--- by Sherri Burkhart Reddick

6th grade Band and Orchestra programs may be cut from elementary schools in the Anchorage School District.   A vote will take place this Thursday Feb 9.  If you believe as I do that these programs must remain in our elementary schools, then please join me in taking action in the next few days to communicate with the School Board.

Here is some background information:

We learned that last week the ASD Music Supervisor received a request for information from a school board member about the potential cost savings if 6th grade band and orchestra were to be eliminated. 

The school board will have its final reading of and will be voting on the ASD budget on Thursday, Feb. 9, starting at 5:00 p.m. in the ASD Education Center Board room.

We can express our opinions regarding the importance of 6th Grade Band and Orchestra in the following ways:
1. Call or email the school board.  To email the school board, send one message to SchoolBoard@asdk12.org  and all seven members will receive it.

2. Testify at the Feb. 9 meeting.  People can sign up to testify via the same email address or can call 742-4312. Testimony is taken in the order received.
 3. Attend the meeting to show support for music education. Please wear concert dress or all black. The most important message is children must start an instrument early in life; middle school is too late. Personal stories have a big impact, especially from young people. This program has been cut over the years.  Students used to start instrumental music in 4th grade, then the program was cut to starting in 5th grade and several years ago the program was cut to a 6th grade start.  This year, 91% of ASD 6th graders are taking band and orchestra! School Districts across the country have come to realize that cutting their music programs was short-sighted and detrimental to their students' overall education.  The problem is once you cut a program like this...it is VERY hard to get it back into a budget and it is VERY difficult to get the program to the caliber needed.

Numerous studies have shown that there is a correlation between brain development and the study of music.  In addition, we know that social skills, listening skills, team building and creative expression are developed through the study of music and other artistic disciplines.   We know that students who study music tend to have greater success in school, score higher test scores, and a greater percentage of them attend college than those who do not study music. 

For me this is not about our need for future audiences or even future musicians - it is about our responsibility as a community to give our young people the best education we possibly can. 

Eliminating instrumental music in elementary schools will not enhance our education system.  It will be detrimental.  We will not be giving our students a full education nor will we engage them in the study of an artform that can enhance their studies of other curriculum (math, history, social studies, etc.)  If these programs are eliminated at 6th grade...fewer students will participate in middle and high school programs, and in the coming years these programs will be seriously weakened and potentially eliminated.

If you value Instrumental Music Education for the young people in our community, then please join me in contacting the Anchorage School Board to urge them to keep instrumental music in the curriculum at the elementary school level.

Thank you,

Sherri Burkhart Reddick
Executive Director
Anchorage Symphony Orchestra

--- by Jamey Duhamel

Like any mother, I want my children to grow up in a healthy, safe and economically vibrant community. As a lifelong resident of the Matanuska Valley, seeing my family experience the rare and spectacular beauty of Southcentral Alaska is something I have always envisioned for their future. That is why my husband and I purchased our dream home in Sutton -- the perfect place to raise our four boys.

Unfortunately, we soon became painfully aware of the different vision our governor and special interests have for the region. Astonishingly, three different large-scale coal mines are currently being proposed for the Mat-Su. While small, underground coal mining is a historical part of the Valley, Wishbone Hill is an industrial-sized project, the likes of which has never been experienced there before. These projects threaten to completely shatter our dreams of raising a family in this remarkable valley. That is why I started to ask some tough questions.
• How far away from private property do mines have to be? Turns out, it's completely legal for coal mines to be within 300 feet of homes. In fact, the mining site at Wishbone Hill in Palmer is within one mile of hundreds of families. Mining there will include large-scale explosive blasting twice a day, 360 days per year.
• Do I have rights to the water in my well? Not exactly. I can claim rights with the state of Alaska to ensure a certain amount of water per day but I have no control over the quality of that water. Big coal companies like Rio Tinto -- a company with stake in the Chickaloon Coal Mine -- have a long history of polluting water in communities unfortunate enough to border one of their operations.
• Don't we have a rigorous permitting system? While there are state and federal regulations that coal mine developers must comply with, those regulations are not designed to adequately protect nearby communities. Large coal mines like the projects proposed in the Mat-Su have historically been far away from population centers so the rules aren't in place to mitigate the impacts on people who live and recreate in the area. The violation records of all three mining companies with leases in the Mat-Su are a matter of public record and paint a dismal picture of their ability to keep employees and the environment safe. What will happen when these violations occur near large population centers?
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/02/06/2303600/mat-su-coal-mines-ould-be-bad.html#storylink=cpy
• Can we still recreate in the Moose Range? All of these proposed mines would cut off access to hiking, snowmachine, ski and climbing trails that have been used by Southcentral residents for decades.

