#and another is in a bay area city council

[corbinite]

Saw one of my old college friends in a grammarly commercial and it's really reinforcing the feeling that I'm not doing anything with my life

[mariacallous]

The great fault of the global left is not that it supports Hamas. For how could Western left-wing movements or left-inclining charities or academic bodies truly support Hamas if they were serious about their politics?

No one outside the most reactionary quarters of Islam shares Hamas’s aim of forcing the peoples of the world to accept “the sovereignty of Islam” or face “carnage, displacement and terror” if they refuse.  You cannot be a progressive and campaign for a state that executes gay men. An American left, which includes in its ranks the Queers for Palestine campaign group, cannot seriously endorse lethal homophobia in its own country.  They will turn a blind eye in Palestine, as we shall see, but not in New York or Chicago.

Finally, no left organisation proudly honours the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the fascist tradition that Hamas embraces with such sinister gusto, although in a sign of a decay that has been building on the left for more than a generation, many will promulgate left-wing conspiracy theories which are as insane as their fascist counterparts.

No, the problem with the global left is that it is not serious about politics. It “fellow travels” with radical Islam rather than supports it. The concept of “fellow travelling,” with its suggestions of tourism, dilettantism, and privilege, is well worth reviving. The phrase comes from the Bolsheviks. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 they looked with appreciation on Westerners who supported them without ever endorsing communism. Artists, writers, and academics who were disgusted with the West, often for good reason, I should add, were quite happy to justify Soviet communism and cover up its crimes without ever becoming communists themselves.

Leon Trotsky put it best when he said of fellow travellers that the question was always “how far would they go”? As long as they did not have live under the control of communists in the 1920s or the control of Islamists in the 2020s, the answer appears to be: a very long way indeed

W.H. Auden said, as he looked back with some contempt on his fellow travelling past, if Britain or the United States or any country he and his friends knew were taken over by a “successful communist revolution with the same phenomena of terror, purges, censorship etc., we would have screamed our heads off”. But as communism happened in backward Russia “a semi-barbarous country which had experienced neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment”, they could ignore its crimes in the interests of seeing the capitalist enemy defeated.

You see the same pattern of lies and indulgence in the case of Hamas. Journalists  have produced a multitude of examples of fellow travelling since 7 October but let one meeting of the Oakland City Council in the Bay area of San Francisco speak for them all.

A council member wanted the council to pass a motion that condemned the killings and hostage-taking by Hamas, who, in case we forget, prompted the war that has devastated Gaza, by massacring Israeli civilians. The motion got nowhere

According to one speaker Hamas did not massacre anyone, a modern variant of Holocaust denial that is becoming endemic. “There have not been beheadings of babies and rapings,” a woman said at the meeting. “Israel murdered their own people on October 7.”  Another woman said that calling Hamas a terrorist organization is “ridiculous, racist and plays into the genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media.” Hamas was the “armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance” , said a third who clearly had no knowledge of the civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

“To condemn Hamas was very anti-Arab racist” cried a fourth. The meeting returned to modern Holocaust denial as a new speaker said the Israeli Defence Forces had murdered their own people and it was “bald propaganda” to suggest otherwise. A man intervened to shout that “to hear them complain about Hamas violence is like listening to a wifebeater complain when his wife finally stands up and fights back”.  

Anyone who contradicted him was a “white supremacist.”

Of course they were.

Now if theocrats were to establish an Islamist tyranny in the Bay area, I am sure every single speaker would scream their heads off, as Auden predicted. They can turn into fellow travellers as there is no more of a prospect of theocracy threatening them than there was of communism threatening readers of the left-wing press in the UK and US in the 1930s.

A serious left would have plenty to complain about. Consider the Israeli position after the breakdown of the ceasefire. The Israeli state is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a catastrophe of a prime minister, who left his people exposed to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. His war aims are contradictory: you cannot both wipe out Hamas and free the hostages.

Worst of all, the Israeli defence forces are to move to the southern Gaza strip where two million Palestinians are crammed. Just war doctrine holds that a military action must have a reasonable chance of success if the suffering is to be permitted. How, reasonably, can the Israeli army expect to find guerilla fighters hiding in a terrified population?  According to leaks in the Israeli media, Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of state, was warning the Israeli government that, “You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there.” But he was ignored.  A radical movement worth having would surely be putting pressure on the Biden administration to force Israel to listen to its concerns.

