It's Only A Paper Rose

From state and national media:

Dunleavy vetoes $444 million from operating budget

Alaska Governor’s “Unprecedented” Higher Education Cuts Could Shutter Entire Departments

And from a more personal perspective:

The Human Cost of Alaska’s Budget Cuts: Stories from the Front Lines


A quick primer on the conditions leading up to this, for those who didn't grow up in my home state:

• Thanks to the state's oil wealth, Alaskans have not paid a penny of income tax for the past four decades.
• Alaska's been facing a budget shortfall in the billions for the past decade, thanks to fluctuating oil prices.
• The effects have mostly been insulated until now by the state's reserve funds—record-high oil prices in the 2000s gave the legislature the ability to kick the can down the road, as it were.
• The largest effect most Alaskans have seen has been a smaller Permanent Fund Dividend, as the government has been funding itself partly through what would otherwise have been the yearly payout.
• Subset to the above, this is effectively a flat tax on Alaskans—everyone sees the same decrease in their income.  The problem being, of course, that it's a fundamentally inequitable system; the poorest Alaskans who depend on that money for food and heat see the same decrease as the richest, and are thus effectively hit much harder.
• HOWEVER...for all that a state income tax is gaining in popularity (the last poll numbers I saw had the populace split roughly 50/50 on the prospect, which doesn't seem like a lot but is a significant change from the lopsided 20/80ish numbers I remember seeing in my youth), nobody in the legislature wants to be the one responsible for passing it, because they're convinced it'd cost them reelection.
• Alaska is rapidly running out of reserves.
• The current governor got himself elected largely on two promises—not garnishing the PFD, and not instituting an income tax.

So we find ourselves here.  A literal 41% cut to Alaska's largest provider of higher education.  The U of A is already a lean system, and one that does remarkable work—a lot of the cutting-edge research on climate change and natural resource management, among other subjects, comes from there—not to mention providing skilled labor for the local workforce.  (For obvious reasons of cost and isolation and better opportunities elsewhere, a significant percentage of young people who go to school elsewhere don't return to the state.)  And that's not even addressing the similarly devastating cuts to badly-needed mental health services, early childhood education, and state-run media and broadcasting.

As I wrote on Facebook, I feel a little like an expatriate from a troubled country, watching the self-destruction of its dysfunctional government from afar.  There's a certain guilty relief in being far from the front lines, but it's heavily tempered with fear for those left behind, as well as just plain grief for what's likely to be lost.  It's not the end of the world—Alaskans are nothing if not resilient.  We'll survive this, and eventually rebuild.  But it'll be a different place than the one where I grew up.  And as selfish (and perhaps inevitable) as it is, it saddens me to feel like I'll be a stranger in my home. 

I've written quite a bit about my struggles with anxiety and depression, both in terms of how they feel and how they manifest in my behavior. Yesterday, however, a friend linked to an article that resonated quite a bit: Living With High-Functioning Anxiety.

My experience is somewhat different from the writer's. For one thing, mine tends to move in cycles; there are times when I can't stop the stream of internal criticism, and other times when I feel perfectly normal and happy. For another, even when I'm in an anxious phase, my symptoms aren't usually that severe. But I feel firsthand so much of what she's written. The perfectionism. The need to constantly be busy while avoiding important or high-stakes tasks. The inability to ask for help, because that means admitting you're not capable of handling things on your own. The vacillating between "everyone has it together but you, what's wrong with you" and "other people have things so much worse, what are you complaining about".

Those of you who've been around the past couple years have probably noticed my increasing focus on self-care, mostly through increased physical activity and better diet. (I know that, to some people and in some circumstances, I've come across as more than a little evangelist on this point; to those people, I owe an apology. Yoga and self-care have been quite literally life-changing for me, but I suspect in my exhortations I was ignoring the twin contributions of a move to a much better-for-me environment and a significant socioeconomic boost that came about at the same time.) This has done a lot to stretch out the periods of feeling happier and more balanced. But these past several months, I've been feeling the anxiety creep up on me even with those efforts; this latest bout has lasted some weeks.

