Sea Ducks in the Interior

One of the cool things about spring migration in Interior Alaska is the arrival of the sea ducks, waterfowl that spend most of their lives on the ocean, but migrate far inland to breed and raise their young. Here’s a sampling.

Easily the most spectacular of the Interior ducks, the Harlequin Duck deserves its name.

Harlequin Duck Drake

This extravagant species breeds on white-water streams in the mountains. It’s common the Alaska Range, and occasionally seen on the upper Chena River. A birding day with a Harlie in it is always a treat. This photo is from Rock Creek, along the Denali Highway.

Another pretty amazing species that travels to interior lakes to breed is the Surf Scoter, one of the three North American scoter species:

Surf Scoter Drake

The spectacular schnozz on this guy makes it one of the easiest filed identifications in Alaska. Surf Scoters aren’t present in big numbers, so it’s always a treat to find one. This guy was at 48 Mile Pond on Chena Hot Springs Road, snacking on fingerlings.

Less spectacular but still very handsome is the Long-tailed Duck:

Long-tailed Duck Drake

Until pretty recently, this species was called Oldsquaw. In large flocks on the ocean, the calls are very much like muttering old women. Political correctness, and probably the right thing to do, but still. This species breeds in alpine lakes; this photo was taken along the Denali Highway.

The last species isn’t a duck; it’s a grebe, Alaska’s largest grebe. And political correctness hasn’t struck here yet. This is a Red-necked Grebe:

Red-necked Grebe

This species also likes lowland lakes. But unlike the ducks, Red-necks won’t tolerate other species on the lake or pond and drive them off, including their smaller, handsome cousins, Horned Grebes. This photo was taken at Wander Lake, on Wedgewood’s nature preserve.

They aren’t here long, any of them. But they are an excellent part of spring and summer.

U.S. v. Stevens: The Post Mortem Continues

On May 24, 2012, the Office of Professional Responsibility in the Department of Justice released a heavily redacted Report on the prosecutor misconduct in the criminal case against the late Ted Stevens. It’s 672 pages long, with many redactions, with the redactions mostly focused on a couple of FBI Special Agents.

In WC’s view, there is no credible basis for redacting any part of the Report. See, e.g., pages 607-655, essentially all of which are completely redacted. And it’s more than a little ironic that a report focused on the government’s wrongful conduct in withholding information goes ahead and withholds substantial amounts of information.

Readers will recall that the special investigator appointed by Judge Sullivan, the trial judge in the case, found no basis for criminal charges against the prosecutors involved.  The Office of Professional Responsibility report determines whether there were ethical violations warranting discipline by USDOJ.

From the unredacted portions of the Report that were released, and the sanctions imposed by the Office of Professional Responsibility,  WC has the following comments:

• The imposition of sanctions on only the lower-level members of the prosecution team and the exoneration of the managers sends exactly the wrong signal to the USDOJ attorneys. Management should be held accountable for the misconduct of those they supervise. The Code of Professional Responsibility governs lawyers. In Alaska, Rule 5.1 requires a supervising lawyer to keep informed, and to make efforts to mitigate misconduct when it is discovered. By that standard, USDOJ lawyers Welch, Morris and Sullivan should not have been exonerated. It’s the wrong signal because it tells senior attorneys and supervisors to keep their eyes closed.
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• In one sense, the sanctions imposed are trivial. One prosecutor is suspended without pay for 40 days; another for 15 days. It hardly qualifies as more than a light slap on the wrist.
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• In another sense, the careers of those two prosecutors at USDOJ are probably over. If you are closely associated with an utter debacle, you get tarnished. It doesn’t even matter if you did nothing wrong. Hey, ask Ted Stevens if you think it isn’t true.

WC expects both prosecutors who were sanctioned will appeal.

There should be one more kind of scrutiny of the prosecutors’ conduct. The bar associations involved should have proceedings under way to determine if the Code of Professional Responsiblity (or whatever the ethical rules may be called in others states) were violated. Those proceedings are usually confidential until a decision is made. So who knows if and when anything will ever come out about them. Mr. Bottini is subject to Alaska rules. Stay tuned.

Perhaps someone will bring a FOIA request to obtain an unredacted copy of the Report. If a reader hears anything about such an effort, pass the word to WC.

Mitt’s Muffs: Taking Money Out Of The Economy

One of the Neocon lies that seriously annoys WC is the claim that federal taxes “take money out of the economy.”