The radical movement we have will not engage in practical politics because compromise is anathema to it. Any honest account of the war would have to admit that Israel has the right to defend itself against attack. It is just that the military position it finds itself in now may well make its war aims impossible and therefore immoral.

You can see why practical politics has no appeal. Where is the violent satisfaction in sober analysis,  the drama in compromise? Where is the Manichean distinction between the absolute good of the Palestinians and the pure evil of Israel?  

Meanwhile, ever since the Israeli victory in the Six Day War of 1967, you have been able to say that Jewish settler sites on the West Bank were placed there deliberately to make a peace settlement impossible, and ensure that Israel controlled all the territory from “the river to the sea” forever.

A serious left might try to revive a two-state solution by building an international consensus that the settlements must go. Once again, however, that is too tame an aim. For the fellow traveller watching Palestine from a safe distance, satisfaction comes only by embracing Hamas’s call for the destruction of Israel. Some progressives try to dress up the urge to destroy by pretending that Jews and Palestinians will go on to live together in some happy-clappy, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state. But most must know they are advocating a war to the death. What makes their position so disreputable is that, if they thought about it calmly, they would know it would be a war that only Israel could win. It is the Israelis who have the nuclear weapons, after all.

The worst of the global left is dilettantish. It advocates a maximalist position which has a minimal chance of success - just for the thrill of it. David Caute, a historian of fellow travelling with Stalin and communism said that the endorsement of communism by fellow travelling intellectuals in the West “deepened the despair” of Soviet intellectuals. “In their darkest hours they heard themselves condemned by their own kind”.

The 2020s are not the 1930s. I am sure that, if I were a Palestinian in Gaza, my sole concern would be the removal of Israeli forces that threatened me and my family. I would either not care about demonstrations in the West or I would receive some comfort from the knowledge that people all over the world were protesting on my behalf.

Nevertheless, a kind of betrayal is still at work. By inflaming and amplifying the worst elements in Palestine the global left is giving comfort to the worst elements in Israel, which are equally determined to make a compromise impossible.

The New Statesman made that point well when it ran a piece by Celeste Marcus.   She came from the Zionist far right, and was taught doctrines that dehumanised Palestinians. She grew up and grew away from the prejudices of her childhood and became a liberal. But after she moved into her new world, she “recognised immediately that progressive leftists feel about Israelis the way radical Zionists feel about Palestinians: these are not real people.”

The result is that for all its power on the streets and in academia the global left is almost an irrelevance.

“To influence Israel,” she writes, “one must be willing to recognise it. Since leftist leaders cannot bother to do this, they cannot be of real use to Palestinians. This is a betrayal of their own cause.”

The dilettantism of fellow travelling always ends in betrayal and denial for the reason Auden gave: terror is always more tolerable when it happens far, far away.

[dustedmagazine]

Neutrals — New Town Dream (Slumberland/Static Shock)

Photo by Kelly Sullivan

Neutrals are a San Francisco-based band but you wouldn’t know it by listening. The singer, Allan McNaughton, has a knotty Scottish burr, even now, years on from relocating to the Bay Area. Musically, he and his bandmates — Lauren Matsui on bass and Phillip Lantz on drums — favors a kicky, catchy, bash-and-pop variety of post-punk that has more than a whiff of the Television Personalities in it.

New Town Dream is a bit of a concept album, referring in multiple places to the Pollok Free State protests of the early 1990s, where residents banded together to stop the construction of a highway through their beloved park in the suburbs of Glasgow. For two years, people lived in makeshift shelters in the park, cooking communally, making music and developing strong bonds with one another.  Some even took up residence in the trees themselves. The protests were ultimately unsuccessful, and the highway was built.  “Stop the Bypass,” one of the disc’s most raucous tunes, includes a chant from the protests; “The Iron that Never Swung” seems related, too, mourning a golf course promised but never delivered. Sings McNaughton, “All the effort was in vain/we lost our land to eminent domain/where there should be a fairway, the council put a new motorway.”

