What Mrs. Otte did Not

by Marc Grober

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8th Grader Victoria Granado wrote in to the Anchorage Daily News with her policy advice about addressing sexual assault and asking for “support” (see,  http://bit.ly/azWGuK)  I offer the comment below.  I would have expected that Mrs. Otte already explored most of what I am about to say to you, Victoria,  (that would be her obligation) so if you have already addressed the points below, my apologies for covering the same ground again.

First off, it is very difficult to get any sense of what you are actually proposing.  As 8th Graders I am sure your class had something more to vote on then the simplistic argument that we will defeat sexual assault via sting operations.  In as much as your teacher is aware that she could have used ASD’s Google Apps  Domain to facilitate your creation of a variety of web pages on this issue to which you could refer the public it is most unfortunate that you did not take the opportunity to actually present some sense of your policy deliberations as well as the width and breadth of the debate that led to your resolution.

Had you published a bit about your efforts, I am sure I would have noted your acknowledgment of the relative frequency of sexual assault within the family or among close friends and would have addressed how you would interpose a sting into such circumstances.  Likewise, I am sure we would have been able to view how you addressed the impact of non-physical aggression,  which is the overwhelming domain of women in our society according to most recent research, and the possible trigger such assaultive behavior  may become.

In light of our local political scene, I am sure you must also have explored the economic issues presented by your proposed policy.  Who will pay for your program? How much will it cost? Will your parents vote to lift the tax cap to fund more municipal services? Will your class be opposing local candidates claiming they support property tax relief and more services since your class would clearly understand that such a stance is utter nonsense?

And while it’s not PC to ask, you undoubtedly also explored the whole concept now promoted by teabaggers that one must be responsible for oneself and that typically people get what they “deserve” at the hands of a personal and interceding God. Are you suggesting that persons the victim of sexual assault didn’t deserve to be assaulted? Does alcohol and drug abuse contribute to an environment which might condone such behavior? And what about the current practice of spitting on Congressmen and throwing bricks through windows? In a society where a major political party is slow to condemn such violence, wouldn’t one be led to believe that violence IS an appropriate form of “speech”?

I could go on, Victoria, but I hope I have made my point that your presentation in the newspaper was shallow and that was unfortunate in that I am sure your efforts in school were not. This reflects on Mrs. Otte, however, not on you, as she is the person who was responsible for your project, and I am sure, for promoting your letter to the editor.  Wanting to be the best citizen you can be is a wonderful aspiration, but as we have seen over the past months with respect to the health care reform debate, being a good citizen involves more than sounding off; it involves rational and critical thought, civil discourse and respect for one’s peers. Best of luck next year in high school.

Purchasing Anchorage Elections

by policyadvisor

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While many are grinding their teeth about the recent Citizen’s decision before the Supreme Court, folk in Anchorage should be more concerned about the funds liberally spread by the likes of Dan Sullivan and Dan Coffey. But buying an election is dependent on the susceptibility of the populace to mindless blather, and it seems pretty obvious that Anchorage politicians are correct; folk in Anchorage suffer serious intellectual challenges

ASD: Walk the Walk

by fumosus

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ASD superintendent Carol Comeau recently dealt with a prank at Service High School where many students had ruined the exterior door locks with glue and tried to erect concrete barriers to the driveways. While there are many different ‘takes’ on the proper ASD response to this, I was immediately encouraged by some of Carol Comeau’s first words on this subject: “We need to teach young people that there are consequences to their actions”.

My encouragement turned into discouragement when I shared my thoughts with a parent from Eagle River, who told me a fairly long and unhappy tale of his recent dealings with Ms. Comeau. His account made me wonder about Ms. Comeau’s ethics, straightforwardness, and just plain honesty. When I questioned him about these things, he shared with me a long email exchange between he and Ms. Comeau, dragging out what seemed to be a straightforward question into many weeks of misdirection, conflicting assertions, and just plain subterfuge within ASD’s communications in response to this parent.

After going round and round without any response from ASD that might indicate that they might feel that “there are consequences to … actions”, Ms. Comeau declined to participate any further in the discussion – never once having given this parent a straightforward answer that didn’t conflict directly with another official ASD answer to the same question… and refusing to discuss the gross discrepancies of the ASD answers.

While it is important to ‘talk the talk’ – which by the way, Ms. Comeau does seem to be able to do quite well – it is extremely important to ‘walk the walk’ as well. How can Ms. Comeau justify saying the “right” words, and then when questioned further – and the going got rough for her to continue to deny ASD-intentional-guilt – to merely stop the conversation?

Should ASD only conduct conversations with parents that make ASD look good, and not participate in any other discussions? That seems outrageous.

We must be a better example to our youth. Our children care and learn less about our words than they do about our actions. When these two things conflict it is always our actions that carry more weight. Ms. Comeau’s actions in this instance do not appear honorable.

Does anyone else have experiences dealing directly with Ms. Comeau – whether their account might involve the telling of difficult truths, or similar to this case where difficult truths are hidden, questioners misdirected, and discussions refused when they became too close to a difficult truth?