Government doesn’t take tax money out of the economy; it redistributes money taken in taxes back into the economy. In fact, since America borrows $0.40 of every $1.00 of government spending, the government is putting way more money into the economy than it is taking out in taxes.

Now, you can be against redistribution of wealth, you can call it socialism, and you can demand an end to it. But that’s not the same as assuming that money taken in taxes just disappears into some vast black hole of the Treasury Department. The Interstate Highway System was paid for by taxes, largely by a tax on gasoline. Did that money “disappear”? Social Security taxes go to folks who spend it on groceries, rent, health care and energy. Are the Neocons claiming that money “disappears,” too?

If you really want to take money out of circulation, if you really want to remove it from the American economy, you place it overseas. Like The Mitt. In his multi-million dollar Cayman Islands accounts. Or let your wealth sit in bank accounts at multi-national banks that refuse to lend it out.

Or put it places like JP Morgan Chase; now there’s a way to make money disappear.

Heartland Institute: Just a Matter of Enough Rope

WC has mentioned The Heartland Institute before. It’s the Neocon think tank that tries to dress as a sheep and talk about climate change: Bah, bah, bah.

The sheep disguise slipped off recently, when the Institute bought Cook County billboard space for this gem:

Heartland Institute’s Billboard

That’s objective analysis of global warming, isn’t it? That’s a reasoned response in a discussion about science.

There was a surprising amount of criticism to the billboard, and the billboard came down in 24 hours. Afterwards, not before, the Institute announced it had been an experiment. If the Institute thought that was a science experiment, that goes a long ways to explaining its confusion about the science of climate change.

In a blog post ranting about the public’s and donors’ reactions to the billboard, in sequential paragraphs, mainstream climate scientists and critics of the Institute’s efforts are first called Hitler-deniers and then Holocaust deniers. A failure of reflection, to say the least. Finally, the Institute takes refuge in that playground favorite, “he-called-me-names-first.” So a failure of maturity, as well.

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent for theBritish paper  The Guardian, has identified the likely reason for the Institute’s schoolyard responses: the sponsors for their dubious climate conference are deserting in drove, and taking their checkbooks with them. Some staff have quit in protest.

Goldberg reports:

Board directors quit, conference speakers cancelled at short-notice, and associates of long standing demanded Heartland remove their names from its website. The list of conference sponsors shrank by nearly half from 2010, and many of those listed sponsors are just websites operating on the rightwing fringe.

But the conference has been saved. Both the Illinois Coal Association and Heritage Foundation stepped in to fund this week’s conference, after other corporate donors began backing out in protest at the offensive Kaczynski ad. Of course, any remaining shreds of the institute’s credibility and claims to objectivity vanished with the Institute’s acceptance of money from the coal lobby.

Sometimes, the best way to deal with crackpot fringe groups is just to keep giving them rope.

Private Equity Firms Explained! Sort of!

WC has attempted earlier to explain how The Mitt’s private equity company, Bain Capital, worked. And how The Mitt got filthy rich.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has a different take, with illustrations:

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[A tip of the hat to MoveOn.org, who sponsored this video.]

Note: Don’t try this at home, boys and girls.

Mitt’s Muffs: Twofer Tuesdays

Apparent Republican presidential nominee The Mitt is demonstrating a gift for getting it wrong. So, today only, we offer a two-for-one post.

1. Claims of Government Growth

Here’s a chart from Michael Linden guaranteed to make a neocon’s throat clog with bile:

An Inconvenient Reality – Chart by Michael Linden

Federal spending, federal revenue (taxes) and the annual budget deficit are all lower as a percentage of the gross domestic product since President Obama took office. That’s especially remarkable given the decline in the Gross domestic product as we have slowly struggled out of the Bush Recession.

It will annoy neocons, suck some of the wind out of The Mitt’s claims and require inventive distortions and lies for the Neocons and Christianists to fib their way out of these facts.

It’s also a sad commentary on the inability of President Obama to force through adequate recovery measures. If WC were in charge, there would have been increased deficit spending to create the jobs to get folks back to work.

President Obama inherited a catastrophe of a federal budget. Eleven years prior, when President Bush took the oath of office, there was a $281 billion surplus. By the time Obama was sworn in, there was a $1.2 trillion deficit. Inconvenient though it may be for neocons and other conservatives (especially wannabe conservaties who are running for president), the fact is is that spending, taxes and the deficit are all lower today than when President Obama took office. And with the conclusion of the war in Iraq and the gradual winding down of the war in Afghanistan, federal spending is poised to decline still more.