Indeed, if there’s a running thread through New Town Dream, it’s the gap between idealism and what actually happens once money and politics and other real-world factors come into play. “New Town Dream (Version)” is an altered version of a song from the Bus Stop Nights EP in 2022. Dusted’s Jonathan singled it out, writing, “Musically the guitar tone takes on a razoring, quixotic quality, most urgently on “New Town Dream” and its 107 seconds of keening post punk. A little more dissonant and it could be a Swell Maps tune, tucked in among that run of short songs that opens A Trip to Marineville.”  Here it runs closer to Gang of Four with its melodica and dub bass, but it slips in some extended retro-futurist spoken word about planned communities. An educational voice making the case for planned communities outside of city centers, including shops, banks, homes and, critically, green space, as an antidote to what, “people rightly deplore in this country [which] could be called a yob culture.”  The kicker is, of course, that the minute city planners need that land for something else, poof, it’s gone.

Not all the songs stick to this broad topic, and indeed, a couple of the best are less didactic. “That’s Him on the Daft Stuff Again” is pure C-86-ish bliss, full of joy and melancholy in equal measure. McNaughton sings in a half-chant, a twist of melody under a rain of mordant words and very like the Television Personalities’ Dan Treacy. The resembles continues through the instruments, all a bounding bass and chiming, rainbow-splintering guitar chords and bumptious, disruptive drumming.

“Substitute Teacher,” slashes a little more sharply, its jutting, off-kilter guitar work sharing near equal billing with the growl of bass. The “s-s-substitute” stutter nods to the Who, the lyrics are closer to the Kinks’ lyrical wordplay. The kids may have written him off before he finishes writing his name on the board, but a distinct, individual person comes to life in a few lines: “He’s got a passion for mathematics/after work he’s into amateur dramatics/you may have seen him in a Death of a Salesman, you may have seen him in Pirates of Penzance/he was a triumph in the Scottish play/he’s only here for a day.”

All of which put Neutrals in the very top tier of jangling, hyper-articulate pop-punk bands, alongside Ducks Ltd., Reds, Pinks and Purples and the Infinites. There’s really nothing neutral about them.

Jennifer Kelly

[nientedenada]

Argonian Raids and Presence in Morrowind in the 4th Era 

I still don't have any real good conclusion about this jumbled set of facts. So basically, TES has been slowly retconning away the scope of the destruction of Morrowind after the Red Year. When it's first mentioned in the Keyes novels, it's almost absolute. It still sounds pretty bleak in base game Skyrim, but there are still Dunmer in Morrowind. Then the Dragonborn DLC really limits the destruction, with information about how Morrowind began rebuilding within weeks of the Red Year. And then there's this stuff, which may or may not be retconned. Originally posted on r/teslore:

I know what a lot of you are already thinking: the idea that the Argonians kept any of Morrowind after the War of Accession is a fandom myth. Morrowind has been rebuilding for nearly two centuries, and is currently run by a council presided over by House Redoran. In-game maps show that the borders of Morrowind haven't changed. And all that is true but .... is it exactly true?

As a fandom, I think we've over-corrected when it comes to Argonians in Morrowind. I don't think there's enough information to exactly determine the situation, but there is more than enough information to suggest that there's on-going Argonian presence in some of Morrowind's territories, and that hostilities may never have entirely ceased. Let me present the sources.

1. The Keyes' Novels: 4E 40, 34 Years after the Acession War

Argonians are said to control the Scathing Bay, the former site of Vivec City on Vvardenfall.

“This is all controlled by Argonians now,” he said, “although they obviously don't live here. But they do have some ritual associated with this crater, what is now called the Scathing Bay. I arrived here during the ritual, so after running through half the realms of Oblivion, I had to keep running until they gave up, somewhere in the Valus Mountains."

They are also said to have settled in large numbers in southern Morrowind.

Ash, lava, and tidal waves had done their work, and when that was calmed, the Argonians had come, eager to repay what survived of his people for millennia of abuse and enslavement. Of course, those that had settled in southern Morrowind were likely regretting it now, as Umbriel moved over their villages."

The distinction of whether Argonians are settlers inside a Morrowind without new borders or Argonians control those areas is an important one. The information on Scathing Bay is definitely the second. The information on Southern Morrowind is less clear on that. (And we also don't know how those Argonian settlers were effected by Umbra in the end.)

2. Argonian Raids Don't Stop With End of Accession War

We have two separate sources with information on Argonian raids long after the Acession War. The first, from A History of Raven Rock, details an Argonian raid on Solstheim.

In 4E150, a small force of Argonians landed on Solstheim with the intent of wreaking havoc on the island, and Councilor Morvayn led the charge against them personally.

and Dreya Alor in Raven Rock says

We lived in a settlement perhaps a league from the border of Black Marsh, the homeland of the Argonians. Even though the Argonian Invasion ended a long time ago, there are still a few scale-skin clans that live within our borders. To put it simply, they attacked our settlement and slaughtered almost everyone. It was horrible."

