16. Close the revolving door between government and the financial community; a 3 year rule either way
17. Completely revamp and restructure the SEC to emphasize professionalism and independence in investigation and monitoring; codify minimum funding levels
18. OTC (over the counter) exchanges must be independent or set up by another independent exchange; no OTC exchange can be owned or controlled by a market participant
19. Forbid insurance companies from re-insuring internally or through shells
20. Transparency, transparency, transparency

Consumer Credit

1. Re-imposition of anti-usury laws
2. Easing of personal bankruptcy laws
3. Limitation on credit card offerings
4. Debt repudiation without bankruptcy

Pension funds

1. Require adequate funding
2. Require pension funds to pursue low risk investments
3. Restrict or eliminate investments through high risk hedge funds

Tax policy

1. Rescind Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and re-institute high marginal tax rates
2. Take income caps off FICA (Social Security)
3. Treat capital gains as regular income for tax purposes
4. After current downturn is over, increase corporate taxation
5. Redirect tax cuts to lower and middle class Americans
6. Reward companies with tax breaks if they increase workers’ wages and living conditions, and if they become greener
7. Rescind tax subsidies for outsourcing

Other

1. Single payer universal healthcare
2. Reconsideration of “free” trade agreements which allow for free flow of goods, jobs and capital but do not take into account environmental pollution, poor quality control, and lack of workers’ rights and safety in target countries
3. Large multi-year stimulus with a view to sustainable re-industrialization: nationwide broadband, levees for New Orleans, rebuilding highways and water systems, building wind and solar power, update the power grid, conservation, mass transit, better community planning, carbon reduction projects, basic research; aid for state deficits; education grants; food stamps; unemployment benefits; and green technologies (of which an auto bailout and requirement to move to smaller more fuel efficient cars would be a part)
4. Savings in defense spending: Withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, cut unneeded, goldplated weapons programs, reduce the number of overseas bases
5. Change the filibuster rule in the Senate to prevent gridlock
6. Mandatory public campaign financing

Sen. Begich, the ADN, and Fiscal Responsibility

Let me see if I can get this right.

Six and a half years ago, Mark Begich began his two terms as Anchorage's mayor. He took over from George Wuerch. The Wuerch administration left the Municipality of Anchorage tens of millions of dollars in debt. The city, its employees and the assembly elected to represent Anchorage residents were at each others' throats. Even though economic times in the lower 48 were still recovering from the combination of the tech bubble burst, 9-11 and continuing loss of manufacturing jobs to overseas locations, Alaska's economy was reasonably strong.

When Mark Begich stepped down a few weeks early, to move to the U.S. senate, the United States was reeling from what has been termed a set of events that brought us closer to reliving the great depression of the 1930s than had any events in 70 years. Yet he left Anchorage's finances in better shape than had his predecessor. Additionally, in his final weeks, he had helped negotiate a long-term labor contract with the Municipality of Anchorage's costliest work element, public safety personnel. Percent of budget-wise, Begich left Anchorage in far better shape than had Wuerch.

When Begich began as Anchorage mayor, he didn't go out and get his minions to rag on Wuerch's job performance. He rolled up his sleeves and re-shaped the way the city served its residents:

It's politically convenient for some to overlook the circumstances I inherited as mayor in July 2003: the largest budget gap in a generation, $33 million.

Instead of making political hay, my administration spent the first six months balancing the budget and the next 5 1/2 years imposing strict financial reforms, with Assembly support.

Then, all but one employee union generously agreed to wage freezes to help balance the budget, which most also agreed to this year when finances got tight.

We stopped paying ongoing expenses with one-time windfalls because it is unsustainable. I notice the new administration is resuming that dangerous practice, using state revenue sharing for local services instead of property tax relief as we did.

We eliminated positions, reorganized government for greater efficiency, collected millions in unpaid fines and refinanced debt to capitalize on lower interest rates.

As a result, Anchorage's bond ratings were upgraded, lowering taxpayer borrowing costs. Voters showed they supported these initiatives when they approved a simplified tax plan in 2005 and two years running approved every bond proposition.