When The Mitt bemoans runaway federal spending, keep this chart in mind.

2. “Dark Day for Freedom”

Dateline May 3, 2012, New York City: Mitt Romney responded on Thursday to the conflict over Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, saying if reports that the U.S. government pressured the man to leave an American embassy are true, “this is a dark day for freedom, and a day of shame for this administration.”

Dateline May 19, 2012, New York City: Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen arrives in New York City, with his family, in a triumph of American diplomacy, with relations with Republic of China preserved.

Not only did The Mitt violate the informal rule against presidential candidates commenting on ongoing foreign discussions. He put his foot in it. WC offers an signed copy of the bird photo of your choice to anyone who correctly predicts a retraction and apology from the Mitt.

Favorite Metaphors: The Lowest Difficulty Setting

While WC is a fan of science fiction, John Scalzi is not one of WC’s favorite writers. But he does run an entertaining blog, and his recent post, Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is has to be one of the best metaphors for the American condition WC has read in a while. You need to be familiar with role-playing games to really get it, but if you have even a passing acquaintance, WC thinks you’ll enjoy the post.

If you have the time, read some of the 800(!) comments to his post. Scalzi has WC’s respect for moderating each and every one of them.

[A hat tip to SKZB for the lead to this blog post.]

Texas Murdered Another Innocent Man

Texas has the highest rate of government-approved murders in the nation, now approaching four times higher than the next state. And Governor Rick Perry doesn’t even pretend that he cares. He doesn’t even bother to look.

Carlos DeLuna, Wrongfully Executed

But a new study by Columbia University’s law school, a book length article in its Human Rights Law Review, conclusively proves that Texas executed the wrong man in 1989. Columbia Law School worked nine years, not just to vindicate the wrongfully executed man, Carlos DeLuna, but to finger the guy who did it, Carlos Hernandez, who died of cirrhosis of the liver in May 1999 while he was in prison for narcotics charges. The cops stayed away from Hernandez in the DeLuna investigation, apparently, because he was working for the cops at the time.

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, ) as his character Admiral General Aladeen, flogging his new movie, The Dictator, said, ”What people call genocide in my country is just the judicial system in Texas.”

Of course, Sacha is just being outrageous. Right?

There’s a word for killing the wrong guy: homicide. Shouldn’t it be a crime when Texas does it?

Mitt’s Muffs: The Gay Pride Poster

The only elective office The Mitt has ever held was a single term as governor of Massachusetts.  A purported flier from that campaign is making the Twitter and Facebook rounds:

The Gay Pride Poster

The Mitt Himself has disclaimed the flier. The Mitt’s campaign director for the 2002 gubernatorial campaign claims not to have seen it. But a campaign volunteer says it is legit, and describes being sent to hand out the fliers after a 2002 gay pride parade in Boston. Occam’s Razor says it is legit.

Of course, this isn’t the only time The Mitt has been … confused … on this issue. In the January 8, 2012 Republican presidential wannabe debates, The Mitt said:

As you know, I don’t discriminate. And in the appointments that I made — when I was governor of Massachusetts, a member of my cabinet was gay. I appointed people to the bench, regardless of their sexual orientation. Made it very clear that, in my view, we should not discriminate in hiring policies, in legal policies.

Then he took a breath and said:

At the same time, from the very beginning, in 1994, I said to the gay community, ‘I do not favor same-sex marriage. I oppose same-sex marriage. And that has been my, my view. But, but if, if people are looking for someone who — who will discriminate against gays or will in any way — try and suggest that people, that, that have different sexual orientation don’t have full rights in this country, they won’t find that in me.

So he doesn’t discriminate against gays, but he does discriminate against gays. What part of “full rights” excludes marriage? WC supposes next The Mitt will say he doesn’t oppose equal rights for Blacks, provided they live on the south side of the railroad tracks. And that women are citizens, but shouldn’t be trusted with the right to vote. “Full rights” means “full rights,” not all rights except that ones his right wing constituency opposes.

WC doesn’t expect much of politicians in America any more. But he does expect better than this.