And there are questions that have yet to be answered. Who will pay for the road upgrades and damages? Should the Mat-Su serve as a resource colony for China, Japan and other Asian superpowers? Is this in our national best interest? In our local best interest?
I began to realize that proposed coal developments in the neighborhoods of the Mat-Su were setting a bad precedent for mining in the entire state. That's when I decided enough was enough. After 17 years as a community social worker working with people who experience disabilities and children who are abused, I changed career directions last October to take this matter on full time. Now as the coordinator of the Mat Valley Coalition, I have joined thousands of residents working hard to protect our families and the future of our community.
Working with supporters from all across the state has given me greater insight on the dangerous effects coal will have on our communities. The extra noise, traffic delays and toxic dust will require most Alaskans to live with the consequences of coal development in our state, without any direct economic benefit to show for it.
We must realize that the fight to protect a Matanuska Valley resident's backyard is actually a fight to protect Alaska's backyard. We all have a vested interest in making sure the Mat-Su does not become an economically depressed and poisoned Alaska version of Appalachia.
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/02/06/2303600/mat-su-coal-mines-would-be-bad.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/02/06/2303600/mat-su-coal-mines-would-be-bad.html#storylink=cpy  

Healy "Clean Coal" Plant - image: PAFrom Fairbanks via APRN:
The Environmental Protection Agency is investigating a coal-fired power plant in downtown Fairbanks to determine whether it’s the source of a messy and possibly hazardous dust that blankets the area.  The investigation could lead to a designation as a federal Superfund cleanup site.From Healy via The Alaska Dispatch:

Alaska has issued a key air quality control permit needed to restart the long-dormant Healy Clean Coal Plant, a 50-megawatt power plant about 90 miles south of Fairbanks that has sat idle more than a decade and been called one of Alaska's most conspicuous boondoggles.

On Friday, Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation issued what is basically a renewal for a previously issued air quality permit for the Healy Clean Coal Project. The permit also covers the Healy No. 1 plant, which is adjacent to the Healy Clean Coal Plant and had been operating without updated permits. It will be the first time since 2009 since the facilities have operated under an updated permit.

A variety of government entities, both state and federal, and Usibelli Coal Co. have chipped in more than $300 million in grants, bonds, loans and in-kind donations to build the plant and explore experimental combustion and emissions-control technology. But when the plant was completed, lackluster performance tests and hesitation from its main customer, Fairbanks utility Golden Valley Electrical Association (GVEA), led to the plant's closing in late 1999.

Critics at the time said that the plant would cost too much to run, was unsafe and unreliable. Perhaps most important, it wasn't shown to pollute the air any less than conventional coal-fired equipment. From Palmer via  Friends of MatSu (disclaimer - I am Secretary of the organization's board):
Please join Alaska Community Action on Toxics for a discussion with Alan H. Lockwood, MD on the growing body of medical evidence linking coal development to human health risks.

At every stage – from mining,transportation, storage, combustion, and disposal of post-combustion wastes – coal development threatens human and environmental health. Pollutants from coal damage all major organ systems in the human body and contribute to four of the five leading causes of death in the United States. 

Dr. Lockwood, Professor of Neurology at the University of Buffalo, is a member of Physicians for Social Responsiblity and is principal author of the PSR medical report “Coal’s Assault on Human Health” which takes a new look at the devastating impacts of coal on the human body. Coal combustion releases mercury, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and dozens of other substances known to be hazardous to human health. This report looks at the cumulative harm inflicted by those pollutants on three major body organ systems: the respiratory system, the cardiovascular system, and the nervous system.

To join this free call and receive the dial-up instructions, please RSVP to Alaska Community Action on Toxics at heather@akaction.org or (907) 222-7714.

Dead Seabird on Kelp - Peter Bevis, 1990The recent upsurge in moose roadkill along roadways and railways in Alaska have spurred me to recount a story from almost 20 years ago. Part I today:

I.  One of my most longstanding unfinished music projects dates back to 1993.  Seattle bronze sculptor Peter Bevis and I had been putting together what we called the Knik Philharmonic's Second Winter Tour.