P.S. The simple straightforward question that the Eagle River parent was trying to get an answer to was merely this:
“Is ASD intentionally violating the law that requires them to hire ‘Highly Qualified’ teachers?”

Maybe Wally Has a Good Idea This Time?

by policyadvisor

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The kernel, many would argue, of the social revolution at the turn of the last century was the concept that workers should own the means of production. This is NOT a radical concept, nor is it inconsistent with capitalism. Indeed, any thorough review of all of Adam Smith’s writing in context might actually suggest he was much more a socialist than any might give him credit for. And the reason this is relevant NOW is because Alaskans, offered the opportunity NOW, have a chance to invest in Alaska.

What am I talking about? The gas pipeline, of course! Not unlike the brave face adopted by citizens of the Bay area in moving forward with bonding for their bridge, Alaska has the opportunity to create a quasi-public corporation to build a gas line authorized to accept pledges of portions of PDFs and to authorize such pledges for minors (in as much as we know that the State is likely liable to the tunes of millions of dollars for allowing endorsement of PFD checks on behalf of minors in ways unacceptable under the law…..)

A pledge of $500 per year for five years by half the population would capitalize the corporation in excess of half a billion dollars, more than enough to leverage any financing necessary. Would it be a worthwhile investment? Well, considering that Big Oil is making a killing right now why wouldn’t intelligent folks want to get in on the ground floor of the most exciting investment option to appear in years (arguably persons who had received a PFD already would be offered a special price for their subscriptions.) In what other ways might the investment benefit Alaskans other than as a return on their investment? As stockholders Alaskans could then vote for a Board and insist, if they wished, that the gas line run to where they think it most appropriate (and my guess is that it would not be outside Alaska.)

Want to wax optimistic? Think about the fact that we will have ice free ports on the North Slope soon. Think about building ships to move goods between Asia and Europe through the Arctic that might use gas to power Sterling engines, gas produced in Alaska and taken on board these ships at Alaskan North Slope ports. Think also about building gas fired generating plants at the source of the gas, and then providing monorails which provides advanced transmission of electrical power through a state-wide grid.

Yes, Wally has dreamed some doozies…. But it is nice to have someone with some vision in this state, and on this matter Wally is dead on. It is time Alaskans built their own infrastructure with their own money and controlled production. If the guvna wants to build a pipeline and put Big Oil in its place, here is the way to do it….

Can you take it higher?

by Asclepius

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So I am driving my old Benz to the Ted Stevens Monument to Alaska Pork (aka the airport) around Rosh Hashana and I am hit with Eddie Grant’s Electric Avenue refrain, “And then we’ll take it higher” and I am rocking out. The buzz diminishes as I drive in circles trying to put the car in the correct lane at the correct terminal in the bleary rain-soaked darkness (bear with me as I hope this is allegorical) and I turn apparently so serious that having picked up my passenger I virtually shove the recent donnybrook over the Yom Kippur Cook Inlet Conference cross-country race in my unsuspecting passenger’s face.

My passenger, a family gadfly who supports the Seventh Day Adventist perspective of legally challenging religious discrimination seems ecstatic over the turn of events (ASD adopting a short list of holidays that will be safe from school scheduled events) . I, a recovering Funkaholic who has been lost in the Kafka-esque twists and turns of modern transport, am not so sure.

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This gum has lost it’s flavor.

by Asclepius

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With all the high emotion having faded perhaps its time to look back over the furor concerning the stance taken by many dentists over the plan to allow non-dentists to perform procedures previously reserved for dentists. The argument seemed to be centered over the perceptions of many Natives that they could not obtain adequate dental care in the Bush without this option. Dentists were horrified that the plan would allow persons not professionally prepared to perform the procedure to become what amounted to seat of the pants dentists, arguably creating a second-class dental system for Natives. Natives then claimed that it was the dentists being racist.

What can finally be distilled from this once the facts have been distilled is that the underlying problem is that Bush Natives won’t pay what the market demands to have real dentists come to them and so they are willing to pay less for non-dentists. One cold simply chalk this up to a consumer decision (perhaps an unwise one, but a consumer decision nonetheless) until one remembers that the federal government owes a duty to these same consumers because they are dependent peoples.

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Are Dennis and Ron Going to the Devil?

by policyadvisor

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With all the conservative media pumping so much smoke into the air (in Alaska that should be sufficient to set this blog on fire….) it is dangerous to try and have an intelligent discussion about issues of late. Would anyone really care if Craig was gay if he hadn’t made such a big deal out of gay-bashing?

But what I want to talk about is the inherent defects in a non-parliamentary system. Here we have two very viable candidates, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich who are both taking on the issues with frank and candid campaigns, who are in no small sense being ignored because of the issue of “winnability”. [NB-I wondered about the double “n” but as the source for win is the Anglo-Saxon winnan I have to once again pity those who even hope to master English in one lifetime] The pundits tell us that voting for these two guys is a waste of a vote because neither can actually win. Unfortunately, our system does little to encourage or reward those who we might want to elect!

In a parliamentary system Ron and Dennis might be candidates from smaller parties who could assemble a government out of a coalition of Greenies, Libertarians, Progressives, etc. As it is now, while we shudder at the prospect of the election of the current front runners (Rudy, Hillary or whomever) we can’t as a society apparently bring ourselves to collectively throw away enough votes to elect somebody who we know is lying to us.