College Athletics and Other Absurdities

USA Today has a remarkable on-line database of the amounts Division I colleges are earning and spending on athletics. WC offers a couple cautions before you visit the site. First, only 227 schools are reported. Private universities (University of Southern California, Notre Dame and Stanford, to name three) don’t make the data for their schools available to the public. So it’s a sample, with many of the most interesting schools omitted. Second, you can waste a whole lot of time poking around in the database.

When you talk about money and Division I sports, you are talking almost exclusively about college football. Basketball is a distant second. The other sports don’t even make the financial footnotes. So the first question to ask as you see that the University of Texas spends $133,686,815 a year on sports is whether you are crippling enough young men. We know pretty well now that concussions suffered in high school and college football do permanent, devastating damage to a young brain.

But, you say, for almost all programs, they break even; revenue is equal to expenses. Some even “make” money. Sure, but that’s because in many cases they are subsidized by student fees, or direct appropriations, or payments by the state. Or in the case of WC’s alum, the University of Oregon, by sales of Nike sportswear mega-donor, Phil Knight. Virginia subsidizes its athletics to the extent of more than $12 million. Can we ask if that money could be better spent? How about tuition subsidies? Scholarships? Maybe for students whose GPA is higher than their time in the 40 yard dash?

One of the 100 U of O Football Uniforms – Reportedly, recruited players pick Oregon for its uniforms. Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

There are a lot of myths about college football programs, and most of them are just that: myths. WC was resident advisor to a jock dorm at Oregon for a year. There’s not much you can tell WC about a “student athlete” that would be a surprise. More than once, WC signed a receipt to the Eugene Police Department for a drunken Duck football player hours after curfew. It’s unlikely to have changed. Oregon’s recently successful football program certainly hasn’t inspired WC to increase donations to his alma mater.

But ultimately it all comes down to our national values. The minimum starting salary in the NFL in 2011 was $325,000. The average starting salary for an elementary school teacher in Fairbanks is $37,000.

Is WC the only person who finds those numbers absurd?

Department of Bad Ideas: Law School

Most readers are aware that WC is a lawyer in Real Life, or at least what passes for Real Life. Long-time readers know that WC is sharply critical of law schools and the law school industry.

According to Paul Campos, writing in Salon, the legal industry will generate 21,000 new jobs in 2012. Law schools will graduate 45,000 new lawyers from American Bar Association-accredited law schools. There’s a whole additional horde graduating from non-accredited law schools with degrees that are nearly worthless, even in California.

This blog post can almost stop there. There will be jobs for less than half of the new law school graduates.

But it’s worse. Most of those law school graduates will matriculate with student loans. The average student loan balance will be in the range of $150,000. The loan bears interest at the rate of 7.5% per year. That’s $937 in just interest every month. Most grads lucky enough to land jobs will start in the range of $30,000 – $60,000 year. Assuming you are making enough to pay off the loan over a 20 year term, that salary will never let you buy a house, create a retirement account or build a nest egg. And the unrelenting supply of new lawyers will make it tough to argue for raises. Or start your own shop.

You can argue that the interest rate is outrageous. The loans are nondischargeable in bankruptcy; there isn’t any real credit risk. Yet the rates are two or three times mortgage loans. But that’s the rate, and no one thinks they are coming down any time soon. You can argue that tuition of $40,000 – $60,000 per year is outrageous. But law school tuition continues to increase at multiples of the inflation rate. You can argue lawyer salaries are ridiculously low, especially for starting lawyers, but the law of supply and demand is even more unforgiving and inflexible than interest rates and tuition increases.

In fact, its pretty clear that in many cases, even among those young lawyers who can find work, it’s hard to argue that a legal education will ever pay for itself.

Don’t misunderstand, WC likes the practice of law, finds it intellectually rewarding and compared to, say, nature photography, financially rewarding. And stressful. And maddening. And sometimes infuriating.

But for a new young lawyer, who finished in the middle of his or her class? More like lifetime financial handcuffs.

Which is too bad. Alaska and the rest of America need bright, competent, skilled and hardworking young lawyers. Just not quite this many.

What Ever Happened to the Gnome-Mobile?

In 1967, Walt Disney made The Gnome-Mobile. It was was Ed Wynne’s last movie before he died, with Walter Brennan as both the crotchety old millionaire and the crotchety old king of the gnomes. It’s a pretty good, if largely forgotten, Disney flick.

One of the sets from the movie was a four-times life-size back seat of a 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II. The gnome actors would appear gnome-sized in the huge set.

