Casting the First Stone

How IS a niqab like a gay wedding?

That is my take on the furor going on in Canada right now (more on that later) but first let’s talk scarves and stuff. The Q’uran does not require Muslim women to wear any specific type of garb; it only mandates modesty (and it mandates that of men AND women) and makes oblique reference to scarves and outer garments. It is the fundamentalist interpretations of verses in an-Nur and al-Ahzab that results in some male Islamic leaders insisting on niqab, burqa, etc. But it IS clear from the Q’uran that the underlying purpose here is modesty – the expressed intent is to avoid inflaming “base” desire. This may be all well and good until the proscriptions are employed as a tool a) to demean/denigrate, or b) to make unidentifiable (the Q’uran specifically states that women should be known and thereby not abused.)

But the discussion above focuses on the purpose of this dress for Muslims. We can increase the social complexity of such proscriptions by adding cross-cultural interpretation. While one may see a specific act as an act of modesty, another may see it as an act of defiance, secretiveness, a token of second class status, etc. Hijab and yoga pants? Can you say form over substance? Frightened yet?

Now fundamentalist Christians are no strangers to ignorance and foolishness, knowing little both as to their own religious history and theology, and as to anyone else’s. They by and large subscribe to a ‘my way or the highway’ philosophy, a policy even more extreme than Islam. And the more ignorant the Christian, the more extreme the position. Just consider the cross which arguably symbolizes victory over death, in the kind of twisted ass-backwards logic of Paul et al (and Paul was one whacked out nutter….) In other words, the cross is a symbol for many of a categorical rejection of reality, despite the fact that such a position was not historically or theologically present in their religion until long after the alleged Yeshu was dead and gone (as he apparently was born and died a Jew.)

And so, the French look to ban both in secular space because both could be seen as acts of civil violence much as Romans saw Jewish refusal to abide by Roman civil religion (which was not, in today’s sense, religious at all.) Culture warriors like Scalia, talk about American civil religion; Scalia dreams of being a Roman patrician, and sees the United States through the same kind of rose colored glasses that some of our propounding pops did. Meanwhile the French, who brought religious liberty to most of the world at the end sharp end of Napolean’s legions, are the ones who argue that the only real way to address religion in a secular state is to ban it from the public square.

I was reading a thread based on a piece by Paula Simons in the Edmonton Journal, (and the Facebook commentary on that piece) and the thought occurred to me that in as much as the burqa etc are interpretations by fundamentalist clerics of the scriptural prescriptions intended to avoid inflammation of passions, how would the Court address the possibility that the burqa wearer might inflame the passions of another woman by exposing herself to a female Court staffer? Not what the Q’uran said, but surely closer to what it meant than shrouding all women from head to toe?

At the core all have to realize that we are rapidly approaching, as the battle over rights for LGBT in the US evidence, a time when “religious belief” will equate to whatever any group of bigots decides upon at any given time. The modern state can neither function nor co-exist with such personal freedom. So yes, what is sauce for the goose comes with the gander, but that works both ways, and the arguments in Canada ring strangely similar to those in the US where “liberals” get snarky about “anti-science climate deniers” and then without batting an eye talk bloody jihad on Monsanto. It would be wholly inappropriate to promote any policy without exploring the eventual impact of that policy. And while I would not want to aid and abet a racist, even racists can stumble on something important from time to time (even if they do so for the wrong reasons.)

Neoliberals ignore the fact that Locke was fundamentally inconsistent, but did make it clear that while individuals should be free to elect whether to become a member of some polity on reaching some age of majority, once a member, that individual was subject to the tyranny of the majority. It is the Leviathan or anarchy, says Hobbes, and I think he is correct… No line is required until a line is demanded, and as we discussed before, the genius of Canada, if you will, is that Canadians have been able to get by with greater vagary than their cousins to the South. The bigger question for Canada is not where the line will be, but whether they can manage to avoid drawing it…. and avoiding a line is the responsibility of EVERYONE. Harper and his crowd may well be xenophobic racists twits (I think the evidence in support of such a claim mounts every time one of his crowd opens their mouth) but every bright line drawn renders the system a little more brittle, until the social contract shatters under the strain. Am I entitled to a law that says that I can marry a Doberman (as opposed to a Poodle?)