3. Argonian Presence Inside Morrowind's Borders

Two more sources on Argonian settlements inside Morrowind's Borders, to add to the ones above.

Talen-Jei tells you:

Keerava has some family at a farm just inside of Morrowind.

This might just be an individual family, but I include it because of another Riften conversation, overheard in the Thieves' Guild.

Delvin: "Puttin' together another shipment from Morrowind, Vekel. Lookin' for anythin' special?" Vekel the Man: "Well, if some Moon Sugar should fall into your lap........" Delvin: "Maybe. That stuffs gettin' tough to bring across the border with all the Argonian patrols." Vekel the Man: "Well if it turns up, I'll be willing to buy."

The Morrowind/Skyrim border near Riften is patrolled by Argonians, huh?

4. Putting It All Together

Well, I can't. There's not enough evidence to put together a clear picture of Argonian settlement or power in Morrowind. But it sure doesn't look like hostilities ceased entirely with the Accession War or that Morrowind territory is exclusively under Dunmer control.

The border doesn't appear to have shifted, but this does not mean the state of affairs on the ground is the same. In comparison, the Empire doesn't seem to have every acknowledged Morrowind's secession, yet we know that they are in practice treated as Independent. It's perfectly lore-compatible for Independent Argonian communities to exist within the borders of Morrowind and exert some level of control of their areas (as seen near the Riften border). These folk aren't even necessarily all immigrants to Morrowind since the 3rd Era; there were plenty of ex-slaves for whom Morrowind was their home.

Some of these communities may have peaceful relationships with the Dunmer government of Morrowind. But Argonian raiding has continued to be a problem in the centuries past the Accession War, as demonstrated in Lleril Morvayn and Dreyla Alor's life stories.

[necarion]

A couple minority opinions I have on voting rights:

There shouldn't be a minimum voting age There really isn't any principled reason you can/should cut the voting age at 18. Obviously, we arbitrarily cap some things at 18, like military service and (in some places) age of consent laws. But "ability to make decisions that affect all of society" is one of those things where people can make informed, good decisions at a way younger age (and people can fail to make those at a much older age). 14 year olds are affected by their school board choices or state superintendent. Wildly more so than I am as a childless 30-something. They're obviously affected by education policy in general which means choice of other state government officials. There's a common counter-argument that kids will just do what their teachers tell them. And really? 14 year olds don't even do what their parents tell them to. But if you lower the age past 14, it remains another arbitrary line. What I'd probably do is have a policy where parents can vote for their children until the children attend school, and then have a secret ballot for all children over the age of 5 or something. You'd get a lot of ballot spoiling from younger kids not doing anything right, but that would also be essentially random and probably wouldn't affect the overall vote much (especially if you randomized ballots). (You should probably provide some of the same accommodations you would for blind or otherwise disabled individuals, though. Not sure what those are.) There's the argument where "parents with lots of children will get more votes" and, yeah, probably. I just don't think "I don't like the politics of those people" is a good principled reason to make these rules.

Non-citizens should be allowed to vote in municipal elections (probably given permanent residency and X years). A non-citizen who has lived in New York City for 20 years has a hell of a lot more ties to the city than I would were I to move there for 3 months between October and December 2024. But I would be allowed to vote as a US citizen and they would not. And yet they can probably make more informed decisions than I possibly could with that little time. They've been paying taxes for ages to the city, they've been using the services, they're affected by corruption and police and gang violence. And often, they're concentrated in neighborhoods that therefore get wildly under-serviced because they can't vote. I'd probably also open municipal juries to them as well, because an immigrant can be arrested and given a trial of their peers which includes none of their actual peers. (And the same problem as above, where immigrant neighborhoods will have relatively fewer peers and probably more people drawn from outside it).