You probably never wondered what happened to that set, but if you did, WC can now answer that nagging question. It’s part of an antique auto exhibit in Hickory Corners, Michigan, a part of the Gilmore Museum. And open to the public:

Gnome-Mobile

Identification of Mrs. WC in this photo is left as an exercise to the reader.

N.B. This photo was not taken by WC.

No Swan Song Yet

The Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator, is the largest native North American waterfowl and the heaviest native North American bird at 28 pounds or so. It’s also one of modern conservation’s modest success stories.

Swanflower

In 1935, the feather, quill and skin trade had brought the population in the Lower 48 down to just 69 individuals, although the census likely did not count all of the birds in Canada and Alaska. By any measure, the species was in deep trouble. As recently as 1949, the Director of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service still considered Trumpeter Swans “the fourth rarest bird now remaining in America.”

In 2005, the census counted almost 35,000 birds, an increase of 11,000 or so from 2000. Still a tiny fraction of their original population, but a significant recovery. The species remains extirpated across much of its historic range, despite transplanting efforts.

Long-lived, slow-maturing and mating for life, Trumpeters in the wild typically only produce one small brood a year. These factors have made their recovery slow, although some researchers also blame the depleted gene pool for part of the slow recovery.

Trumpeter Swan

But the biggest problems facing Trumpeter Swans are all man-made. Habitat loss has been somewhat slowed with the creation of more wildlife refuges, but these are big birds and, particularly in winter, the carrying capacity of the remaining wetlands may further slow population recovery. High densities of birds in those remaining wetlands is also a disease concern.

A bigger problem is lead in the environment. There are three sources: lead shot from duck hunters, lead sinkers from fishermen/women, and plants that concentrate lead emitted by coal-burning power plants. Trumpeter Swans seem to be unusually susceptible to lead poisoning, particularly cygnets. Nor is it just lead. There are documented deaths of Trumpeter Swans from white phosphorous poisoning on the Eagle River Flats, a consequence of military training at Fort Richardson.

The third problem facing swans is that they typically migrate and make foraging flights at low altitudes, making them susceptible to illegal hunting. Presumably, the criminals who shoot Trumpeter Swans are the same idiots who shoot roadside signs. Swan meat, by all accounts, is tough and unpalatable.

A final problem facing Trumpeters is the creation of man-made barriers to migration. Because of their relatively low flight altitudes, power lines, buildings and wind-powered electricity “farms” present real hazards to migrating and foraging birds.

Trumpeter Swan Pair

So we can all give ourselves a very light pat on the back for saving Trumpeter Swans as a wild species. They aren’t completely recovered, and still face serious threats, but in Interior Alaska the spring skies are still filled with their honking calls.

Sorting Through the In Box: WC Gets Mail

It’s a mixed bag in the email box. WC will sort through a selection for you.

Reader Paul Eaglin pointed WC to a recent article demonstrating there is more than one way to rig a death penalty case. In the South, it’s often done by the selective use of preemptive challenges in jury selection. A “preemptive challenge” is the right of a party to a lawsuit to dismiss a potential juror without cause and with explaining why. North Carolina, which doesn’t always do the right thing, did enact the Racial Justice Act. Marcus Reymond Robinson used the Act recently to set aside his death sentence, because his lawyers demonstrated that the prosecution used preemptory challenges three times as often where the juror was an African-American as when a juror was white. In the context of a Black killing a White in North Carolina, the judge concluded, that was unjust. Marcus Reymond Robinson will spend the rest of his life in jail, but cannot be executed.

Reader JustaScalawag responded to WC’s recent post on Bristol Palin by directing WC to Frank Bruni’s recent screed in the New York Times on The Quitter’s oldest daughter. Sample quote:

But she so perfectly distills the double standards and audacity of so many of our country’s self-appointed moralists and supposed traditionalists: hypocrites whose own histories, along with any sense of shame, tumble out the window as soon as there’s a microphone to be seized or check to be cashed.

Nice! But the referee has whistled WC for piling on.

AKYahoo noted Paul Jenkins’ comment in the Anchorage Daily News that the Alaska GOP recently did Senator Mark Begich (D., Alaska) a huge favor: they let Joe Miller’s storm troopers take over control of the GOP in Alaska. Presumably, that allows Joe Miller a head start at running against Begich. WC already had Jenkins’ piece flagged for a blog post, but a tip of the hat to AKYahoo for seeing the signs. WC respectfully disagrees with Mr. Jenkins. History suggests that the Alaska Republican Party is nearly irrelevant to the business of electing U.S. senators. Ask Senator Murkowski.