Now that Sullivan has taken over, he's lined up one lackey after another to wring their hands in public about how bad Begich was, compared to almost anybody. This hand-wringing is usually mixed with a full ration of union bashing.

The latest to join the hand wringers on fiscal responsibility have been the editors of the Anchorage Daily News. Let me see if I can get this right:

An entity whose stock was worth more per share than a bottle of 96-point wine when Begich began as mayor, but whose stock is now worth less than a half a can of Old Milwaukee, has pilloried Begich for being "dishonest" about Anchorage finances, and for being fiscally irresponsible. Had Begich run Anchorage like the ADN runs their shop, 2/3 of our schools would be boarded up, half that city's fire departments would have been turned into fundamentalist churches, and the city's police officers would be fleeing for work elsewhere.

While, under Begich, city services expanded in some cases, reformed in others, modernized in more, and were ended in many cases where they weren't needed, all the ADN has to show for those six years is is one pink slip, layoff or early retirement after another for their internal management. While Anchorage built many, durable new schools during those six years, the editors and managers at the ADN now are looking for a renter of the 2/3 of their building that now stands empty, drafty, moldy and dusty, due - in part - to their negligence.

I'm watching today's set of presentations by the incoming class of Freshman Democratic Party U.S. Senators, discussing health care reform cost projection alternatives on C-SPAN. Although I've been very critical about aspects of Begich's governance as Anchorage mayor and as U.S. Senator over the past two years, he has now, as when he was Anchorage mayor, aligned himself with moderates and centrists whenever possible.

While the ADN has been treating sleazy, butt-dialing shakedown artist Bill Starr like some kind of savant, The Bradners' Alaska Legislative Digest has been more realistic:

Bill Starr says we’re in a crisis, but what we really have are rather normal budget problems. Oth- er cities across the country are in substantial crisis, and also so are their parent states. Comparably, Anchorage is in good shape. However, it seems those screaming the loudest are hearing strange voices in the night - all the way from the Washington D.C. “Beltway.” We might remind them that Sen. Mark Begich doesn’t come up for election until 2014. In the meantime the Starr, Ossiander, Coffey tag-team needs to quit whining and do the job they were elected to do.

The Bradners also call these criticisms by the ADN, AM shock jocks and others "the old traditional tools of political escape:

Blame the past administration, blame the labor unions, and if you can blame both, so much the better. We’re also hearing nice short words of attack, such as “misled, deceit, investigate,” etc. This rhetoric is mostly framed as just statements, or questions not intended to be answered. We’re also hearing them repeated, repeated, and repeated. This sounds like campaign politics.

Repeated and repeated - campaign politics? Indeed.

Shannyn Moore wrote about this two full weeks before the ADN figured they had to chime in with the Sullivan gang:

Sure, it’s a guess…but a damn good one. This Friday, Mayor Dan Sullivan will cross the picket line at the ONLY boycotted hotel in Alaska for his “unity” dinner. In May, the Hilton workers overwhelmingly voted to place their hotel under boycott because their employer degrades their quality of life. Make no mistake, the media war being waged against the unions is partisan politics as usual. With all the vitriol against former Mayor, now Senator Mark Begich, I wonder if we aren’t seeing the opening salvo of a future “Sully” run for Senate.

Yesterday, Assemblyman Bill Starr released some serious allegations against Senator Begich. Bill Starr alleges Begich was part of a cover-up conspiracy to put the city in the hole in order to get the union contracts signed. An attorney just released an opinion stating the contracts are invalid. The attorney was hired by Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander for $5,000; an amount not needing approval by the assembly. He has admitted to not having any expertise in employment or labor union law. Sources say the city has been billed for an additional $12,000. The unions rejected Mayor Sullivan’s proposal to cut their hours.

Did the ADN criticize Sullivan's flagrant union bashing in late September? No.

The criticism that Begich withheld the critical email would have more resonance if more than a couple of its dire predictions turned out to have been true. Part of the reality now, though, is that the stock market has gone up 30% since those concerns were voiced, and that, as the Bradners put it, "The bashers reflect on the rest of the whole assembly, and also put the new mayor and administration in a negative light.

