"Construction of a massive municipal park—over 20 years in the making, is finally underway in the city of Irvine.

They say if California became its own country, it would have one of the world’s largest economies. The new Great Park of Irvine is a reflection of the always lofty ambitions of the state, and is expected to dwarf Central Park by more than 500 acres.

It was on May 23rd this year that the “Great Park Project” broke ground on the long-derelict El Toro Marine Corps Base, 21 years after voters approved a ballot measure ordering the state to create a park on the site.

Expected to take another 10 years to complete, the park will span 1,300 acres and include several museums, an amphitheater, a veterans memorial garden, an aquatics center, a sports complex, and not one but two lakes.

“After many years of community input and after the last year of intensive planning and design, we are excited to be launching what is a $1 billion investment to establish the world’s next great metropolitan park,” said Irvine City Councilman Michael Carroll who serves as Chairman of the Great Park Board...

First item of work on the agenda is to demolish and clear away 77 old military buildings while leaving the El Toro air traffic control tower which will be leased by the FAA. However a portion of the Irvine Great Park, as it’s being called, is already open to visitors and includes a soccer pitch and some other amenities including tethered balloons to take visitors up into the sky."

-via Good News Network, July 12, 2023

--

More of this, please!!!

Also, I checked, and somehow the tethered balloon thing is not only real it's actually free. They go up 400 ft in the air

A basic point of Solarpunk is it's focus on local communities. So, get to know your communities!

Local Politics

How does your local Govenment work? Who are the people involved in it?

What is the main political climate and view in your area?

What are the most active community organisations?

What are Grasrootmovements in your areas?

Are there known leftist organisations or communities?

Local Infrastrucure

Libraries and Archives

independent buisnesses like bakerys, bookstores etc

central community centres

Thrift stores

Nature preservation centres or organisations

Food kitchens

package-free and bulk stores

Local Newspapers

Bus lines and scedules

Bike repair shops

Queer Bars and Centres

Tailors and shoe repair shops

abandoned or empty buildings/ properites

Local History

How did people live in your area 50 Years ago? 100? 200? 500? What are their trades, culture, how did they get their food?

What is the geological and ecological history of your area? The quality of the soil? The availability of water? Local Plants?

What are some major historical events your area went through? How did they shape the peoples point of view?

What are the oldest buildings in Town? Research the architecture and building materials, as they commonly are localy sourced and help with sustainable building in your area!

These are just some ideas so please feel free to add!

All seven members are women.

Six are women of color.

All are under 40.

All are Democrats.

Well done, St. Paul!

The city council voted tonight! Chickens are now allowed in town!

The relationship between the University and the Patrician, absolute ruler and nearly benevolent dictator of Ankh-Morpork, was a complex and subtle one.

The wizards held that, as servants of higher truth, they were not subject to the mundane laws of the city.

The Patrician said that, indeed, this was the case, but they would bloody well pay their taxes like everyone else.

Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

So, uh, apparently this county in New York is having a contest for teens to design their next “I VOTED” sticker. This is a great idea, but it’s even greater that they included ALL of the submissions. You see, one of these things is not like the other. Not coincidentally, that’s the entry that’s currently winning with 94% of the votes.

I went to give public comment at my county's library board meeting this week. The library board was considering requests to can books presented by a local far right group. They included Flamer, Genderqueer, All Boys Aren't Blue, Zenobia July, Looking for Alaska.

The collections manager for the library system gave an excellent presentation on the laws and policies that given collection management and also brought a copy of a Holocaust history book (I think it was Why The Germans, Why The Jews) in to show that it had been defaced with swastikas and antisemitic phrases and talk about the quiet censorship problem in our libraries.

The actual meeting itself lasted 5 hours, and the board chair refused to eject members of the far right faction who were disrupting the meeting and trying to pick fights. One of them even said "let's take this outside" to someone asking them to be quiet and let the meeting continue.

I'm pretty used to seeing and receiving hateful rhetoric and messages online. Comes with the territory of being an out trans woman online. But it felt different spending 5 hours in a room with people who are openly calling you a groomer and saying you're sexualizing kids. Who are trying to claim that the exclusion of queer people from public life is just "common sense" and "having community standards".

They also claimed that the director of the American Library Association wanted to turn all libraries in the country into transgender Marxist recruiting centers and because of the the local library system should cut ties with the ALA.