Reader Diana points WC to frugaldad.com’s infographic on The Mitt’s award as individual tax hacking champion. Among other insights, it shows that The Mitt’s net worth is greater than the combined net worth of the previous eight presidents. Note: WC hasn’t independently confirmed the accuracy of the graphic, or sourced it. Use at your own risk.

Foreignaffairs (Foreign Affairs!) emailed to ask what WC meant by “magpie sensibility.” WC is flattered and appalled. But in mythology, at least, magpies are attracted to shiny objects, whether valuable or trash, which they carry to their nest and then forget or ignore. WC has suggested it is an apt metaphor for the subjects WC chooses to address and, WC fears, the extent of his follow-through.

The same writer asks again how much of the stuff WC writes about is real and how much is made up and accuses WC of dodging the question. Yes. And yes. Get over it.

The rest of the stuff is too vulgar for WC’s blog and will be used as digital mulch.

Too Big to Fail? The Dinosaur’s Dilemma

Scientists used to think Sauropods – the huge, plant-eating dinosaurs – had two brains. How else, scientists wondered, could the big beasties have yet managed to coordinate the extremely long nerve paths so that the tail would be doing what the head wanted. WC is long out of touch with dinosaur research, and has no idea what scientists think about that now, but it is clear to WC that the huge, multi-national banks – JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup – have grown to the point that they are incapable of keeping the head informed of what the tail is doing.

JP Morgan Chase (the name constitutes a kind of explanation of the problem all by itself)  represents a fine example of WC’s thesis.

In an effort to hedge against some of its financial risks recently, the bank made a series of investments. The complex credit derivatives used to hedge against losses instead caused at least $2 billion in losses to the bank. The full extent of the losses and the exact cause of the losses isn’t known yet.

And JP Morgan Chase is widely regarded by the industry and federal regulators as one of the more careful and prudent of the giant banks. Jamie Dimon, the guy nominally in charge, has been touted as a hands-on manager, who knows and understands the risks the bank takes. But like the dinosaur’s tails, the bank is so big that the head can’t keep up with what the tail is doing. As recently as April 13, Mr. Dimon – the head – dismissed worries about JPMorgan’s hedge as a “tempest in a teapot.” Some tempest; some teapot.

Now he has admitted he was “dead wrong” to have dismissed the concerns. The tail slapped the up alongside the head. And the head, plainly, had no idea what the tail was doing.

It says something about the size of the bank that a loss of $2 billion or more won’t take it down. The shares took a drubbing, and shareholder dividends that next few quarters may be skinny. But it says more that this kind of starkly incredible mistake can be made. What if the next mistake involves $5 billion or $10 billion. JP Morgan Chase is officially Too Big to Fail, meaning that insolvency is not an option and that the long-suffering U.S. taxpayers will have to step in and bail it out if it craters in.

Nor can we look to the industry regulators for a solution. JP Morgan Chase passed the Federal Reserve Bank’s “stress test” quite recently. The Fed’s been hamstrung by deregulation in the name of free enterprise, except it isn’t free enterprise. It’s unofficially insured by the taxpayers, because JP Morgan’ Chase’s failure might well bring the whole economic house crashing down around our ears.

Between now and the presidential election, the time will never be better to try for some real reform. Major reform would be to break up the Big Three into smaller institutions. Maybe peeling the securities operations, with the kind of risks JP Morgan just experienced, off from the traditional banking operations. Maybe forbidding these bank/securities hybrids from utilizing the kind of credit derivatives involved here, which are poorly understood at best. Maybe re-imposing Glass-Steagal.

Because based on history, the kinds of disasters that take out dinosaurs aren’t good for bystanders, either.

 

R.I.P. Donald “Duck” Dunn, 1941-2012

Donald “Duck” Dunn – Photo 2007 by Rick Diamond/WireImage

Otis Redding’s “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” is one of WC’s very favorite soul-pop tunes. It was recorded at Stax Records in 1967, with Otis backed by the house band at Stax, Booker T & the M.G.s. The wonderful, descending bass notes that open “Dock of the Bay”? That’s Duck Dunn.