Another link from a friend, Life Hacks of the Poor and Aimless, has shed some light on what's been going on in my subconscious. Laurie Penny posits that my demographic's obsession with self-care isn't in spite of the scary events going on in the rest of the world, but is in fact a reaction to that very sense of helplessness. We can't refill the Ogallala aquifer, or stop ourselves hurtling past the carbon emission point of no return, or fix a broken political system, or avert any number of other disasters that seem to loom over the horizon. So we turn our focus selfward instead, and convince ourselves that by practicing "radical self-love" we can find happiness - and, on this philosophy's darker side, feel as if we're insufficient when our self-care practice fails to adequately substitute for a stable and functioning social contract.

And yet, the answer can't be to give up self-care entirely. One of my favorite yoga teachers would probably fit Penny's description of an "Instagram happiness guru", or at least an aspiring one. But I go to her classes regularly, because she makes a real effort to make them a safe place, where we can work on self-improvement without judgment. When it feels like the world is falling apart around us, where there's no good answer or right thing we can do to stop things hurtling toward a horrible conclusion, there's a real value in that sort of centering, in exercising that little bit of control we do still have. I always leave her classes feeling more hopeful, more able to focus on the positive aspects of my life. It doesn't always overcome the overall sense of helplessness, but it provides a bulwark, a small protection for my sanity that helps me keep a more even outlook.

And let's not kid ourselves - outlook is important. It's a lot easier to focus on the positives, to work towards making the world a better place in those hundreds of small ways that seem insignificant but are far more likely to ripple out into something lasting, if we're feeling energized and stable and hopeful for the future. Zeitgeist matters; the more we become convinced that the world is headed for disaster, the more likely it is that we will bring that disaster on ourselves. No single one of us can prevent it, no, but by each doing what we can to help raise each others' spirits, perhaps we can improve our collective future.

That's what I feel in my more hopeful moments, anyway. During those times when the anxiety starts to build, when (to paraphrase Brian) I spend more and more time either absorbed in news articles or staring off into the distance, I start to think that this is what my friends and family felt like during the Cold War. Those awful moments of hope mixed with increasing dread, that encroaching certainty that the worst will happen, it was just a question of how and when. It's not a fun feeling; I especially hate how it robs me of the ability to enjoy things in my life here and now, when the worst (whatever that might be) hasn't yet happened, and may not at all.

I've been thinking, too, about my earlier post on paradox, and how essential it is to our existence, even though it's uncomfortable and difficult for us to accept. Perhaps this is how humans get into these destructive spirals in the first place: we don't like uncertainty, we want things to be good or bad. And if things stay uncertain enough for long enough, if the constructive future feels too difficult or too far away, eventually we pick the bad option, just for the relief of knowing the uncertainty is over. Perhaps this is why it's so important to practice holding our paradoxes: that anxiety and depression are challenges to overcome and perfectly reasonable reactions to an increasingly scary world; that we need to focus on taking care of ourselves and fighting for a better society; that we can contribute meaningfully to our collective future and we're dependent on other people to help us build that future.

My head is not the happiest place, of late. But I hope getting these thoughts out in the open will help, if only in the sense of lancing the wound. And to everyone whom I owe letters, or a phone call, or words of comfort - I'm sorry I've been so unresponsive lately. Hopefully this will go some measure towards explaining why.

I guess there must be a shortage of "April Fools' Pranks Gone Wrong" stories this year, as CNN has decided to hop into their time machine and drum up a controversy that the gamer-subsection of the Internet was done with a year ago - specifically, the RapeLay game that was released in Japan back in 2009.

The game itself (and its thorny issues of obscenity and censorship) aside, the accompanying video clip serves as a pitch-perfect example of why I don't watch cable news - the entire thing is so pitch-perfectly tuned to manipulate viewers' emotions and draw attention away from the actually-quite-good arguments the commentator is making.