"This may be unavoidable in budget battles, but the new administration needs to get by this and start building a positive agenda."

Update - 1:30 p.m: Linda Kellen has alerted me to KTVA TV's story yesterday which supports Sen. Begich, the Bradners and Progressive Alaska on this. It even goes further in some areas. In the story, assemblyman Starr is even quoted as admitting he had all the information he has complained about not having, but:

"I'm not an accountant. I'm a citizen-based legislator. I'm not paid to do this. That's her job."

What a jerk. I think the ADN had better step up and rectify the misinformation their critical editorial has caused.

Linda Kellen will be discussing this today at 3:00 p.m. on KUDO Radio.

image - Sen. Begich on C-SPAN this morning

Rep. Alan Grayson Discusses the Next Steps in Congress on Health Care

Last Full Day of "Please Remind Us...." at APU

My teaching assistant and sometime student, Eric Bleicher, and I went over to Alaska Pacific University this afternoon, to take a look at Mariano Gonzales' controversial installation at Grant Hall.

On the way, we found this moose in the parking lot. Apparently, he couldn't remember where he had parked his car:


APU President Doug North's letter has elicited a lot of comments:

Other people have emulated his idea of pinning one's thoughts to the board, rather than using the available pens and going at it. This is a fairly eloquent protest to the exhibit:

Someone has posted new examples of questioned flag display, including flags signed by former President George Bush, and by Sen. John McCain:

Here's a terse defense of Prof. Gonzales:

The current wall, from the east:

Eric reading, from the west:
Mariano Gonzales will remove the exhibit tomorrow late afternoon. I will be performing a version of Shards there at 4:00 p.m.

Update - 10:00 p.m: Krestia deGeorge at the Anchorage Press has posted an article at the Press Web Site, questioning whether my call - that the removal of Mariano Gonzales' installation is censorship - is accurate. He and I had exchanged emails over the past two days on this, but, for three reasons, I was reluctant to participate in his article.

The exchange only raised more questions, and my final reply, which attempted to answer his initial query on what my working definition of censorship is, came too late to be included, according to Krestia.

I've invited him to come listen to Shards Thursday, and witness the installation's removal. His email response indicated that he won't be able to do that.

A Message to Alaska Democrats in Office

NPR Story on Interracial Dating c. 1963

Imagine listening to National Public Radio back in 1963 - I know NPR didn't exist until 1970 - and hearing this long, favorable report: "Throughout Georgia, young White men are forming vigilante groups to end interracial relationships between Negro men and White women." What if the report had read, in its entirety:

There is a new enemy for some Southerners: Romance between White women and Negro men, and vigilantes have banded together to fight it. The vigilante groups are walking the streets and towns across Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi. The largest and most notorious is in the suburban neighborhoods that have sprung up in and around traditionally Negro towns. Reporter Sarah Palin joined one of the groups on patrol.

SARAH PALIN: The small, white Chevy Impala swings into a nearly deserted parking lot and does a quick look around. It's just after 10:00 at night, and the lot is clearly a prime destination for a teenage date night in the suburban township of Forrestville. But Bubba Joe, a 31-year-old who lives here, is out for a different kind of prowl.

BUBBA JOE: Go down to that parking center. Stop, stop, one minute. That's them over there. Check if there is a White girl in that car over there.

PALIN: Every night, BUBBA JOE, who asked not to be called by his real name, patrols this and other neighboring White suburbs and towns. His mission is to find White-Negro couples and break up their dates.

BUBBA JOE: My heart hurts every time I see a White girl with a Negro. It's extremely upsetting. I asked myself: How did we get to this situation? How did we descend to this level? It is a serious step backwards, in our eyes.

PALIN: Bubba Joe is the leader of a group of vigilantes that goes by several names, including Fire For White Purity and Love of Youth. They say they number between 30 and 40 men and patrol the streets each night. Officially, they're on the lookout for any mixed couples, but T.S.(ph) a member of the group who often serves as Bubba Joe's driver, says the problem lies solely with Negro men dating White girls.