The house band at Bob Dylan’s 1992 30th Anniversary Concert, which included Eric Clapton’s fabulous re-working of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice,” was Booker T & the M.G.s, and the thundering bass behind Clapton’s raves? That’s Duck Dunn.

That’s Dunn playing bass on “In the Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett and “Hold On, I’m Coming” by Sam & Dave.

Dunn also backed Muddy Waters, Freddie King, and Jerry Lee Lewis;  he frequently worked as bassist, in the studio and on tour, for Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart,  Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty and Levon Helm, among dozens of others. His bass grooves have been sampled into hip-hop, copied by hundreds of later bass players and had a permanent impact on the role of the electric bass in pop music, soul and blues.

In the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, the guy who uttered the line, “We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline!” That was Duck Dunn. And it was true, too. Prior to drummer Al Jackson‘s murder in 1975, the M.G.s were the house band on the planet.

He was self-taught, and according to his childhood friend and fellow MG, Steve Cropper, chose the bass “because it had two fewer strings and would be easier to play.”

A consummate professional, a pioneer and a survivor in a profession that tends to eat its own, Duck Dunn died in his sleep while touring in Tokyo, Japan on May 13. He’d done a double show the night before; he died doing what he loved.

His best friend and fellow musician, guitarist Steve Cropper, posted on his Facebook page,

Today I lost my best friend, the World has lost the best guy and bass player to ever live.

He will be missed. He is unlikely to ever be replaced. Unlike a lot of us, he will live on through his brilliant music. WC hopes that is some consolation to his family and friends.

R.I.P. Donald “Duck” Dunn, 1941-2012.

Cruisin’ on the Auklet

While WC was in Cordova for the Copper River Delta Shorebird Festival, he spent most of a day aboard the Auklet, Dave and Annette Janka’s lovely wooden-hulled charter boat.

David Janka and the Auklet, Photo by Susie Teerlinkt

While the Auklet primarily charters for research cruises, Janka does do day trips and half-day trips out of Cordova. He’s a knowledgeable birder, knows the waters well and an interesting guy as well.

Captain Janka put WC on some good birds. A few samples.

Surf Scoters, Orca Inlet

There’s a subsistence hunt in Cordova, and as a result all of the birds were pretty spooky. But Captain Janka was willing to invest the time in letting the Auklet drift closer to the birds. Not all charter captains are that patient.

Pelagic Cormorants, Sheep Bay

This small flock of Pelagic Cormorants was taking advantage of a brief sunny interval to preen and dry. The light was impossible, so WC settled for a silhouette shot.

Captain Janka, as a part of his charter service, thoughtfully provides a group photo and a chart of the route taken by the ship while you were aboard. In the interests of WC’s nominal anonymity, WC appends the shot of the group with binoculars up.

Birding on the Auklet, Photo by Cap. David Janka

Captain Janka thoughtfully provided the foam pads for WC’s tripod, to minimize the engine vibration. And they worked. The person to WC’s right is a sergeant in the Unalaska Department of Public Safety, and the author of the excellent Police Blotter published in the The Dutch Harbor Telegraph. Sample entry:

1845 – Owner of a local business reported that an individual had asked to see a $70 necklace from display case. The patron grabbed the necklace and attempted to flee the store. The Darwin Award nominee was unable to operate the front door which he pushed when it required that he pull. The clodpoll returned the necklace and apologized. The business owner declined to pursue charges.

We had a very nice conversation on the sad state of American writing skills today. Dutch Harbor is fortunate.

Here’s the chart of the Auklet’s route, in the eastern corner of Prince William Sound:

The Auklet Cruise Track May 5, 2012, Courtesy of Captain Janka

It’s a tiny, tiny fraction of the vast Prince William Sound, of course, and one of the few areas that escaped the damage caused by the Exxon Valdez disaster. Other areas are not so fortunate. A number of species, including Orcas, still have very seriously reduced populations, and one pod of Orcas seems to be on the way to extirpation. Captain Janka has documented the continued presence of substantial quantities of crude oil elsewhere in the Sound:

David Janka’s Prince William Sound Oil Photos, Used with Permission

Exxon Mobile claims in ongoing court proceedings that all is well. Wrong.

But in the eastern third of the Sound, where we were, if you don’t know what used to be there, you can pretend it is normal. But it is pretending.

Still, Captain Janka ran an excellent trip, serves good coffee and WC had a lot of fun. He has WC’s unqualified endorsement and recommendation.