I guess I'm probably mostly writing this down to process it. It was a lot, and also a powerful reminder that the fascists are here. They're in our communities, they're trying (and at least here, partially succeeding) to control local politics. For me at least it's one thing to see it online. That feels at least a little removed. Seeing it in person was scary, but it feels good to have been part of resisting it and successfully opposing book bans locally.

Mean Girls in a Small Town

My stupid small town is in an uproar right now. This is not fiction. And this is why local politics matter so much, even and perhaps especially in liberal states like Massachusetts, where this story takes place, where I live.

We regularly host this conference in the high school about various progressive topics--diversity, intersectionality, self esteem, etc. It used to be pretty small but has grown much larger, and this year, the school hosted upwards of 700 students from all across the state, which is an impressive feat for a town with a graduating class of around 80. It should be something that brings the entire town pride, and as far as I know, up until this year, it was.

But this year, things changed.

This year, someone got a drag queen to present.

As I understand it from the perspective of one of the administration members, because the conference arguably falls under the purview of mitigating the negative impacts of cellphone usage and social media for teenagers, some money from a grant rewarded to the high school for exactly that purpose was used to pay a trans actress to be the closing speaker for the conference. This got a bee in the bonnet of one school committee member, who threatened to sue the state if they agreed that the money could be used for that purpose (which--it's their determination because it's their money, so that would be a waste of everyone's time, but I digress). And that should have been the most exciting and talked about situation from the April 1 school committee meeting, which was--like most school committee meetings--about as interesting as watching paint dry.

(I should know; I watched all three hours of it. Sped up, of course, because I don't hate myself that much. There were a lot of numbers, and someone got weirdly cross about hiring another physical therapist for the special ed department)

But the meeting, as all of them do, started with public comment. You must be a resident of our town to comment, so that much can be said for this particular provocateur. She was not a plant from outside the town. She gave her address and is vaguely known to people within the town.

Her children are all grown, so she shouldn't have much to say about the schools, and yet, she did. She described the drag presentation in a way that I can only assume was intentionally inaccurate and willfully ignorant. She said the drag queen in question (I'm not naming him because he's honestly been piled on so fucking much lately) started his presentation by talking about his breasts being cold and then did a performance that purposefully exposed the attendants to his "lacy white underwear" (her words, not mine). Her question was something along the lines of "who is allowing this filth???" and presumably, if she had pearls, she would have clutched them.

The performance, incidentally, was a tribute to Karen Smith from Mean Girls, the one who can forecast the weather with her boobs. The drag queen's costume took obvious inspiration from the film: short pink skirt, pink jacket, white shirt with a mouse on it ("a mouse, duh"). He wore white dance bloomers underneath, as a good performer does.

This should have been a non-issue, because it is a non-issue. This conference was not an official school event. The school was closed that day, and nobody was forced to attend. The presentation itself was one of 45 presentations happening at the same time (remember: 700 students attended this thing), so nobody was there who didn't want to be. The school didn't even pay the drag queen; he presented for free.

And it likely would have gone ignored, if not for Chaya Raichik, a.k.a., Libs of TikTok.

For the uninitiated, LoT is a collection of accounts that serve as vile provocateurs, spreading misinformation, incomplete information, and outright disinformation that targets the LGBTQIA+ community, especially the trans community. The biggest boost to the account's notoriety came in the summer of 2022, when it claimed that Boston Children's Hospital and Children's National Hospital were performing gender confirmation surgeries on minors. Following this rancid bullshit (because it had about as much in common with the truth as LoT fans have with being good people), both hospitals--CHILDREN'S hospitals, I should add--received numerous bomb threats and other threats of violence.

At the extreme end of things, this is their MO: pure stochastic terrorism. LoT will never outright call for violence against the LGBTQIA+ community, but they will call them evil and child abusers and groomers and whatever else, and then act very surprised Pikachu when their followers take that at face value and do a violence.

But it's the quieter end of things that worries me more, because it's the quieter end of things that's happening in my town.

LoT got ahold of a clip from that three hour meeting I mentioned and shared it around Twitter with exactly zero of the context I mentioned, save for a few lines suggesting that the school had paid $2500 for the drag queen to perform for the entire school.

You know, lies.

