Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Seriousness of the Sea Life Center Investigation(s)

Steve Aufrecht at What Do I Know? has posted a long, detailed look at Anchorage Daily News investigative reporter Richard Mauer's detailed article published last Sunday, on a highly questionable land deal associated with the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward. Mauer wrote the story with Tom Kizzia, but Aufrecht analyzes background on the ADN article from his knowledge of what Mauer was doing while investigating last year. Aufrecht, a semi-retired University of Alaska professor, also was a teacher at the college of Tylan Schrock, the center's administrator when the land deal went down. Aufrecht offers insight into Schrock's personality in his post.

I got to know Steve when we were both blogging the Vic Kohring Alaska legislative corruption trial last year. Near the conclusion of that trial, Aufrecht's humanity toward Kohring and others convicted in the same investigation was questioned by some, who thought him too kind and forgiving toward the convicted. My defense of Aufrecht's viewpoint was the first Progressive Alaska essay. Since then, Steve's valuable help with my writing and viewpoints at this site has been stimulating, helping me to understand aspects of my public responsibilities as a blogger.

Last Sunday, writing about Kizzia and Mauer's article, I observed:

One of the things that Mauer's narrative clearly shows is how, when Sen. Stevens insinuates himself into a public process, people caught in the crossfire feel uncomfortable. People who feel like they might have to become unwilling accessories to the way the Federal earmarks get processed into projects favorable to one friend of Ted or another, often are put into a position of believing that if they don't enable Ted or Friends of Ted, their career, their business or their position in their community will be slimed.

Steve's post goes beyond that in its nuanced considerations of how peoples' lives were adversely effected by this remarkably questionable earmark fund use. And, even more of interest, is the growing intersection in how Kizzia and Mauer's article plays out in the public sphere, with the writings of various local bloggers, and in the information that can be gleaned by comments attached to those articles. The effect is mostly cumulative, or additive as a process. This is far better than the old-school approach, where the
ADN, for instance, publishes an article, and a week or two later, a couple of letters to the editor surface.

But the attention drawn to earmark acceptance syndrome by the combination of news articles, TV reports, blog entries and written comments may be multiple rather than additive in its effect on Alaskans' growing awareness that there is a price to accepting our Federal legislators' funds for giant projects. Alaskans, even though the Feds are keeping very tight-lipped about what they might do next, are increasingly becoming aware of the seriousness of the untidy, unethical and unhealthy state of the political environment here.

4 comments:

Steve said...

Phil, I'm glad you quoted yourself here. I thought I'd read something like that in the Mauer/Kizzia article and was set to quote it, but couldn't find it. Reading this post tells me I actually had read it here. I'm not sure I can keep an active foot in two different worlds. I spent last night at a village fair to raise funds for a Thai elementary school and under a mosquito net in one of the villager's homes. I left my laptop at the guesthouse and we came back straight to work. I've got lots of pictures and some video to post later this weekend. (It's noon Friday here.) I think I have to let Alaska go pretty much until I get back. Thanks for the kind words.

Tea N. Crumpet said...

Steve is a great thinker, but he'd be the last to say so! Sometimes I get wrapped up in life and am literally feeling dizzy and I drop by his blog. His blog is to my brain what a bar is to a ballerina whose spin is off-kilter and she is getting dizzy. He literally gives me a sense of balance when I read his blog or look at his pictures of birds or listen to his music.

Philip Munger said...

tnc,

Yeah. and he's making me hungry lately, with the pictures of meals and dishes of REAL Thai food in Thailand...

Anonymous said...

The comment on Ted Stevens is spot on, how cross fire is so apart of things he is involved in.
Just look at all the FBI guys, and DOJ attorneys caught in some cross fire, with the overturn of the Stevens' conviction, as Ted's old pal Allen was cooking, and spinning stories, that set up the cross fire. Allen sure made a bundle off of the Exxon Valdes Oil spill, that damaged sea life, and ruined soem fishing families, and now his company has been foled into CHM2-Hill, with its over $ 25 billion in federal contracts.
As to humanity, and writing, and bloging, how does one run the calculus on that ?
Do people convicted in the cross fire have more or less of it ?
It is sad, that human weakness shows of those taking bribes, corrupting governments, but who pays the cost of that ?
Maybe we never see the human side on that, but it is there.
It is ironic, those going after Stevens(FBI and DOJ high officials, etc) are now on the other end of that process, and Stevens is hailed as some hero(in some circles-after his conviction was tossed).
One thing that Steve wrote is he lost some friends, becasue of things he wrote in his blog, or seemed to imply that.
Steve is an interesting writer, he need not worry on how things are conceived at points in time.
Facts come out in a non-lineal process.
In order to capture the essence of situations, and people, it is a long hard slog, one can't just push a cyber button.