In 1992 he had gotten the keys to the freezer vans in the Mountainview neighborhood of Anchorage in which the scores of thousands of carcasses of animals killed and recovered in the Exxon Valdez.  Along with writer Philip Schuyler and nuclear sculptor James Acord, we retrieved a number of the dead animals from the semi trailers, took them to the brand new UAA sculpture studios, and under the watchful eyes of Ken Gray and Jeff Patrick, made plaster, rubber and fiberglass molds of them and returned the carcasses to the trailers.  Later, after Exxon settled with the Federal government on liability, the carcasses were burnt as toxic waste in an incinerator off of Klatt Road.

Bevis crated and shipped the molds to his foundry in Seattle, where he cast them into bronzes.  In early 1993, he shipped the finished sculptures and other road kill art he had created back north.

The Anchorage Daily News' Arts Editor, Thomas Harrison, wrote a long article on the resulting Anchorage exhibit of the bronzes in February 1993, called Road Kills - Spill Kills.  The article included color photos for the Sunday Arts section of the paper.  Apparently, it isn't available on the web.  I wrote music and commissioned Alaska poet Ann Chandonnet to write a poem to accompany the gallery show.  The music and poetry were called Shadows.

Along with the bronzes, Peter shipped up about two tons of special casting material for outdoor cold weather winter casting.  Our goal was to bring attention to the locally fairly widely-known fact that even though the Alaska Railroad had agreed with the state back in 1991 to begin reporting how many moose it killed along its lines back to state agencies, it had been seriously under-reporting the numbers.

Peter found out through ARR workers I got him in touch with that there were a few places where the ARR was caching unreported carcasses, and that in some places they had just left dozens of dead or dying animals alongside the track close enough to each other that you could see at least ten or so from one place.  At the same time, they were hauling back dead animals to Talkeetna or Chase, and claiming those were the total.

We wanted to bust them and publicize it.

The action we pulled off was well done.  We had even gotten a letter of permission from the Alaska State Troopers to cast bronzes of dead moose alongside roads and tracks, to raise public safety consciousness.  We had further gotten the ARR's head of public relations, Vivian Hamilton, to go along with cooperating with us.  We didn't tell her what our bottom line was, though.

In late February 1993, Peter, author Schuyler and Pete's "rapid response roadkill team" descended on the ARR's main illegal carcass cache alongside the tracks about 12 miles outside of Chase.  They had chartered several large snowmobiles with trailer sleds to hold the casting materials. 

Earlier in the month, Peter had spent time with some of Alaska's top forensic crime investigators, sharing notes on cold weather in situ casting.  He had developed a very fast setting, yet durable formula that we had tried outside my house near Wasilla.

He was ready.

The snowmobiles, along with a disaffected ARR worker as guide, descended on the sad scene of about fifteen dead moose discarded in three piles only a couple yards from the railside.  After scanning the scene, Pete gave orders and the rapid response team went to work.  I couldn't be there, as the Anchorage Symphony's dress rehearsal of my newest work, Fanfare and Capriccio (dedicated to Joe Redington, Sr.) was scheduled for that evening.

About an hour into their work, a train drove by, and the crew could see the engineer on a radio as he passed.  In another hour, a bud car came up from Talkeetna, and told them to stop work immediately and leave the scene.  Bevis showed them correspondence from ARR publicity flack Hamilton.  The ARR crew was befuddled.  Eventually, they decided it was too risky to get in trouble by crossing a bigger boss than the one who had sent them there, so they watched in amazement as Bevis and crew hustled along in the deep snow, finished casting, put the molds into prepared plywood boxes, and loaded them onto the equipment.

Bevis asked if the ARR crew wanted to join the rapid response team in Talkeetna for a beer in 90 minutes.

As I wrote here Thursday: Bad Handel!

Update:  It looks like Karen Handel is getting too hot for Komen to, uh, Handle:
Looks like Karen Handel will be packing up her desk (novelty coffee mug, Jesus riding a dinosaur Precious Moments statue, stolen office supplies emblazoned with pink ribbons) because a job may be opening at the Komen Foundation very soon.
Hers:
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves — Karen Handel hasn’t resigned (yet), but as pressure for her to quit grows, it seems like odd timing for the organization to post an ad that looks a lot like it’s an ad to fill the embattled Senior Vice President of Public Policy’s shoes. The ad is for a Director of Public Policy — are we just mincing labels here? Director, Senior Vice President — tomato, tomahto.
The ad seeks a candidate with a “health care policy background and existing relationships with Members of Congress and their staff.” The position is DC-based, and requires “7+ years of experience on Capitol Hill and/or in government affairs or nonprofit advocacy.”
Lingering baggage and public relations headache from previous Public Policy jobholder(s) is included as part of compensation package.This is all the fault of those breast cancer surviving thugs, you know.
Now Handel will have to wrestle with nutbar Jill Stanek for the title of Most Glorious Martyr of The Great Baby Jesus Fetus Holocaust. They could use somebody with Karen Handle's PR skills at SarahPAC.  She'd be an improvememt.