Surah Al-Ahzab – The Noble Qur’an – القرآن الكريم

Surah An-Nur – The Noble Qur’an – القرآن الكريم

The Qur’an and Hijab | Hijab, The Muslim Womens Dress,Islamic or Cultural? | Books on Islam and Muslims | Al-Islam.org

Down and Dirty

Aug27 by Marc Grober

Your attention please! The private social club we in Alaska know as “The Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center” is holding a soiree apparently prepping the State for the coming attempt to drown us in the “authentic North”! Yes, the Mausoleum is welcoming drama queen Kleeman to town, in an “Homage to Soil for Scoresbysund”, which apparently involves the artist rolling about in, wait for it, soil.

If you need a better gander at the hype for the elite packaging of the artistic rendition of possessive Narcissism’s “me, mine, and more”, click on the link and you will be taken to another window offering the web page for the event, where you can be regaled with the specifics of what you will get in return for your pounds of silver.

I think what you won’t see when you click there is something that I think some might think of as, well, art. Apparently some, over the years, have argued that doing rather silly things with a serious face while fools intone how impressed they all are somehow magically renders the erstwhile focus, “art”. Et, voila! Lino_mandara

Art? Here is a vessel created by Maestro Lino Tagliapetra. Art. A woman in bra and panties rolling in dirt? Used to be free at Chilkoot’s when I first arrived in Anchorage.

Yes, I am trying to suggest that there is more to art than sun-tanning around the word “Native” (thank you Erika Lord for assuring me of that). And while I may plead Potter Stewart’s classic argument, sigh at others’ attempts to lasso up a definition, and snort at the ongoing debate over art vs craft, there are, for me, bridges too far.

And yes, I think art should reflect intention, mastery of material, an emotional connection, and a further list of notions that are the nostrums of every art student’s training. I am humbled by the efforts of the countless striving to dance with the universe as a way of expressing themselves. And then there are the shuckers and jivers, the wallowers, the deceivers.

577512_10150943434104365_1605701165_n Has “art”, as suggested by some sages, become as meaningless a term as “liberal”, “conservative”, or “belief”? Have we become so gullible that we are willing to finally actually see the Emperor’s New Clothes? Can we explain why the Anchorage elite are happy to celebrate a roll in the dirt as art, but not the likes of the 24″ glass vessel to the left?
Julie Decker makes a fine CEO; I am sure she will carry on the fine tradition of the Rasmussen Mausoleum – the weirdest social club of the “authentic North”.

Anyone who wants to watch me beat dandelions to death in a jock strap are welcome to attend my new performance piece, “Old Yeller” There will be a no host bar and tickets at the door are $50…

Impedementia

Aug24 by Marc Grober

The only impediment to the Governor accepting the Federal funds on offer (since statutes adopted by a previous GOP controlled legislature makes it very clear that he may accept and spend federal funds on 45 day notice to the LB&AC) is the suggestion that those funds are for an additional optional group. However, Sibelius seemingly did not make expansion optional, it just found unlawful the remedy for failing to expand. Hence, it would appear that as the ACA still requires expansion, it would appear the Governor could either defy the law, or comply with it. It would seem that as the majority of the people in this State have made it clear that they wish him to comply with the law, and in as much as it would seem there is no legal impediment, there seems no reason why the Governor would not move ahead. Moreover, since the litigation to be brought by the Legislative majority would have to make it to the Supreme Court, and the State would have to pay both sides of the attorney fees, it is likely that this case could well cost Alaska millions, all for what the majority claims is not an attempt to block expanding Medicaid, lol. Really?

Of course one of the interests of the ACA is to provide a seamless continuity of coverage from all from poverty up. That means, that as you make more money, your insurance will begin to gradually cost more as you can afford it. The suggestion that someone would refuse to work simply to be able to obtain Medicaid smacks of the thinking of GOP apparatchiks who have historically failed to understand that if one drops supports completely at any threshold one undermines and renders the effect of the supports useless.

And as we all know, if Ohio Dan and Murky focused on sustaining the elevated Alaska rate and effected parity between Medicaid and Medicare, the minor issues the current disparity there raise would be resolved to the satisfaction of all… but of course, as long as they fail to resolve this, it provides a basis for their base to make noise about the repercussions of their sloth.