Seriously, give it a watch. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Let's break that down a bit, shall we? We've got:

• the generically-handsome news anchor speaking in his Concerned Father voice,
• the "We must warn our viewers, the following footage is extremely graphic" line of BS that is guaranteed to draw the aforementioned viewers' attention,
• the leading questions he's asking the interviewee - "How easy would it be for our children to get their hands on this game?" And when that doesn't get him the answer he wants, he goes for the old standby "What about violent video games in general? How do they affect our children?",
• the continual replay of the footage from the game, placed in a larger window higher up than the one with the commentator's face, thus subliminally minimizing her and drowning out her words in the emotional reaction they want the footage to inspire (five gets you ten that if she'd given them the reactive BS they were hoping for, her face would have filled the screen),
• the way the anchor keeps interrupting the commentator when she doesn't give him the response he wants, also helping to minimize her importance in viewers' minds
• the interface cluttered with "Parent Outrage!" and other such graphics, none of which are supported in the segment itself, as well as
• the overlay of various Facebook comments, all drawn from (or edited to appear to be drawn from) the hyper-emotional reaction they want, thus reinforcing said reaction among viewers

What kills me about this is that the commentator is making a perfectly rational and cogent set of points - that, for instance, [a] kids don't have easy access to this game (it requires some knowledge of BitTorrent or other shady venues to acquire), [b] it's not that hard to keep your kid's computer access restricted to common areas so you can (gasp!) walk by and see what they're playing now and then, [c] it's normal for kids to be attracted to violent games, and what matters is that you talk to them about it and about the differences in acceptable behavior in games vs. real life, and [d] CNN is actually doing more harm than good by publicizing this crap, since kids are far more likely to get curious about it after seeing it on the news. None of which, of course, will likely penetrate through the skull of most CNN viewers, given the blatant degree of emotional manipulation going on here.

I guarantee that if you interviewed any twenty random people who saw this clip, nineteen of them would be able to describe the footage and their reaction to it in great detail, but if you asked them about the commentator and what she said, they'd probably look at you blankly and go "Who?" And that's not even really their fault - like I said, this clip is tailor-made to exploit every single human fallacy surrounding hyper-emotional subjects. It's how the news industry gets ratings, which is how they make their money. Sadly, it's also a prime example of the quality of reporting you can expect from televised news, and why I urge people who do watch it to think about the information you're consuming. Don't just listen to it passively - watch the dynamics at play, look at how they present it, and ask yourself if they have an agenda to push. You may or may not be as horrified as I consistently am, but I think you'll find that it's far less unbiased than the networks would like you to think.

I'm sure some of you have noticed by now that I'm something of a fan of Roger Ebert's. I'm apparently a bit of an odd duck as his fans go, however - I started out reading his movie reviews, and the when he started blogging more often after losing his voice to surgery, I kept reading. I never felt any need to watch his shows; the man has an amazing mind and expresses himself beautifully through his writing.

So, even though I knew he couldn't have been in the best of health, I found this Esquire article simultaneously beautiful and heartbreaking - the former because it gives such insight into what his life looks like from the outside, and the latter because it draws such a stark contrast between the strength of his mind and the frailness of his body. The description of his emergency surgery alone is drama worthy of a House episode.

But the best quote, I think, wasn't originally from the article but was one from a past blog post of Ebert's:

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

Mr. Ebert, you have brought me much joy with your writing, and I know I'm not alone. And because of that, no matter how long or short a time you have left, I do believe you've accomplished your best, and I commend you for it. Salud, and thank you - may you serve as an inspiration for us all.

Honest-to-god synthehol being developed from chemicals related to Valium

Imagine that - you have a drink or two, you get a pleasant buzz.  Have another drink, and another - still just that nice pleasant buzz, no out-of-control behavior, no potential alcohol poisoning, no hangover later on, no long-term dependency.  Oh, and you need to drive home?  Pop a pill - there, you're sober.  Bars can sell as much as they want to customers without fear, people can have parties without their guests passing out and vomiting all over the couch, and the reclaimed ethanol can be used as fuel in cars.  Everyone wins. 

The future is here, dude.