As I wrote here Thursday: Bad Handel!

--- by Rick Zelinski

I thought you might be interested to know that Anchorage School Board member Jeff Friedman has inquired about the cost savings if elementary 6th-grade band and orchestra were eliminated. Currently, over 90%, or 2300 students, participate in the program.

If you know anyone who might be concerned about this potential cut, I'd appreciate it if you would pass along this information. The school board will be hearing public testimony on the budget this Thursday, Feb. 9, at 5:00 in the ASD Education Center board room. Music supporters are planning on wearing concert dress, or all black. Alternatively, the school board may be reached at the following email: SchoolBoard@asdk12.org

Travel and Leisure Magazine's annual poll of the 35 best and worst U.S. Cities just came out.  Overall, Anchorage managed to be rated pretty badly, but it scored the worst of the 35 in 17 out of 57 categories:
Attractive city
Stylish
Classical Music
Theater/Performance Art
Antique Stores
Home Decor and Design Stores
Luxury Stores
Barbecued food
Fine-Dining Restaurants
Hamburgers
Architecture/Cool looking buildings
Lots of Hotel Options
Wireless Coverage
Visit at Christmas
Visit at Fall
Visit at New Year's Eve
Visit at Valentine's DayAnchorage scored 34th out of 35 in:
Live Music/concerts/bands
Singles/bar scene
Cocktail Hour
Independent Boutiques
Ethnic Food
Visit at Spring BreakIt scored 30th through 33rd out of 35 in:
Sports-Crazed
Tech Savvy
Museums/Galleries
Flea Markets
Cafes
Street Food
People-watching
Weather
WinterThat is 32 out of 57 categories, in the bottom 30 of 35.

Glad they didn't measure Wasilla in those categories.

hat tip - Wickersham's Conscience

Our big vegetable seed order came in a couple of weeks ago, from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  Here's a link to their web site, where you can order their catalog, which is huge, and packed full of incredibly vivid images of some of the vegetables, fruits, herbs and other stuff they offer.



Among the new seeds we ordered that we haven't grown before are:

Extra Precoce A Grano Violetta Fava Beans:
Chinese Red Noodle Beans:
Poona Kheera Cucumber (from India):
Bennings Green Tint Scallop Squash:
Mini Orange Tomato:
Violet Jasper Tomato:

I'll be starting the tomatoes during the last week of February.  Can't wait.  You can see the end of winter from my greenhouse - it got up to over 50 degrees F in there today.

From last year's garden, we managed to save seeds for:
Arugula (9th generation)
Dill
Cilantro (16th generation)
Stupice Tomato (7th generation)
Black from Tula Tomato (3rd generation)
Black Cherry Tomato
Green Zebra Tomato (3rd generation)

--- by HarpboyAK

[note:  Buddy Tabor passed away Sunday.  HarpboyAK sent this article to me late Saturday, and I failed to get it up on time.  AlaskaPI now notes in the comments that Buddy is gone.  Please DO watch and listen to his songs posted here.]

Hidden away here in Juneau, we have one of America's finest songwriters.  Alaskans and others who attended the Alaska Folk Festival over the past 35 years eagerly awaited Buddy's performance, because he always had a new song or two that would grab you in some way.

Now we're about to lose him, and you need to send him a card.

Buddy has recorded 5 albums and last fall, released a 3 CD anthology of most of his songs.  Here are a couple of songs that show the wide range of topics he covers...


A love song from his album Meadowlark:


When Buddy gets political, he's as his best, as in the title song from Blinding Flash Of Light.


And last year, as the Occupy movement grew, he wrote Corporate Domination:


I wish Carla Wolf, who produced the previous slideshow videos of Buddy's songs, had also done one for his song about sport shoe sweatshops, Mr. Basketball Shoes, guaranteed to make you never want to wear Nike shoes again.

A year ago, Buddy and Riley Woodford produced a prophetic video, Black Crow Night:


At the time, Buddy didn't know that a year later he would be wasting away from stage 4 lung cancer.