It is also ludicrous to complain about a lack of providers. There are a lack of providers because Medicaid and Medicare put downward pressure on otherwise unchecked provider costs. In fact, Alaska pays better than 48 other States and it is high time that medical providers checked their costs. Medicaid and Medicare are not the only insurers refusing to pay what providers are demanding, and other major insurers in the State are rejecting outrageously high medical fees. Ken Arrow demonstrated that Welfare economics do not respond well to market forces without a bit of arm twisting, and won a Nobel for that wink emoticon

Lastly, a comment about Alaska Policy Forum (the Boyler) If you are going to claim how easy it is to just “google” the support for the claims you make, then google them up yourself and offer a URL. Otherwise, any rational person will recognize that you are just shooting your mouths off (much as you did with the bogus testimony regarding the Medicaid Reform Advisory Commission that you pandered about as fact from the State. Alaska Policy Forum claims tax exemption as an adult education program, rofl…. and yet you can’t even manage to offer the URL which you claim you already know…. You are SUCH an embarrassment!

The Coffey Has Gone Cold

May17 by Marc Grober

Dan Coffey recently posted (in a discussion of Art Chance’s comments https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=396096857245236&set=a.132633106924947.1073741826.100005347745909&type=1&comment_id=396360150552240) the “rational” conservative approach to public employee unions:

George meany (head of AFL-CIO when Eisenhower was President) cautioned against public employee unions “because there is no one to bargain with”. There is nothing inherently wrong with Unions. We have had “Guilds” for centuries. What we haven’t had in recent times are elected officials who put the public interest above their own. These elected officials don’t bargain for the public, they bargain for union support in their next election. The results: See Detroit, the state of Illinois, Riverside County California, Stockton, California and the Mark Begich 2008 APDEA and IAFF and IBEW contracts of 5 year duration, with huge pay and benefit increases and work rule changes passed on votes of 6-5, 7-4 and 6-5 respectively. In my campaign I told many of the union folks I met with about what George Meany said. Most of them did not know who George Meany was. I also told them “I would bargain”with them openly and honestly, but that my job was to guard the public purse. Of course I was not elected. Now we’ll see what happens when a Union supported candidate is elected. The AMEA contract is on the table so we’ll see shortly.

What we see here an attack on labor generally, thinly veiled as being “in the public interest” by way of the purported innoculatory claim that “there is nothing inherently wrong with Unions.” The argument is that our elected officials put public union support before the public interests; that has been a war cry for the “right”, frankly, since the “right” discovered that much of the “left”s campaign funding comes from public employee unions. In the fight for the public square in which Citizens United has been center ring (though the key case is really ATP), the real battle has been over total campaign dollars. Amazingly enough, however, despite the “right”‘s claims that the unions own government, lol, we see unions back=-pedaling everywhere, and stories of unions voluntarily tightening belts to assist in addressing the impact of the economic nightmare produced in 2008 are everywhere.

Research shows that the claims made by the right as far as cost of public employee unions as opposed to private sector are dubious (Miller 1996), while analysis (Tax Burdens Comparison 2013) reflects that Anchorage, even without consideration of the impact of “personal revenue sharing (the PFD) has one of the lowest tax burdens in the entire country. Add in consideration of the PFD and as has been noted over and over again, most in Anchorage make no net payment for any State or Local service.

In other words, though a tenet of so called “conservative” myth is that public union contracts are unaffordable, that they are the means by which “liberal” politicians “buy” elections, and that these contracts are over funded and unearned, there is virtually no factual basis to any of that. Indeed, in Anchorage the subsequent behavior of Dan Sullivan made this all too clear by virtue of the facts that he declared a budget surplus despite the contracts, the emergency ordinance he demanded never was implemented, and subsequent contracts were not all that inconsistent.

To put that all in a nutshell, all the gnashing of teeth was a costly political ploy that blew up in the right’s face, resulting in the election of allegedly the most liberal Mayor in Anchorage’s history with less than a third of Anchorage’s registered voters casting ballots. Screen Shot 2015-05-18 at 8.13.54 AM

Enough is enough. Negotiations with public unions has always been tough in Anchorage. AEA members continue to accept reductions in total compensation packages while public safety and other unions continue face claims that they are thugs despite the fact that numbers of employees should be doubled in order to obtain the most effective results and provide the kind of quality of life that those living in Anchorage have demanded.