People should be able to vote in the municipal elections of the largest city in the metropolitan area. The shit that San Francisco pulls with policing, housing, homelessness, transit affects the entire Bay Area. But the only way I could seriously influence that is if I were wealthy enough to move there (or lucky enough to already have lived there). (Mind you, I think housing policy should be regional, because there are weird incentives to splitting cities up. Which is also a thing that should be unwound; San Francisco and South San Francisco shouldn't be separate cities, but that's a very different issue to resolve. There also needs to be a "Complete Bay Area" government, equivalent to the Los Angeles County government). I don't think people outside the city should be able to vote on, like, the school board or whatever. But there should be city counsel representatives for other regions of the Bay Area (East Bay, Peninsula, etc.) This would actually also be a totally reasonable place to violate one-person one-vote rules. The people who are outside the city should get proportionally fewer representatives. The SF council has about 10 members for 800k residents (1/80k). Another 5 representatives for "rest of the bay" would be 1/1400k, and yet would be enough for a very dramatic voice in the governance of the city.

Some of these things are obviously subject to implementation haggling.

[elshells]

Agent Ace || Map of Harmont

Ever read Agent Ace and wonder where Sophia and Harley are relative to one another at any given time? So did I, and that's why I made this handy-dandy map of Harmont!

There are a lot of locations in Agent Ace, and the characters don't stay in one place for long. While you don't necessarily need to read the map to follow along in the story, if you're a visual learner like me, who sometimes has trouble keeping track of locations without a point of reference, then hopefully you can get as much use and enjoyment out of this map that I do!

Obligatory disclaimer that I am not a professional map maker. I drew heavy inspiration from maps of real cities I'm familiar with (I won't say which ones but if you know, you know), and distances, borders, etc. are not drawn to scale. Names of locations are also subject to change at any time, as I am incredibly critical and indecisive of my choices in such matters.

The map itself is made to be relatively simple so you can easily find each location. The black dotted line shows the trajectory of the light rail, and the white dotted line represents the island ferry. Districts are coordinated by color, and there are brief descriptions for each neighborhood below the cut. Bear in mind that some of these descriptions may contain spoilers for Agent Ace, so read at your own risk!

MAKER'S DISTRICT

Champion: Match Girl Council Delegate: Orya Stockdale

ATWOOD

Area Commander: Morningstar

Cozy and retro; home to a number of restaurants, boutiques, and parks. Housing prices are especially high.

BARLOW

Area Commander: Sabre

Barlow is best known for being the location of the main training complex for new recruits of the Guard, adapted from a long-dead shopping mall. A quiet neighborhood that is much more affordable to live in, at the cost of a higher crime rate.

BENNIC

Area Commander: Scythe

The biggest commerical neighborhood in the Maker's District, home to an upbeat and close-knit community.

DARKSBURY

Area Commander: Witchsong

Over the years, Darksbury has built up an unfortunate reputation as an undesirable place to live. With a gritty environment and difficult living costs, this neighborhood seems to attract trouble.

LANDEM

Area Commander: Firebird

Landem's biggest features include an abundance of unconventional art installations and a weekend market flaunting local arts and crafts and vintage wares. Most of the restaurants here are fine dining, yet the housing is surprisingly affordable. Also the location of the city's annual Architect's Festival.

RITCHING

Area Commander: Celeste

Houses some of the best schools in the districts and decent public facilities. Looks may be deceiving, however, as violent crime is not uncommon.

TALAKE

Area Commander: Lumen

A relaxed lakeside neighborhood with lots of green space; perfect for picnics, casual athletics, and aquatic activities.

HUB DISTRICT

Champion: Talon Council Delegate: Cressida Manalis

ARKLEY

Area Commander: Rook

A quiet suburb with a sleepy village-vibe, Arkley boasts plenty of wildlife trails and a stunning view of the bay that shares its name. Beautiful but pricey.

BLUMOORE

Area Commander: Equinox

A vibrant neighborhood that appeals to both the serene and the wild side. The ritzy north end hosts cafes, bookstores, a celebrated florist shop, and old historic mansions that have been standing since before the Guardian era. On the other hand, the dynamic south end is much more lively when the sun goes down; bars and dance clubs are popular venues for block parties and live music. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -Dorian's Garden (North End) -The Vibe (South End)

CONCORD

Area Commander: Sphinx

A small, robust neighborhood that's home to a variety of cultural eateries and coffee houses, but best known for its history museums and community food festivals. However, despite the reputation for having a generally friendly populace, many consider Concord unsafe at night.