In November, when Buddy's cancer was diagnosed, he decided to do enough chemo to give him a few more months, so that he could travel to say goodbye to some friends, including some of the lifers that he has performed for several times at Folsom Prison.  In early November, his Juneau friends turned out for a potluck dinner, auction, and concert fundraiser, and raised $10,000.  Friends in Anchorage and Fairbanks also put on fundraisers, which really helped his family, since Buddy was a self-employed house painter until he had to quit working several years ago because of his back injuries.

He's now at home with home hospice care, and tires too easily to have many visitors or deal with many phone calls.  If you appreciate his music, let him know that you care.  Send a card to him:
Buddy Tabor
PO Box 21273
Juneau, AK 99802-1273 Do it soon.

HarpboyAK
P.S.  This is not a plea for funds, but a request for cards.  If you feel moved to make a donation, checks should be made out to Jeannette Tabor at the above address,.

--- by HarpboyAK



Hidden away here in Juneau, we have one of America's finest songwriters.  Alaskans and others who attended the Alaska Folk Festival over the past 35 years eagerly awaited Buddy's performance, because he always had a new song or two that would grab you in some way.

Now we're about to lose him, and you need to send him a card.

Buddy has recorded 5 albums and last fall, released a 3 CD anthology of most of his songs.  Here are a couple of songs that show the wide range of topics he covers...


A love song from his album Meadowlark:


When Buddy gets political, he's as his best, as in the title song from Blinding Flash Of Light.


And last year, as the Occupy movement grew, he wrote Corporate Domination:


I wish Carla Wolf, who produced the previous slideshow videos of Buddy's songs, had also done one for his song about sport shoe sweatshops, Mr. Basketball Shoes, guaranteed to make you never want to wear Nike shoes again.

A year ago, Buddy and Riley Woodford produced a prophetic video, Black Crow Night:


At the time, Buddy didn't know that a year later he would be wasting away from stage 4 lung cancer.

In November, when Buddy's cancer was diagnosed, he decided to do enough chemo to give him a few more months, so that he could travel to say goodbye to some friends, including some of the lifers that he has performed for several times at Folsom Prison.  In early November, his Juneau friends turned out for a potluck dinner, auction, and concert fundraiser, and raised $10,000.  Friends in Anchorage and Fairbanks also put on fundraisers, which really helped his family, since Buddy was a self-employed house painter until he had to quit working several years ago because of his back injuries.

He's now at home with home hospice care, and tires too easily to have many visitors or deal with many phone calls.  If you appreciate his music, let him know that you care.  Send a card to him:
Buddy Tabor
PO Box 21273
Juneau, AK 99802-1273 Do it soon.

HarpboyAK
P.S.  This is not a plea for funds, but a request for cards.  If you feel moved to make a donation, checks should be made out to Jeannette Tabor at the above address,.

I. Friday evening, a conference opened at the University of Pennsylvania, devoted to speakers, clinics, workshops and teach-ins on the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, initiated on July 9th, 2005, by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations, in protest to continuing Israeli incursions upon Palestinian rights, particularly in the occupied West Bank. As one might expect, Zionist organizations have been either trying to stop the conference or demonize it since word got out it would happen.  Even though people were strongly discouraged from attending, the event is unrolling without incident so far, with "a waiting list of 250."

In the run-up week to the conference, notable luminaries and usual suspects showed up, to take one side or another.  Here's Archbishop Desmond Tutu's endorsement:


Here's a set of notes on part of Alan Dershowitz' speech Thursday to the Philadelphia Jewish Federation:
--Professors at the University of Pennsylvania who support BDS are complicit with evil.


--Protecting Israel is one of the great human rights issues of the 21st century.


--(During the audience Q and A): Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein hate America. They hate liberalism. They hate Western values. Make it clear that people who love liberty love Israel.


--Attacking Iran would not be preemptive, it would be reactive. Iran is already engaging in war with Israel. It has armed Hezbollah, Hamas….Israel has a right to attack.


--2 state solution would require a military presence in Jordan Valley in case there’s an incursion from Iraq. Iraq is becoming Iran. They take their orders from Iran.Best-selling writer, videographer and journalist, Max Blumenthal, a U Penn alumni, wrote in the Daily Pennsyvanian on the same day, countering Dershowitz, and questioning the prominent neocon attorney's credibility:
To counter the Penn BDS event, local pro-Israel groups including Hillel and the Philadelphia Jewish Federation have summoned the famed trial lawyer and Harvard University professor of law Alan Dershowitz to campus to keynote a Feb. 2 event: “Why Israel Matters to You, Me, and Penn: A conversation with Alan Dershowitz.” Penn’s Political Science department – which has pointedly refused to co-sponsor the BDS conference — will co-host Dershowitz’s lecture, where the professor has vowed to explain why he considers BDS to be one of the most “immoral, illegal and despicable concepts around academia today.”