Three Views of an Eagle

Just for fun, three view of a Bald Eagle at Cordova, Alaska, taken earlier this week:

Bald Eagle, View No. 1

Bald Eagle, View No. 2

Bald Eagle, View No. 3

You can see it was raining. The bird had a salmon carcass, and was warning off a host of gulls, ravens, crows and other Bald Eagles. Everyone involved was just a little cranky.

All taken from a car window about fifteen feet away. All three shots are full frame, taken with natural light and are pretty much what WC saw through the viewfinder.

A Simple Desultory Philippic: Mark Feeney’s Review

WC recently read an old review of Quang-Tuan Luong’s Treasured Lands, a photo show and website. Quang-Tuan is a amazing nature photographer, using a large-format camera to capture exquisite images from 58 national parks. The review, by Pulitzer Prize-winning Mark Feeney, includes this:

Also, it’s the pristine aspect of the parks that draws Luong, and understandably so, not their human aspect. No person is visible in any of the photographs, which is as it should be — except that it’s not. A national park is a human construction, a splendid and necessary one, but no less an artifice for that fact. A national park is not natural as, say, a glacier or canyon or waterfall is. This isn’t to ask for images of litter or traffic jams. But it is to note a highly limited, and effectively superficial, view of a subject whose magnificence owes something to its intellectual complexity as well as its environmental sublimity.

Excuse me? “Effectively superficial”?  If man and his works aren’t in the images of nature, the photo is “effectively superficial”? Piffle.

Now WC understands that Mark Feeney has won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (2008) ”for his penetrating and versatile command of the visual arts, from film and photography to painting.” WC, by contrast, is just an unsophisiticated hack with a blog. But, really, are there still people – well, critics – who think nature has no value in itself but can only be appreciated in relation to humankind?

Let’s turn it around. Is it fair to criticize da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” or Michelangelo’s “Last Supper” because the paintings include nothing of nature? Are they “effectively superficial” because they lack “environmental sublimity”?

There’s a nearly irresistible temptation to ignore Feeney’s criticism as intellectual posturing, but WC believes we need to consider the world view that Feeney is reflecting in his pretentious poppycock.

When Feeney claims, “A national park is not natural as, say, a glacier or canyon or waterfall is,” he is confusing the law with what the law protects. A national park is an area preserved by law. The idea of a national park is an American invention; the closest that Europe came was the royal hunting preserve. But it is a legal construct, separate and apart from the stuff the law protects. While there is much about national parks that involves “intellectual complexity,” that’s obviously not what attracts millions of people to our national parks every year.

Those visitors are there to see what Quang-Tuan has brilliantly photographed. Not the terrific idea of a national park. Rather, the content of the national park. Criticizing a photo exhibit for portraying natural beauty seems to WC to be particularly bone-headed. Or serious inability to accept that natural beauty is sufficient unto itself and needs nothing of humankind.

In a very real sense, national parks exist to protect nature from humankind. If you’ve been to the manmade catastrophe that is Cherokee, Tennessee, on the western border of Great Smokies National Park, you can understand that but for the national park, all of the area would look like Cherokee. If you’ve been to Glitter Gluch, on the eastern boundary of Denali National Park, you know that crap would be in the park if the developers had their way.

WC rejects a world view that thinks humankind is always beneficial, necessary or appropriate. Let alone appropriate to photographs of nature. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Feeney can just get over it.

[Note: The title of this post is a reference to a somewhat obscure Paul Simon song. "Desultory" and "philippic" describe most of WC's screeds.]

Bristol: Stones and Glass Houses

The Twitterati are all aflutter over Bristol Palin’s attack on President Obama and his statement in support of gay and lesbian marriage. A few quick points:

• The Facebook post in question wasn’t written by Bristol Palin; it was written by her ghostwriter, Nancy French, who doesn’t even bother to sound like Bristol any longer.

• Bristol Palin’s – and Nancy French’s – knowledge of the institution of marriage apparently excludes non-Anglo cultures, excludes most of history and excludes the Bible. “Thousands of years about thinking about marriage.” Bah.

• Bristol, honey, folks who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. The proverb has been traced back to Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Troilus and Criseyde‘. Eh. Never mind.

Why in the world is anyone listening to this partially educated, seriously confused, unwed mother and single parent? Or the scumbags who use her?