In the last Mayoral election the community was able to obtain some actual quantification of the number of people in Anchorage who are under the spell of that kind of mythology, and we are talking about something close to 30,000 people. It is high time that the rest of the community wrested control of our destiny from this vocal mean-spirited and ill-informed minority.

Miller, Michael A. “Public-Private Pay Debate: What Do the Data Show, The.” Monthly Labor Review 119 (1996): 18. http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/month119&id=376&div=&collection=.

“Tax Burdens Comparison.” Accessed May 17, 2015. http://cfo.dc.gov/page/tax-burdens-comparison.

Piss it forward

Apr1 by Marc Grober

I am told by Modern Educators that we must seek a Return On Investment for educational dollars spent. I am not moved.

Don’t get me wrong. I am sensitive to the public’s concern that bucks are being burned, funds flushed down the crapper, which is why the public should be ensorcelled into budget review teams that act to bring the community in to the school budgetary process in a real way, while relegating the demagogues to orations in cemeteries.

But I am not impressed with the argument, now actually being repurposed by the likes of Robert Reich and Bill Moyers, that some people only need so much education, the apparent neo-liberal liberal arts education. Where, oh where, you might ask, did the concept of an education free to the student through post-secondary study flee? All around the country we hear a new chorus; we need to train for employment.

I think it’s great that a student learning Math can count out change (though opponents to so-called New Math, when confronted with the actual instruction that explains how we count change, oppose such instruction…), but I am not sending that student to school so he can work the counter at McDonalds.

Reich and Moyers will get offended and argue that they just meant that “college isn’t for everyone”, but isn’t that a nice apologist howdy-do. It amounts to a declaration that college is only for those needing a college degree to get a job. And there we are – education as a tool of capitalism. We want to educate you so that we can exploit you.

Yes, I would like to see everyone hold a fulfilling job that provides a living, and I am certain that a good education would contribute to that, but that does not mean that I want to make serfdom priority one. I want our children to have greater compassion and comprehension, to be able to walk in another’s shoes and see with another’s eyes, to know the universe as awe-inspiring but as no object of fear. I want our children to share, in the most fundamental way, in all that we can offer as a species. I want to share with them the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which is the original blessing…

I am not looking for a return on investment when I educate a kid. I look at it as a foolish waste of money, an act of total caprice, a whimsical misadventure; all these being some gesture of faith in my species, no matter how unwarranted that faith may be. Piss on the bean counters. Piss it forward.

Spank my peepee!

Mar4 by Marc Grober

Click on the photo to check out the most recent Victorian episode in the Raj — I mean Anchorage, Alaska. “Come now!”, you say, every civilized society frowns on the sale of intoxicants to the intoxicated. That may well be the case, but it is NOT what is in issue here.

From the ADN article:

Thompson said she took steps and spent money to comply with the council’s requests.

“They asked us to upgrade our security camera system. We did that. They asked me to work with (APD officer Sally Jones) to come up with ideas for better lighting, so we did that,” she said.

At the same time, starting in October 2013, Anchorage police were gathering surveillance footage of Spirits of Alaska to document the kind of behavior residents were complaining about.

They edited the footage into a kind of supercut that shows, condensed, what Gilliam says is the problem: “Apparent drug deals. Assaults. Straw purchases — where individuals buy alcohol and sell it to drunk individuals. An allegation that one clerk is working in conjunction with a known drug dealer … People have difficulty getting up. People standing on corner drinking. Female employee leaving with a known drug dealer. Guy smoking crack. Public defecation on south side of building …” he said.

Gilliam says it is clear to him that Spirits of Alaska is selling largely to street alcoholics.

In other words, as was the case with the hysteria promoted by the “liberal” East side Assemblyman, Paul Honeman, this is not about stopping the sale of alcohol to the inebriated, but about stopping the sale of alcohol to people who drink. I understand that there may be some of my readers, as few as you are, who cannot fathom the difference; this is for you.