DANTARY

Area Commander: Barracuda

Dantary is widely regarded as the heart of the city. The downtown market is a hot spot year-round, as is the Ferris Wheel docks by the harbor, which transform into an amusement park for four months of the year. Movie theaters, rooftop bars, and waterfront housing do make this one of the more expensive neighborhoods to live in, but the abundance of public transportation makes traversing these streets much easier. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -Kinghaven Park

ENDEN

Area Commander: Jewelheart

Enden has the highest population of Guardians to compensate for the historically high violent crime. Coupled with the difficult schooling and housing in this area, people generally try to avoid this neighborhood at all costs.

KINGHAVEN

Area Commander: Scarlet Letter

Perhaps the most luxurious neighborhood Harmont has to offer, if the name is any indication. Buildings and skyscrapers imitate a Romanesque-style architecture that can't be found anywhere else in the city, and the collection of specialty shops, art galleries, and a grand stadium for sports and Guardian festivities make Kinghaven a must-see spot for any visitor.

LEXDON

Area Commander: Bishop

The de facto technology industry of Harmont, spearheading the movement of biotech development. Despite the presence of innovative warehouses and high-rise apartments and condos, housing and rentals are surprisingly affordable, even if night crime and traffic congestion are higher than usual. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -Vigilante Complex -August's Apartment

PANDOR

Area Commander: Wren

Pandor is widely residential, thanks to its high appeal to the cultural side with soul food joints, tap rooms, museums, and a high-end performing arts center. Even with all of these amenities, Pandor makes plenty of room for green parks and playgrounds, keeping the neighborhood scene active but easygoing. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -Tona Buna (Ethiopian cafe owned by Imani Clarke and Angel de Soto) -De Soto Residence -Manalis House

SKYLAR

Area Commander: Seraph

Known for its steep hills and stunning architecture, Skylar is the main hub for the Watch and the City Council. Uphill is home to upscale shops, bars, and some of the best views of the city, while garden venues adorn the downhill scene. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -The Watchtower (Lower Skylar)

STOCKARD

Area Commander: Nightingale

Casual and somewhat grungy, Stockard has some of the most affordable schooling and housing in the district. Paired with an abundance of apartments and high-rise condos with waterfront views, this neighborhood is a favorite for families looking to settle down. The night life is unexpectedly lively, featuring jazz lounges, nightclubs, and sunset parks for the night owls. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -Apartment of Ahn Tae and Evelyn Moon

GATEWAY DISTRICT

Champion: Goldweaver Council Delegate: Ronan Dalton

CROFTHILL

Area Commander: Zephyra

Charming and quiet, Crofthill is connected by parks and playgrounds. The north side hosts coffee shops and a library, while the south side is best known for its bakeries.

EASTLOOK

Area Commander: Aviatrix

Industrial and eclectic, Eastlook has a prominent food and bar scene, and features the city's main airport and steam plant. All light rail stations connect back here.

VALENYA

Area Commander: Moonbow

A quiet, residential area of lakeside beaches, parks, and the largest public garden in the city.

WILLOUGHS

Area Commander: Griffin

Quaint but lively and known for its friendly locals, downtown Willoughs is home to small shops, brunch cafes, and open mic shows. Housing here is mostly affordable, consisting of townhouses, apartment complexes, and single-family homes. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -Residence of Ahren and Sophia Colbo

BAY DISTRICT

Champion: Spider Lily Council Delegate: Neil Kallister

CALANELL

Area Commander: Nymph

Laid-back and communal, this island neighborhood holds a small-town feel for those that live there. Coffee shops and grocery stores are within walking distance of residential areas, as are the parks and beaches that make this area so popular. The bay bridge connects the land to the rest of the city, and the woods grow quite dense east of the community border. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -Former Manalis Residence -Tempera Park and Forest

ACADEMY DISTRICT

Champion: Paragon Council Delegate: Galilea Albright

AYLOR

Area Commander: Viper

Home to the esteemed Aylor Institute, a college bringing STEM and fine arts students together, all thanks to dean and renowned scientist Dr. Billie Prout. The population of Aylor is made up almost entirely of college students demanding independence from the rest of the city, and is a haven of cheap eats, shopping centers, and hiking trails. Every school year concludes with a street fair featuring the labors of students' creations and accomplishments before they enter the work force as developed adults. LOCATION(S) OF NOTE -Aylor High School -Aylor Institute -Jade and Max's Apartment

⬗

TAG LIST: @writernopal, @mysticstarlightduckduck, @livums, @wotchergiorgia Message me to be added or removed!

[anarchotahdigism]

Across the country, cities have begun experimenting with artificial intelligence to map potholes, reduce traffic and fight wildfires. In San Jose, officials are now harnessing the rapidly evolving technology with another goal in mind: detecting homeless encampments.