Someone posted it on the town's unofficial Facebook page. Our town, a farming community with sensibilities more comfortable in the 18th century than the 21st and a population that screeches loudly when someone installs a new traffic light, uses the unofficial page for information far more than the official page. The unofficial page is run by a religious conservative who's fond of getting delete happy when her agenda isn't being pushed properly.

So when this dropped on the town's Facebook page, it was pure Bedlam.

Because everyone was so angry, it took ages for the actual facts of the situation to emerge. So many conservative voices were screaming that facts didn't matter because "drag queens shouldn't be within a million miles of schools because they are inherently sexual" (not my words; theirs) so those of us looking for the facts of the situation had an uphill climb. The facts confirmed what a lot of us thought: that (a) the performance was not nearly as sexual as it was made out to be, (b) it was not even remotely mandatory, and (c) it was not paid for by the school.

But "facts don't matter," and the group has been screaming about it for, at this point, four days straight.

The screaming doesn't matter much to me. They did that back in October-ish when we got an influx of refugees at our local scummy inn (before the refugees arrived, the conservatives hated it because it housed homeless people; but then the refugees arrived, and suddenly, it became, "what about American homeless people?"). Those of us with hearts and brains shrugged, whipped up a bunch of donations for our refugees, and continued to give to them until they found permanent housing in a nearby town.

No, what matters to me is the battle cry that's started to arise: that they need to fill the school committee with like-minded individuals by recalling anyone who they don't like (including the superintendent and principal, which is not how this works, but okay) and putting forth their own candidates. And this, I believe, was the real aim of LoT in targeting us.

We're a small town with a lot of conservatives... but we went to Biden by one vote in 2020, you see.

It's clear that we're a battleground town where it wouldn't necessarily be that hard to push us straight into fascism, junior, as much as a town can be in Massachusetts. Get the wrong voices on the school committee, and suddenly, things have gone from irritating to downright ugly. And while things are ugly, they can chip away at actual education (the committee member I mentioned above was also trying to reduce the number of teachers in both the middle and high school "for budget reasons") and create a new crop of uninformed voters.

We're fortunate right now because (a) we're in Massachusetts, so it's unlikely they can do the same amount of harm they could in states that have been drowned in a sea of red (which is less of a slight and more a statement that they've put in decades of effort in other places, so this sort of situation there is catastrophic instead of just an uphill battle); and (b) a decent number of us are prepared to stand in their way however we can.

But man. It's a heavy burden. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm tired. I'm in a lot of physical pain because stress gives me flares. I want to do more--to run for a vacant seat, to hit the pavement and whip up votes, to yell--but my body keeps getting in my way. And I'm afraid that if I don't do it, no one will.

January 2024: Spitting In The Eye Of The Conspiracy

My queen's lone surviving brother called in today from Harrisburg, PA. Amongst other things, he was worried because Memphis, or The City as I call it, had been declared the murder capital of the United States according to whatever bogus source had hit his ears & local representatives were calling for the governor to dispatch the national guard to Memphis. After a little research, I discovered all this angst was based off a statement made by our (as in my queen & me) state congressional representative, Brent Taylor, back in November 2023. To be clear, my queen & I were part of the one-third of voters who voted for his opponent. Taylor represents District 31 which is divided five ways between part of Memphis (including our neighborhood which was added to the district several years ago thanks to state Republican gerrymandering), Lakeland (a white flight community), Germantown (a white flight community), Collierville (a white flight community) & a portion of unincorporated Shelby County including Eads, TN where Taylor resides (also a white flight enclave). Memphis is good enough for them to earn their inflated salaries in but not good enough to live in. Prior to Taylor, we were represented by the rightfully indicted Brian Kelsey. Note that the unincorporated part of Shelby County where Taylor resides fought to be unincorporated from Memphis a few years ago so his "concern" about Memphians reads hollow. You might ask why all these suburban white flight communities exist. The simple answer is desegregation in the Seventies & they've been pushing out further since then. Technically speaking, Olive Branch & Southaven in Mississippi have become white flight communities from Memphis in relatively recent years. All this is part of a larger & ongoing narrative in Tennessee, to paint Memphis as a lawless, dangerous city because we are an African-American majority city that doesn't vote Republican. If you haven't figured out by now, the Republican party, at least in the former Confederate states, is the party of the Old South. I walked outside for an hour on Saturday & for about 2 hours on Sunday. If the prevailing narrative was true, I'd be dead twice over with no wallet & no shoes on my feet. Don't buy it. There is a community where you live right now, no matter where you are in the world, that is steeped in bad press. Look closer. Ask yourself, who profits... who has something to gain? The answer might be complicated & might make you question yourself but embrace the complications. Despite what we learned reading myths & religious verses, existence is complicated. There are some of us humans who are lost to corruption & it can be easy to give in to hardening our hearts but, as a believer whose had his fair share of heart crushing betrayals, I ask you to trust your gut but never lose hope. There is a day that I dream of where like-minded brothers & sisters embrace & say "you were not alone." I don't know that I will see that day but my heartfelt wish is the younger generation will.