The support Dershowitz received from the university and from pro-Israel groups that claim to abhor violence is ironic in light of Dershowitz’s record. Indeed, Dershowitz is an open advocate of torture who has urged Israel to destroy entire Palestinian villages, attack civilians and bulldoze their homes. Despite Dershowitz’s professed concern for political dissidents living under autocratic regimes, he has called for personal retaliation against Israeli academics who speak out in favor of BDS. Meanwhile, Dershowitz routinely smears high-profile critics of Israel’s 45-year-long occupation as evil anti-Semites — and worse.


In March 2002, during the height of the Second Intifada, Dershowitz published an article in The Jerusalem Post proposing a “new response to Palestinian terrorism.” According to Dershowitz, even the ironfisted tactics of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were not harsh enough. He urged Israel to adopt an explicit policy of collective punishment — a practice banned by international law. Dershowitz advised Israeli forces to arrange for “the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings.”


No less disturbing is Dershowitz’s recommendation that the United States adopt an official policy allowing federal law enforcement officials to torture criminal suspects. As long as an FBI agent received a “torture warrant,” according to Dershowitz’s rules, he was free to do as he pleased to the body of anyone in his custody. Dershowitz even offered torturers proposals for inflicting maximum pain. Among the methods he advised was “the sterilized needle being shoved under the fingernails,” an idea the journalist and former US intelligence analyst James Bamford described as “chillingly Nazi-like.”For a list of some of the more important articles leading up to this watershed event, Mondoweiss has made one as part of their article on the first full day, including tweets coming out.

II. On Wednesday, at a meeting of Occupy Oakland, here is what happened:
Last Wednesday at the amphitheatre in front of Oakland’s city hall, occupiers endorsed Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel in a 135-to-one vote. Oakland’s occupiers have recently experienced chemical dispersants, and a mass arrest, which took place over the weekend. Among those arrested was Noura Khouri, the Palestinian organizer who initiated the BDS proposal.


The general assembly (GA) was electric; Wednesday was the first time those arrested were present for an occupy meeting. Despite the several distractions, including barking dogs and a New York Times reporter snapping photographs, occupiers listened attentively as Khouri and two others discussed the “intimate relationship,” between local law enforcement and the Israeli military. "We are seeing the militarization of our local police forces," Khouri said, continuing "they are using the same tactics, weapons and laws."


Khouri, along with co-presenters Basima Sisemore and Deppen Webber, also touched on the use of chemical dispersants by the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and the Israeli military. "The same tear gas that is being used on the streets here against you all is being used in Palestine," said Sisemore. And, in fact, a portion of the occupiers at GA had experienced tear gas during the weekend’s "move-in day" actions, a failed attempt to occupy a vacant building. Throughout the march the OPD fired tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, flash-booms, and smoke grenades, on protesters, including children and elderly. One producer of these “non-lethal” weapons is Defense Technology, which is also used by the Israeli military.


The presenters then read the proposal text, and a letter of solidarity with the occupy movement from the BDS Nation Committee (BNC):


Our aspirations overlap; our struggles converge. Our oppressors, whether greedy corporations or military occupations, are united in profiting from wars, pillage, environmental destruction, repression and impoverishment. We must unite in our common quest for freedoms, equal rihts, social and economic justice, environmental sanity, and world peace.


However, occupiers did not need much convincing on why BDS should be endorsed.This was an important event.  Here's a link to the video of the endorsement and the discussion that led up to it (about 25 minutes of open presentations), from Alison Deger's excellent article on this.

From the beginning of the OWS movement, some have sought to characterize elements of its organization or participation as being "anti-Semitic." As the movement has grown remarkably over the winter and gears up for Spring, some will attack this vote as the same. Look for articles coupling the burning of an American Flag at Oakland City Hall and this resolution within the same paragraph.

But as law enforcement forces at dozens of Occupy encampments and actions have shown over the course of this winter, and as the initiators of the Oakland proposal mentioned in their explanation of their move, our police are increasingly showing influence of what Max Blumenthal has described as the "Iraelification" of American law enforcement:
The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces, through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel’s national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the iceberg.