Three times since December, a white city-owned Toyota sedan affixed with a half-dozen small cameras has cruised through South San Jose to collect footage of parked cars and RVs. The images were then fed into different AI systems developed by four private companies to determine whether people were living inside the vehicles.

The open-ended pilot program, thought to be the first of its kind nationwide, may soon also seek to identify tent encampments and could one day expand to a permanent fleet of vehicles that crisscross the city.

While homeless advocates fear the effort could lead to more encampment sweeps and impounded lived-in RVs, city officials say they are optimistic it will help connect homeless people with needed services and shelter or housing. The program is not designed to collect identifying footage of license plates or people’s faces, officials stressed.

“We’re not interested in the individual identities of people who are living outside,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. “But we do need to know where all the lived-in vehicles in the city are so that we can manage them.”

The program, first made public by The Guardian, comes as Mahan pushes to “end the era of encampments” as residents have grown increasingly frustrated with street homelessness.

At the mayor’s urging, the City Council agreed earlier this year to develop policies to ban RVs near schools, restrict oversized-vehicle parking across the city and establish new tow-away zones. The city estimates it has more than 800 lived-in RVs.

At the same time, city officials are devising plans to move around 1,000 homeless people from local waterways and into shelters. San Jose has an estimated 6,300 homeless residents, about 70% of whom live outdoors or in vehicles. The rest stay in shelters. ------ All these millions spent on technofascism instead of giving housing, food, and medicine directly to people. West Coast cities are building outright concentration camps for the homeless while de facto banning being poor in public.

[beardedmrbean]

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — San Francisco Mayor London Breed said a ceasefire resolution related to the Israel-Hamas war passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week does not reflect the city’s values. In a statement issued over the weekend, Mayor Breed said it was unusual for her to comment on nonbinding resolutions from the board.

But this resolution, introduced by Supervisor Dean Preston, warranted “an exception” the mayor said.

2 people killed in Half Moon Bay plane crash, FAA confirms

“Like my recent predecessors in this office, I almost never comment or take action on nonbinding resolutions from the Board of Supervisors. This one warrants an exception,” Mayor Breed said. “In these fraught times abroad, we must come together at home.  We as San Franciscans should foster conversation and understanding and avoid division and hate.  We should focus on our shared values and shared pain, support one another, work toward peace together.”

 “What happened at the Board of Supervisors during this last month did not reflect our values,” she went on to say. “While I support the need for community members to be heard, the process at the Board only inflamed division and hurt.”

The mayor went on to say that individual members of the public were “verbally attacked and degraded” during the board meeting, and that “legislators were targeted for attempting to offer their views.”

The mayor also sought to distance the city from the resolution, which passed by an 8-3 vote.

“Many outside San Francisco do not draw the distinction between eight district supervisors and the official view of San Francisco,” Mayor Breed said. “So let me be clear: what happened at the Board of Supervisors does not speak for or on behalf of the entire city. I don’t think any statement of resolution can do that. Our people do that. Our values do that.”

Meanwhile, the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council and other groups are calling on the mayor to veto the resolution. KRON4 reached out to Mayor Breed’s office, which said the mayor has no power of veto over resolutions passed by the Board of Supervisors.

[artivist]

LADEDA 2014 - a new cultural tradition that never happened...

2014. Well, actually, 2013 this proposal went to Council. 10 years ago!

A very excited Council… then the wheels fell off when the administration couldn’t see the “value” in the event.

Creative Director on this was Philip McDougall. At the time Philip was EVP Creative in New York for the prestigious Experiential Company Jack Morton Worldwide & was rebranding San Francisco Bay Area in preparation for Super Bowl. He had been Creative on some of the largest broadcast events of the new century including Melbourne Commonwealth Games & Beijing Olympics as the head Creative of JMW Australia… he was home on a rest while waiting on his new position with another global giant & we decided to put our heads together to make something to celebrate our home town…

We aimed to show Wellington as vibrant & exciting to the world. Not celebrating ourselves to ourselves. Allowing others to celebrate us, our city & our place in the World - if only for the fact we are the first capital city to see the New Year!

We did this to instil some pride in our children in our home town. There was no gain for us. Sure we each have a son at Victoria & I even have a son who works at Paperkite as a Product Owner & Designer but he lives in Christchurch. But all my kids live overseas or Auckland & Christchurch & don’t see Wellington as “home” like we do.