I recognize that some folks who come to my blog are looking for an escape. You just want to look at garden photos. I get it. I have posts for that. This one isn't one of them. Above all else, this blog is about me. That people agree or disagree with me or are comfortable or uncomfortable with what I post is immaterial. This is me spitting my ideas & images at the universe. If others find value in it, then maybe me wandering in thought helped someone somewhere. At the end of our days, that's the best any of us can hope from our humble but difficult existence. Keep safe.

wow wow wow i just went to a debate between two mayoral candidates in my city and i filled out note cards with questions on them and they read my question about what the city could do to discourage the excessive use of gas-powered landscaping equipment (because it's loud and terrible for the environment) and both candidates gave BANGER answers to it, the one guy outlined a plan to phase it out in 5 years and the other guy said that sounded reasonable. the one guy pointed out that the noise is especially hard on people who work from home (ME!!!) and that the equipment is a major source of air pollution.

and like boy do i feel heard for once, i have been fighting an uphill battle on this issue in my town for years and i think the tide may be finally turning.

im like if either of these guys wins (two candidates didn't show up, hopefully they lose) we are gonna have someone in office who agrees with me on my pet issue that really affects me because i have been putting up with awful noise from this equipment for years now.

and even failing one of these people getting elected, seriously i got my question read in front of a room full of people including many of the key power players in town, and my question was well-received and both candidates came down hard on the use of landscaping equipment making it seem like there was a strong consensus on this issue

like this is powerful.

this is how you change stuff people. like show up to events. talk to people. ask questions. get people talking about things.

i feel so pumped, i am gonna do something about this issue.

The City of Kelowna, B.C., is asking for a judge to step in and put an end to the so-called "Freedom Rally" protests that have become a feature of life in the downtown core for more than two years.

The city filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday, asking for an injunction against local activist David Lindsay and his pseudolaw organization Common Law Education and Rights that would prevent them from holding marches and events, selling merchandise or erecting tents at Stuart Park.

Kevin Mead, Kelowna's bylaw services manager, said city staff have repeatedly spoken with protest organizers and handed out nearly 200 bylaw offence notices, with no change in behaviour and no payment of fines.

"This is about the fair and equitable use of the space for all members of the public," he told CBC. [...]

The city's petition alleges that rally organizers have broken numerous parks, traffic and outdoor events bylaws, along with its "Good Neighbour Bylaw." [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

Seattle Fact #47,002:

Our city council is actually not comprised of several elected officials, but they in fact all share one body. We locals are quite proud of being the first city in the US to have a false hydra in public office. 

That being said, there are some who feel that we shouldn’t be spending so many of our tax dollars on fancy offal-crowns for each of the city council’s heads.

Last night's city council meeting lasted for fucking ever! Husband went, I worked right up until it started so I would have been late and both kids were at scouts so I went home and collected them when they were done.

Anyway, it was still just discussion no vote. But it's looking positive! There's only one council member who doesn't look like a 'yes' at this point (the one that wants a one strike policy) and even he has ostensibly said he'd be OK with it.

Some council members still seem to think allowing chickens will lead to an increase in complaints/calls to the police. But the police chief was at the meeting last night and they asked him and he was like yeah, sure I'll chase chickens let people have 'em. Which I think is hilarious (the one most against chickens visibly rolled his eyes at this and it's probably a good thing I wasn't there because I probably would have cackled out loud).

So it sounds like they're going to nail down a policy and then...? It wasn't clear if they'd vote on it or present it for public input. But, things are looking good and I can be patient.

Just found out my school district banned kids from playing the "opposite" gender of their birth in theater

:(

So much fear mongering about communism and then you join a local communist group and it’s like “we hand out flyers and try too give food to homeless people”