Having been schooled in Israeli tactics perfected during a 63 year experience of controlling, dispossessing, and occupying an indigenous population, local police forces have adapted them to monitor Muslim and immigrant neighborhoods in US cities. Meanwhile, former Israeli military officers have been hired to spearhead security operations at American airports and suburban shopping malls, leading to a wave of disturbing incidents of racial profiling, intimidation, and FBI interrogations of innocent, unsuspecting people. The New York Police Department’s disclosure that it deployed “counter-terror” measures against Occupy protesters encamped in downtown Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park is just the latest example of the so-called War on Terror creeping into every day life. Revelations like these have raised serious questions about the extent to which Israeli-inspired tactics are being used to suppress the Occupy movement.III. I hope to follow up on ramifications of the Occupy Oakland BDS resolution, and on the results of UPenn's BDS Conference, as they are making postable videos of most speakers there.  Meanwhile, here is the address Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of Global BDS, had taped for the conference:

"We--the global 99%--shall overcome!" Omar Barghouti's Salute to UPenn BDS Conf., Feb. 2012 from Omar Barghouti on Vimeo.

February 4th is pretty much the middle of the optimum time in Alaska for huge snowfall.  Back on the night of 4-5 February, 1955, in Whittier, the U.S. Army recorded accumulation of 145 inches of snow in one event.  At sea level.  This winter, November, January, and maybe now, February have left us with the most snow in decades.

Here on Neklason Lake, we don't have as much snow as some places in Southcentral, that's for sure.  But it is far more than we've ever gotten, since moving here in 1995.  Yesterday, I cleared the driveway and parking lot twice.  Then again this morning.

Looking up the driveway, with its 4 and 1/2 foot-high snow walls along the bottom:


At the top, the walls are over 6 feet in places:


Trucks, a VW, and the smokehouse.  The VW is getting a rest until the snow season passes its peak:


The morning deck has about eight feet of snow piled on it in places:


The Outback, dwarfed by the snow next to it:
 

Alaska Dispatch reporter Craig MedredA week ago, during the intermission at the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra's brilliant presentation of Gustav Holst's masterpiece, The Planets, I bumped in to Richard Mauer, the most outstanding investigative reporter at the Anchorage Daily News.  I thanked him for his recent work at the ADN, which has recently included a thorough expose on the sleazy ways Rev. Jerry Prevo has turned Anchorage Baptist Temple-owned real estate into highly structured ways to fleece the taxpayers of Anchorage.

Then I said to Richard, "You know, the person who is probably doing the best writing of his career right now is Craig Medred."

Mauer replied, "You're absolutely right."

Medred has been blasted and praised over the past four years at Progressive Alaska.  I've dissed him for the ways he seems to find to dig at the Cordova commercial fishing community.  I've praised and thanked him for being the only estimable Alaska outdoors reporter to thoroughly cover Bretwood Higman and Erin McKittrick.  Medred attended Erin and Hig's first Anchorage presentation, which I produced at UAA, back in January 2008.  That resulted in him being the first mainstream frontline Alaska reporter to take notice of their remarkable achievements.  Since moving from the ADN to the Alaska Dispatch, not only has Medred continued to keep up with Erin and Hig, he's expanded far outside of the niches he was kept within at the ADN.

Currently, Medred is delving deeply into the dark underworld of the politics of game management by the State of Alaska.  With the bust of the sleazy, unqualified Christianist Corey Rossi, for a huge number of hunting misdemeanors (which - strung together - really ought to be a major felony). and Rossi's subsequent resignation as director of the Alaska ADF&G Division of Wildlife Conservation, Medred has initiated a series that may end up warranting the first major national journalism prize for the young media outlet.  The articles in the series, so far, are:


The spectacular rise of Alaska wildlife manager Corey Rossi

How Alaska wildlife manager Corey Rossi was charged with illegal hunting


New details emerge in Alaska wildlife chief's resignation


Alaska wildlife official faces new allegations of illegal trophy hunting


Public safety chief sought to keep Rossi affair under wraps tro protect probe

Who benefitted most from charity Alaska bear hunts for veterans?