The result is that more and more of us refuse to vote, become ensnared by the sound-bite fear based politics made “popular” by Richard Nixon (see the NY Times Review of Nixon and Kissinger, or read the book) or are told how to vote by cults focused on their own bizarre agendas. Ehrman’s “Lost Christianities” should be required reading for anyone presuming to tell anyone that according to Jesus they are going to Hell. But the thought I want to leave you with is that the far religious right may have it right! Yes, since Satan comes from the semitic word meaning nemesis or opponent any correspondent questioning the government, is (you guessed it) the Devil…

The Milkman Runneth

by policyadvisor

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Dear oh dear!

Does anyone else feel that Sarah’s recent change of heart about the Mat-Maid Dairy is based on information at least as obscured from public view as the basis for the extraordinary swings in the dairy’s financial condition?

Alaskans are happy to purchase local milk and milk products at a premium price, but what continues to get my goat is that the Dairy could lose so much money. Compare the Mat-Maid mess with petrochemical prices; are our Alaskan refineries losing money? Not in this lifetime! Even if Mat-Maid was only selling milk from Outside, the public has a right to understand how so much money could be lost packaging milk products here, as opposed to packaging them in Oregon, Minnesota or Iowa.

Perhaps it is time for the Alaska Dairy Industry to focus exclusively on local value-added product. Things like high-end yogurts (with wild raspberries and blueberries), cheeses (why should we import cheese from Italy, Holland, etc.) and coffee additives (the suppliers of latte junkies have already indicated an interest in half and half and cream.)

But before we write off Mat-Maid, we need a full accounting so that we understand what went wrong. Then we can add this experience to the other annals of Alaska economic history (this can sit right next to the explanation of why the fish plant became a church on my bookshelf) so that at some point someone might have reason to pause in the middle of some pork fit and contemplate just what is being done with Alaska resources.

Got Milk?

Sarah in the Wilderness

by policyadvisor

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Governor Palin took her first tentative step into the wilderness December 20, 2006 with her signing of HB4002 into law (Ch 1 4SSLA 06). The Act calls for an advisory vote on the question:

“Shall the legislature adopt a proposed amendment to the state constitution to be considered by the voters at the 2008 general election that would prohibit the state, or a municipality or other subdivision of the state, from providing employment benefits to same-sex partners of public employees and to same-sex partners of public employee retirees?”

Why wouldn’t the new Governor take this opportunity to demonstrate the sea-change in doing business she campaign upon, saving the State the funds that would be spent on such an exercise and rejecting the polarizing politics that has incapacitated this State?

Alaskans must recognize that Palin’s real constituency are the angry white late-comers of the Kenai Peninsula and the Mat-Su Valley. While Alaska was at one time very “liberal” (an unholy mix of libertine and libertarian), the cultural result of boomer migration has turned the urban hinterland into a subarctic Bible-Belt. While the rest of the country has now turned away from the dogmatism promoted by the fundamentalist religious right, Alaska, as always, is 180 degrees out of sync.

Alaska is still living in the “glory days” of the Defense of Marriage Act (an Act which was intended to bar the application of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution to same-sex marriages authorized in any U.S. state or territory.) DOMA is certainly flawed (it does not address recognition of same-sex marriages authorized by foreign governments) and likely unconstitutional.

But what is this all about? While we are told that a core Republican philosophy is small government that stays out of interpersonal matters, Sarah’s supporters are not focused so much on political philosophy than on a 20th Century Puritanism; they want the freedom to legislate their own morality, and don’t let the door hit you on your way out if you disagree.

The Governor’s actions are is not about the impact of extending access to insurance benefits to same sex couples as early adopters have indicated that providing same sex health benefits is not more expensive. Were it about some policy need to differentiate betwen kinds of recognized family bonds Alaska could have adopted civil union laws as have been adopted in a number of other jurisdictions. Palin is simply caving in to her Puritans supporters and her refusal to veto a measure whose purpose is clearly to disenfranchise members of Alaskan society based on the type of sex they engage in signals her willingness to follow, not lead.

Let’s face it, the litigation underlying this brouhaha resulted from the fact that Alaskans were being denied health coverage. Maybe Sarah should have launched an initiative to make affordable health care available to all Alaskans….

Alaska Liberals on the Offensive

by policyadvisor

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Senator Bettye Davis wants to require students to stay in school longer. What the AlaskaPolicy.Net wants to know is how is Bettye going to fund this idea.

While Districts like ASD actually count on absenteeism at the high school level (many classrooms would not have enough seats if all the students rergistered attended all their classes, and absenteeism among registered students is outrageous, forget about the 40 per cent of the students who have drpped out) the fact of the matter is that the cost of just enfocing our existing mandatory attendance requirements would cost the state millions. And we have yet to consider the teacher cost alone of staffing some 15000 additional students (about $35 milion at 30 students per classroom). Now add the cost of incremental services as these would be students whose needs far outstrip those of the existing unserved population.

Bettye, how about if we just try and fund the existing program…..