LONNY REB: These men approach the girl in a nice way. They buy her things. They build trust with the woman so that given some time, the girls just blindly follow them. And with time, one friend follows another, and soon enough, you have a commune made up of these kinds of girls.

PALIN: Comparable groups have formed across the country. In Mariott, an industrial city in Georgia's center, the municipality has formed a special division to address what it sees as the problem of underage Negro-White couples. But in Forrestville, the couplings are an unforeseen byproduct of the growing number of White suburbs that have been built across largely Negro small farm communities.

The small stretch of benches outside Forrestville's only soda fountain seems to be ground zero for teenagers here, no matter what background or race. Beverly Smith, a 16-year-old White teenager, says that she gets approached by Negro men every day.

BEVERLY SMITH: We were walking on our own to the soda fountain and a group of Negro boys drove by and were yelling at us, hey hot girls, and we didn't pay them any attention. We aren't interested in them. This happens to us almost three times a day, at least.

PALIN: But she and her friends understand why some girls decide to defy local norms and date Negro men.

BEVERLY SMITH: There are a lot of girls that go out with Negros because Negro boys are wild. They're bad boys. Some girls like that. I think they like us because Pickaninny girls are all conservative and wear the covering on their hair and we dress normally.

PALIN: Bubba Joe says the mixed dating is a growing epidemic, one that his group hopes to stop by handing out explanatory 45-RPM records and mimeograph sheets to girls they call known-problem cases.

On one late night patrol, he spotted a White girl entering a car with several Negro men. He intervened, but was unable to persuade her to leave, and the car sped off, hitting his leg. For nearly 30 minutes he followed the car as it threaded its way through the serpentine hill roads that connect the closely packed White subdivisions and Negro farming areas east of Forrestville.

BUBBA JOE: Using physical force with the girls won't work. Our goal is to talk to the girls and to convince them that their place is with Southern tradition and the White race, not with our enemies. There are four girls that we have intervened with and saved since we started. Even if we rescued only one girl, we have done our part. We have done a good deed, and we thank God and our friends in the KKK for it.

PALIN: Tonight, he gives up his chase when THE Georgia State Troopers agree to let him file a complaint against the driver of the car that struck him. He hopes that drawing attention to the incident will embarrass the girl and force her to leave her boyfriend. He says it's one more girl he might save. For NPR News, I'm Sarah Palin in Forrestville.

That report wasn't filed in 1963. But THIS ONE was, in October 2009. Sure, this isn't the United States, it is a foreign country. But it is being reported by the so-called pillar of liberal media, National Public Radio. If you click on the link, you can read the report's transcript. More telling might be to listen to the on-air podcast while reading my re-casting of this to the American South in the early mid-60s. I can't remember any report on NPR before that praised the efforts of vigilantes. This morning, Susie Knidler wrote a great takedown of the NPR report for Mondoweiss:

We’ve all wondered when NPR would investigate the bigotry underlying the Occupation and ever-growing colonization of Palestine. Yesterday, Morning Edition finally announced a piece on how groups of Israeli men roam streets, intimidating Palestinian and Jewish people who date each other. I looked forward to an expose’ of the thugs’ intolerance. Sadly, NPR spit out the opposite: a paean to the racism of those Israelis. Renee Montagne opens with the "news" that, "There is a new enemy for some Israelis: romance between Jewish women and Arab men, and vigilantes have banded together to fight it. The vigilante groups are walking the streets and towns across Israel. The largest and most notorious is in the Jewish settlements that have sprung up in and around traditionally Arab East Jerusalem."

What does Montagne mean, "Jewish settlements" "have sprung up" amid "traditionally Arab" East Jerusalem? Montagne misleads listeners from the outset, declining to mention either the illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands or its continual theft and violence toward the people of Palestine. Just yesterday, the Israeli government demolished yet more Palestinian-owned buildings in East Jerusalem, without a peep from NPR.

NPR seems to be steering more and more in his direction. The most striking part of this segment to me was the barely disguised disdain in Sheera Frenkel's voice as she narrated. I know and know of several Israeli-Palestinian couples, either dating or married. They're all so happy together. What more could anyone want?