Anchorage is aflame! We have public drunks! And the bright lights of Anchorage, living as they do in the seat of universal logic, have determined that the best way to rid the community of public drunks, is to shut down liquor stores that sell booze to the poor, unimportant, people. Think of it as a modern day equivalent to Henry Anslinger‘s 1930’s attempts to stop crime in its tracks by shutting down the Negro scourges of jazz and marijuana (oh, wait, that was before we became a “post-racial” society, so that was OK!) Apparently either rich important people aren’t drunks (well, we know THAT’S not the case) or we don’t care that you are driving around looped to the gills, as long as we don’t see you (and please watch out for those little bundles of flowers along side the roads). And therein lies our tale. But I am getting ahead of myself.

DRUGS! BENGHAZI! DRUGS! I mean, associating with a known drug dealer! THAT is certainly not Constitutionally protected! But what about consuming an intoxicant while not intoxicated in a public place? Well THAT is unlawful AMC 8.35.400, and THAT is not the responsibility of the Alcohol Beverage Control Board; that is the responsibility of the very same Anchorage Police Department that has been the target of attacks by the Mayor and is seriously undermanned and underfunded. So what have the Assembly done? Of course, they gave them more to do – now they have to write $100 tickets for public pot smoking (of COURSE they still need pot sniffing dogs!) As one can see from reviewing Anchorage’s alcohol ordinances, the licensee is NOT responsible for any conduct off the licensed premises, and is subject to a very clear standard of care. Nor is there anything in the story which suggests that the licensee has not met her duty.

These efforts are cut from the same cloth as Honeman’s past efforts, which were based upon the premises that as homeless people rarely have ID in their possession, requiring people to show ID would keep homeless people from buying booze. I argued it was an indirect attack that could not stand constitutional scrutiny; the local ACLU was fine with it (apparently the ACLU folk did not want scruffy street people living near their homes… Go figure.) In other words, if we don’t want dogs in town, we raise the price of dog feed to $500/bag and require that the feed be purchased by someone wearing $1000 pumps — problem solved because now, though we still have dogs, the dogs are well groomed.

So, let me ask you, Ms. Demoski, if I publicly urinate in front of your house, are you going to organize a protest to make water fountains illegal? If I think you are a bit overweight, should I raise the price of food at all the stores you can shop at?

Baby it’s cold out here

Mar3 by Marc Grober

The Reformation, while feeding the concept of natural rights (which many see as eventually leading to much of what girds the spirit of the US’s founding fathers), also succored its antithesis. For while natural rights flow from natural law which is a byproduct of the Enlightened view of natural order (part and parcel of the Deist clockworks), it also brought to our shores the narrow minded intolerance of the Puritans, whose a priori view of the universe is still a curse on these shores.

To make matters worse, the unwashed masses confuse the concept of divine authority to engage willy-nilly in any activity they wish, with serious the jurisprudential questions. Of course there is a long history of the abuse of such confusion, as we see in the concept that a king is the annointed of the gods, or even that the individual is the annointed of the gods (in both cases authority flows from Zeus’ head as it were, not as a matter of human construction.)

Modern jurisprudence is not founded upon lighting bolts and plagues; as Professor Hohfeld noted a century ago, it is founded on a matrix of reciprocity – or as early British law put it, there is no right without a remedy. And so here we have from one perspective the chasm that in part divides ‘Mirka. On the one hand is a religious conviction which brooks no debate, while on the other we have a communitarian effort at managing all resources to everyone’s benefit.

Photo by Dara Ahrens

The crux of the antagonism, then, is the belief that anyone proposing legal guidelines that are inconsistent with Graham Crackers’ belief in what his deity intended is condemning one and all to unlawful acts in the eyes of that deity, with the likelihood of real time retribution (as in the water is rising because so is the amount of butt-fucking.) And this is where the Puritans enter, Stage Left, not because they were seeking individual religious freedom, but because they were seeking to create Sidney’s republic of saints. [And here we can note the nominal value Steve Salaita could have brought to UICU, the comparison of the “zionism” of the US with that of Israel, however defective his thesis may be.]