The only question I personally have, and I'll admit this is coming from the snob's perspective, is how it's going to taste.  The article states that they're aiming to make it as tasteless as possible, the better to reclaim/replace the ethanol in beer/wine/whiskey/etc. without affecting the flavor.  That certainly sounds good, but I'm a tad skeptical - the taste of a drink often depends heavily on its chemical composition, and by definition you're going to be altering that (even if the ethanol you're replacing is technically tasteless, the energy you're applying during the process seems likely to have some kind of effect on the rest of the ingredients).  Mixed drinks shouldn't be a problem - most of them are designed so you can't taste the booze anyway (with the exception of whiskey sours and suchlike), but removing and replacing the ethanol in beer and wine, where it's is an integral part of a very complex flavor (compare an O'Douls to a regular beer if you don't believe me), seems like it could be trickier.

Coming from the occasional-nightclub-goer's perspective, though, it's just about a perfect solution - and I'd lay bets that that's where most of the problematic drinking comes from, anyway.

German newspapers in bizarre war over sculpture of six-metre schlong.

$2 says that that's their most-clicked-on slideshow of the past several weeks.

Geek Squad representative to customer: The $1,200 Mac you purchased will not work unless you purchase our $40 "optimization" service. Also, you probably want our $300 extended warranty as well. (Emphasis mine.)

Services rendered under the "optimization" plan, according to the Geek Squad representatives the author spoke to:

• "Putting the customer's name onto the computer" (...because Best Buy customers don't know how to type their own names in when prompted?)
• "Checking the computer's network connection" (despite the fact that whatever network the customer uses will be entirely different from the in-store one?)
• "Scanning the drives" (brand-new drives that shouldn't have anything wrong with them?)
• "Installing an anti-virus program" (...on a Mac?)

And a grand prize of one dollar to the person who can guess how much value the customer gets out of the warranty.

...Yeah. On the one hand, it's perhaps unsurprising that Best Buy is resorting to such tactics when selling Macs - the profit margins on the computers themselves are pretty thin already, and I'm guessing most of that goes to Apple, so a $340 upsell is a pretty big prize for them. And they probably give the Geek Squad members lucrative commissions on them, which (when compared to the base salary of minimum wage) is a pretty strong incentive to lie to the customer. But Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ - how on Earth do they think that this kind of policy is going to win them any customers? Even when dealing with the technologically illiterate whom they can scare into shelling out the cash, all it takes is one knowledgeable friend or relative asking a few questions to let them know that they've been had. And customers who feel cheated aren't likely to come back.

A quick Google tells me that this isn't anything like the first scam they've come up with, either. Somebody explain to me how these people are still in business?

Finding out that your theory regarding the origin of a popular news story was probably correct...

...or having Fox News and its ilk being the only media outlet that's even tried to pursue the question?

I mean, here I was feeling all smug for having used my cynicism and knowledge of human nature to predict that the story was probably a publicity stunt pulled by the parents, so of course when the boy lets slip something that sounds like it's confirming my theory, I feel vindicated (if disappointed that the more base elements of human nature are overcoming common sense yet again).  But then I get scooped by Fox News, of all places, and suddenly I'm not so sure that making an accurate prediction was such a feat - it probably didn't take any particular amount of thought from them, after all.  They're professional muckrakers; finding the seamy underside of any given story is what they do. 

No, I'm not planning to suddenly become bright and happy and trusting of every human soul.  But I might well benefit from some time spent thinking about what class of person I want to align myself with, intentionally or unintentionally.

(On a side note, there should be a word for that mood you find yourself in when you're gleefully careening along a particular path until you discover something that makes you slam on the brakes and rethink your assumptions about said path and whether it's the one you really want to be on.  It's an odd feeling, still energetic but also slightly shameful and disappointed, sort of like having the mental bends.  But since the English language doesn't seem to have such a thing, I'll just go with "thoughtful".)

In which I attempt to answer one of Slate's reader-response questions and end up with one of my usual multi-paragraph arguments. (No, I'm not the daughter of an attorney at all...)

For those who slog through it, however, I'd be interested in your take - both on my answer and on the original question.

Passenger At Orlando Airport Had Bomb Materials, Literature in Bag

A quick perusal of the article clears things up - the “literature” referred to in the headline was instructions for bomb-making. But still, the juxtaposition of the terms “bomb materials” and “literature” is a bit chilling - although you could certainly make the case that both are equally dangerous. (Or even equally destructive, if the literature is bad enough. =)