Additional Dispatch coverage of the Rossi debacle and the farce that is game management in the State of Alaska has been first-rate too:

Wildlife chief's resignation resonates with Alaska biologists - by Rick Sinnott

Alaska Board of Game shows affection for any predator control program - by Rick Sinnott


Corey Rossi and the 30-bear weekend - by Rick Sinnott

Alaska wildlife chief appointment raises new questions at Fish and Game  - by Rick Sinnott

More details should emerge on how many layers of corruption there are in the state's management of the Alaska hunting industry.  One quote from Medred's most recent article may provide clues as to where this might go (emphasis added):
Healing Hearts, which has been endorsed by radio talk show host Glenn Beck, did manage to stage its own black bear hunt in 2011, thanks in part to an $80,000 grant (.pdf) from the Alaska Legislature. The organization leased the Deshka River Lodge for three weeks and brought 14 wounded veterans north to hunt "alongside a number of celebrity team members," according to a press release.There are many opportunities, through the state GOP's politicization of  special hunting permits, for kickbacks and favors that would remind anyone of the way Bill Allen worked over Ted Stevens' Girdwood house, and rewarded Vic Kohring.

I don't trust the state to honestly deal with the inner layers of this onion, though.  Dozens of people complained to state law enforcement about Allen's practices, and they got nowhere.  He's gotten off scott-free on his sexual abuse charges thanks to the ineptitude and callousness of state law enforcement.

Ask Ray Metcalfe, Tony Hopfinger, or a number of others about how capable they think the AST and Alaska Department of Law are at delving into GOP crimes.  The answer may take a minute or so, as they recover from laughing out loud.

This is no laughing matter, though.

Bad Handel:  Karen Handel and Avid SupporterGood Handel:  Danielle De Niese singing Lascia ch'io pianga from Georg Frideric Handel's opera, Rinaldo:

Conjuring up the image of President Richard Nixon, who once stated "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal,"  Obama recently disclosed secret government information on the Jay Leno Show, and on this past week's internet forum.  Last year, when asked about Army Private Bradley Manning's status, Obama quipped "If I was to release stuff, information that I’m not authorized to release, I’m breaking the law."  At the time, Manning had not been charged with any crime.

But, by the standards of Obama's statement on Manning, the president has also broken the law.  Glenn Greenwald takes this up in today's column, titled ACLU sues Obama administration over assassination secrecy.  The Obama administration, defending its program of assassination of American citizens, and its illegal drone assassinations, and killing of hundreds of innocent people as collateral damage, has stated repeatedly that these programs are so secret that even discussing them is forbidden.  Greenwald:
When they face the rule of law, then the program is so profoundly classified that it cannot be spoken of at all — indeed, the administration cannot even confirm or deny that it exists — and it therefore cannot be scrutinized by courts at all. 

Worse, they not only invoke these secrecy claims to avoid the ACLU and NYT‘s FOIA requests, but they also invoked it when Awlaki’s father sued them and asked a court to prevent President Obama from executing his son without a trial. When forced to justify their assassination program in court, the Obama DOJ insisted that the program was so secretive that it could not even safely confirm that it existed — it’s a state secret – and thus no court could or should review its legality (see p.43 of the DOJ’s brief and Panetta’s Affidavit in the Awlaki lawsuit). But Obama, on the Jay Leno Show, said:
This is a guy who was actively planning a whole range of operations here in the homeland and was focused on the homeland. And so this was probably the most important al Qaeda threat that was out there after Bin Laden was taken out, and it was important that working with the enemies, we were able to remove him from the field. And on the internet event last week, he said:
"I think that we have to be judicious in how we use drones," Obama said on Monday, adding that they have been used for "very precise, precision strikes against Al Qaeda and their affiliates."

Obama went on to say that "obviously a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA," the acronym for Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas, and have been used for "going after Al Qaeda suspects who are in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan."

"This thing is kept on a very tight leash," Obama said. The U.S. does not use drones "willy nilly" but in a way that avoids more intrusive military actions, he said.Obama, by divulging classified information to the public, using his own administration's tortured arguments, in his own words, "If I was to release stuff, information that I’m not authorized to release, I’m breaking the law," has done just that. 

Greenwald is clearly upset about where we've gotten:
It’s extraordinary enough that the Obama administration is secretly targeting citizens for execution-by-CIA; that they refuse even to account for what they are doing — even to the point of refusing to disclose their legal reasoning as to why they think the President possesses this power — is just mind-boggling. Truly: what more tyrannical power is there than for a government to target its own citizens for death — in total secrecy and with no checks — and then insist on the right to do so without even having to explain its legal and factual rationale for what it is doing? Could you even imagine what the U.S. Government and its media supporters would be saying about any other non-client-state country that asserted and exercised this power? When we voted for Obama, many hoped we'd get another  FDR, or at least a JFK.  Then we realized we'd gotten something more akin to another Gerald Ford.  Now, more and more, it seems what we've gotten is a newer version of some of the most uncomfortable aspects of Richard M. Nixon.