There is little to be gained in argumentation here. The ‘godly’ may from time to time deign to suggest that this or that policy is or is not acceptable to their mightiness (it would be difficult to attack Christians here as sole offenders as even Christian are hard put nowadays to agree on what a Christian is, and Christians are not the only ones whose deity is apparently ignoring the admonition of one purported prophet, to render unto temporal authority that which is of the temporal authority, lol) while the ungodly try to juggle the demands of billions of semi-sentient creatures, millions of whom are stomping their feet and screaming, “Me! Mine! More!”

Through the crack, sprightly

Mar3 by Marc Grober

It occurs to me that I have yet to meet a parent who didn’t feel that their child, not recognized as exceptional by their school, was very special and not adequately served by their school. Go figure. Indeed, one of the more frightening areas in which the far right and liberal left seem to make common cause is over “educational reform” — code for , “choice”.

When looks at the response to parental demands (read ‘low cost” private and charter schools), we see of course quite a bit of quackery, bigotry, but more importantly we see that these schools are mostly about parents being able to push educational staff around. Not that educational staff in many institutions shouldn’t be pushed around, lol, but I would prefer to see the pushing towards greater educational efficacy, as opposed to greater responsiveness to parental images of self-importance.

I am afraid we do have hordes of lousy teachers, but I don’t think a greater percentage than that of lousy parents, and while some might argue that with adequate educational leadership something can be made of even the worst teacher (presuming the existence of educational leadership, a matter I think in some dispute) the same can’t be said of parents.

Yes, I am outraged by a teacher who flunks his entire honors history class, but I also have to ask myself how such a class was filled with students who could not read or write to the standards necessary to take that class. And in the instances where I have witnessed such behavior, not a single parent though their child unprepared.

Screen Shot 2014-08-19 at 8.42.28 PM I will certainly admit to the fact that countless children escape an education, but qualify that confession with the observation that the wee toads are aided and abetted by their parents, who are of legal age, if not necessarily of sound mind, and whom, if the truth be told, are hustling their precious little devils through those cracks as quickly as their little chubby legs can carry them. And while some of us see down the rabbit hole as delightful interlude from the humdrum of our obligations, for some the illusion becomes all too real

While there are undoubtedly many exceptions, most of “us” are fearful, bigoted, and superstitious. We tend to think we are well educated while we are often almost functionally illiterate. We know very little history and less of any other social science, are largely innumerate, and have a good deal of trouble with our own language, let alone any other. We are tribal, snooty, and abusive while calling out others for being tribal, snooty and abusive. We are incredibly selfish, greedy and jealous. And now we want to be able to educate our children so that they don’t have to be near “Them”.

The most critical aspect of Education is learning about Others. The most critical target of Educational Reform can, I believe, be consistently seen in your mirror (as opposed to being found on the other side of it).

Pretty Please (with a wooden bridge on top)?

Dec20 by Marc Grober

I recently received two rather pleasant replies to my letter to the Anchorage Assembly regarding the ongoing obfuscation by MOA Parks and Rec Superintendent Spoth-Torres concerning trail bridges in Anchorage. The link to the local story is well worth the read if you get a kick out f people treading on their tongues. Of course, Jennifer Johnston is not “my” Assembly person. I am represented by an ex-cop frightened of marijuana who thinks the solution to the Anchorage homeless problem is to push the homeless out of his neighborhood, and an ex-State-legislator that doesn’t care about issues unless they specifically negatively impact him personally. I have regularly asked the Assembly Chair to request that IT check the status of MOA mail because it appears that these two fine fellows can’t manage to respond to e-mails, though Assembly members from the other side of town can, but that is a rant for another day.

Jennifer is a very pleasant woman (click here for a recent pre-election recap regarding the folks discussed here) from Hillside (don’t confuse Hillside with the East side) who has been a voting member of the “cripple Anchorage by supporting the Mayor’s attempts to collapse the Anchorage budget” caucus. In other words, if there is any basis for the contention that the bridge collapse is directly attributable to the shoddy attempts of some of our right wing budget hawk “conservatives” to take credit for the Anchorage “lifestyle” while not paying for much of anything, she is neck deep in that cesspit. Of course, as the note suggests, she will of course come out smelling like a rose but she didn;t ask anyone to skimp on construction or maintenance now, did she? But to be fair, she DID ask John Rodda to provide the necessary information to me, although that is very unlikely to ever happen — we shall see.

The other note I received was from Amy Demboski, another Republican, this time from Chugiak (where people in Anchorage live who hate Anchorage) whose debut issue as a candidate for Mayor was to opt Anchorage out of BoldAmy the State wide marijuana initiative which required that Alaska regulate marijuana like alcohol. Her campaign resulted in the appearance of some rather tacky graphics (an example appears to the left) and quite a bit of outrage (except from the supposedly “liberal” East side ex-cop, who is of course not liberal at all, except perhaps in Anchorage, where axe-murderers might be described as local celebrities.) The measure failed 9-2 and demonstrated that Amy has the pulse of the people (the State-wide measure passed in Anchorage by a very impressive margin) and knows when she has support so as not to waste the time of the public or the Assembly.

But enough ad hominem — Amy thanked my for bringing “this topic” to light, which is all very good until I started parsing “this topic”. Amy certainly is SO clueless that she means the collapse of MOA bridges because there was no maintenance. Well, to be totally honest (a trait we really don’t see much down at City Hall of late), there wasn’t even a maintenance schedule, thanks of course to Spoth-Torres who has been the Parks Superintendent for, well, frankly too long, thanks in part to her feckless supervisor, John Rodda, the guy who turned a bunch of teens loose to whack our nicest urban forest because some people called John – John could amazingly remember no names, no numbers, no nothing – and told him the scawey twees fwightened them, and yes, the same guy Jennifer suggested should be pleased as punch to provide me the records that demonstrate he has been totally irresponsible in performing his duties. Roger that.

Whoops, back to Amy. What then could she have meant by “this topic”. Would it be the fact that the bridges examined by the MOA contractor were only the bridges on the Coastal Trail, only one of the major trails in Anchorages trail system and home to only a portion of the bridges in Anchorage, most of which are low clearance bridges crossing the many creeks draining the Chugach Mountains and running through Anchorage to the Inlet we foul because we don;t fully process our sewage. Crap, another tangent. Amy! Or did she mean just the fact that the current Mayor seems to have installed a bridge that his staff have identified as inappropriate for the community? Beats me what she meant; for all I know she will introduce a measure seeking to opt Anchorage out of bridges!

In any event, here is my note (typos corrected) and Jennifer’s response.

John, could you provide Mr. Grober with background information? Thank you, Jennifer Johnston
________________________________________
From: Marc Grober [marc@interak.com] Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 3:38 PM
To: WWMAS Assembly Members
Subject: Bridges

Dear Assembly,

Remarks by Ms. Spoth-Torres quoted in the local paper of record,

Spoth-Torres said the parks department has tried to research how the bridges were originally designed. It’s still not clear why those decisions were made, she said.

“But what we do know is, we would never do that now. Or even 10 years ago, 15 years ago,” she said.

Wooden bridges have an aesthetic edge in Anchorage, Spoth-Torres said. People love how they look.

But she acknowledged that in a coastal winter environment, materials like steel are far more durable.

suggest that the Department, a) claims that wooden bridges were built at some point because the public likes how they look, and b) in a coastal winter environment, steel is more durable.

This raises a number of questions for residents on the East side, and I ask the Assembly’s assistance in obtaining answers (in that the Department is rarely forthcoming in providing responses.)

Specifically, on the East side we have a number of wooden as well as steel bridges, Most anyone I have asked has indicated that the steel bridges are well designed, elegant and preferable over the rather clunky wooden bridges that the MOA has placed, so the first question would be to determine if the Department in fact ever obtained data as to what type of bridge the public prefers, or whether Spoth-Torres was making things up as she went (again.)

Additionally, it appears that the MOA has very possibly placed wooden versus steel bridges simply because the administration at the time didn’t want to have to bear the expense of appropriate construction (in other words, cynically figuring that the bridge would collapse on another’s watch.) Of course, we would not be able to determine if that were accurate unless we had data (preferably in a spreadsheet) of when the bridge was built, designed, funded (not to mention specifics of the bridge design as far as load, recommended maintenance schedule, etc.)

Lastly, having had numerous years in which to plan and implement a bridge replacement in RJSP (one of the wettest locations for a bridge in Anchorage) the Department installed a wooden bridge in a locale known to be constantly wet. Is Ms. Spoth-Torres telling us that a wooden bridge was selected though she knew better because people on the East side are too stupid to know the difference, because there is something different about this wood design than that used elsewhere, or that Stantec included the new RJSP bridge in its analysis? Certainly, it would have made a great deal of sense to determine if the bridge that the Sullivan Administration just installed a few months ago suffered the same defects as the MOA’s contractor says produced the disaster downtown.

In as much as my requests for similar data have resulted in months of having to threaten the Department of Law with litigation, and in as much as this is really a city wide concern rendered so much more distressing by the State of the MOA presentations the Administration has produced, I would appreciate it if the Assembly would act in concert to get to the bottom of this issue, and at least as far as those of us crossing a new wooden bridge are concerned, satisfy our curiosity as to why the MOA would install such a bridge if Spoth-Torres knew that it was inappropriate.

Thank you,

Marc Grober

p.s. In as much as people on the East side seem to have a devil of a time communicating to east side Assembly persons via e-mail, I would certainly appreciate an undertaking (or not) that you are willing to pursue such an investigation.

Generosity of Spirit

Dec17 by Marc Grober

I recently saw a post about an apocryphal Anchorage police officer who would let drivers off a drunk driving arrest if they could recite the names of Santa’s reindeer. As the potential source of such a libelous contention, I thought I had better set the record straight.

It was the day of Christmas eve 1978 if I recall correctly, and I was defending a DUI in the old Anchorage State Court House (the one that has recently been plucked from existence that used to stand in front of the red brick ‘tower of justice’.) I was pretty harsh on the arresting officer (I had only been practicing law for a year, was full of piss and vinegar, and had the facts at my back) and got an acquittal for my client. I left the Courthouse and went across the street to celebrate. Several rounds later I picked up my girlfriend and we went out on the town. After partying for hours, we walked to the car and I started to drive home. It was dark and the streets were largely empty. I got confused and I turned the wrong way down Fifth Avenue. Before I could pull a U-turn a police office had sighted me. I pulled over, dug out my license and registration, rolled down the window and waited. It was not going to be the night I had planned.

And then, just as I thought things could not get worse, who should approach the car but the officer I had eviscerated just hours earlier. We exchanged polite greetings, and the officer very generously told me that he understood that we both had a job to do, that I had done mine, and that perhaps, had he done his a bit better things would have turned out differently, but that he had no bad feelings over the situation, and it being Christmas eve and all, if I could name 6 of Santa’s reindeer he would consider that an adequate field sobriety test as he had seen no other evidence of intoxication.

I was overwhelmed with this guys spirit, but being very Jewish and not a little under the weather, I realized that my mastery of Clement Clarke Moore was as shady as his claim of authorship — I could not recite the necessary lines! I stumbled over Comet and Dancer, and catching my lady friend’s dirty looks I chirped Vixen and Cupid. Uhhhh, Blintzes (“I mean Blitzen, Officer”). And I was done. I mean I was done, my goose was cooked. I could see the officer getting irritated (he would have to stay long after his shift doing paperwork on an ingrate) and I would be lucky if my girlfriend had two words for me. Stick me with a fork.

Just then I happened to look in my rear view mirror where I saw the traffic light behind me turn red. It came to me (yes, in a flash), and I blurted out (it felt like I screamed it) RUDOLPH!!. No one was going to take issue with that (however off color the response may have been) and heaving huge sighs of relief all the way around, we all took our leave of each (the office vouchsafing my U-turn, lol.)

I tell people this and other tales of Anchorage in the 70s because they convey a sense of who we were, and who we have become. I never heard of any officer doing this as a regular schtick — the officer with whom I spent a few minutes that evening certainly had not offered that to my client, or I would have been a fee poorer, — but it would not be the first time that I heard one of my stories come back to me.

“Twas the Night Before Christmas – Project Gutenberg eText 17135”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Twas_the_Night_Before_Christmas_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_17135.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Twas_the_Night_Before_Christmas_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_17135.jpg

Happy holidays, where ever you find them….

“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

Pardon me, but….

A serious place for some serious discussion

Category Archives: Marc Grober

Down and Dirty

The Coffey Has Gone Cold

Through the crack, sprightly

Pretty Please (with a wooden bridge on top)?