Philip is now Creative Director at Google. I’m shifting our business out of Wellington this month to Auckland & overseas. I’m still questioning why Wellington does not have anything to offer us. But I keep thinking it’s more that Wellington wants nothing that we have to offer…

Wellington creatives don’t make it in Wellington. They make it elsewhere & live in Wellington until it becomes easier to live somewhere else or they are prepared to adjust their work & lifestyle to suit - I live in Wellington but we’re moving core business to Auckland. When I first worked with Phil in 2000 I commuted to Melbourne but worked in a satellite office (old style remote) back here in Wellington or my studio in Melbourne… we worked on installations in Sydney & I worked on events in Auckland too.

But as Wellington gets more & more isolated the remote working style gets more difficult to justify. The issue for our home town is that it keeps telling us it has great food & theatre & entertainment however it’s not as good as Melbourne or Auckland or Christchurch right now - ask all those new students who went to Canterbury this year.

The issue is the town needs to stop making out it has a lot to offer & start offering a place that new people feel they are making a contribution… that’s what we wanted from LA DE DA 2014. A new culture that offered a place to belong & then celebrate that. And then show off about it to the World!

note: 2014 the main question was “who is Kendrick Lamar?”

[lboogie1906]

De Arthur Woodrow Miller, or “Woody,” (October 22, 1927 - May 13, 2017) as he was popularly known, was a trailblazer in the African American community of Fresno, California. He was the first African American to own a radio station in California’s Central Valley and was a leader of the local civil rights movement.

He was born in Dermott, Arkansas. He grew up partly in Oakland and moved to Fresno, where he lived on a cattle ranch owned by his grandparents. He served as an aircraft mechanic in the Army.

He returned to Fresno and was hired by KLIP, a local radio station, where he played music that resonated with the Black community. He moved to Bakersfield, worked for another radio station, and on to radio station KJAZ in the Bay Area. He returned to Fresno to work as an assistant in the operation of a new radio station, KLIP in Fowler, California.

He became a co-owner and general manager of KLIP. He promoted a station format that was primarily rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, and urban contemporary music, targeting an audience beyond Fresno and throughout California’s Central Valley. He co-founded and operated Valley Black Talk Radio at KFCF, one of the earliest examples of the talk radio format that would become popular in the late 1980s. His program included interviews with community leaders and musicians as well as live broadcasts of community meetings and church services.

He was a pioneer in developing a half-Black, half-Hispanic format. He interviewed some of the great musicians of the time on his program, “The Jazz World of Woody Miller,” which aired on KLIP. James Brown, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Ray Charles were among the people who appeared on his show. He taught a course on the History of African American Music at Fresno City College and volunteered as a Jazz Host on the radio station KFSR FM on the campus of CSU Fresno.

He ran unsuccessfully for a Fresno City council seat. He co-chaired the Central Valley presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy and coordinated Jesse Jackson’s Presidential Campaign. The City of Fresno named May 14 “Woody Miller Day.” #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[eregyrn-falls]

Unable to resist looking further into this story, I wanted to share some more updates with everyone (including a suggestion of the possible culprit).

First, I need everyone to know that Old Bridge, NJ is located in the northern half of the state, near New York City, and the wonderfully-named Cheesequake State Park is located within the town's borders. (As is Cheesequake Creek, which empties into Raritan Bay. For anyone who has travelled the Garden State Parkway often (as I have), you will likely recognize Cheesequake as the former name of a big rest-stop, which has recently been renamed the Jon Bon Jovi Service Area. No, I am not joking; the GSP apparently renamed all the rest stops for famous New Jerseyans sometime in the last couple of years.)

(It's fascinating to me that the name came to be spelled Cheesequake, because there is no way that anyone can look at that and not pronounce it "cheese + quake", and yet, it is derived from a Lenni Lenape word: either "Cheseh-oh-ke", meaning "upland" or from the word "chickhake", meaning "land that has been cleared" (according to Wikipedia). Neither of those would be pronounced "cheese-quake", so who knows what the original English people who decided to spell it that way were thinking.)

AND YET. Despite all that, the 500 lbs of pasta WERE NOT dumped in Cheesequake State Park! No, they were dumped at the far southwestern end of town, near the Iresick Brook (which the article above generously describes as "the river basin"; I'm not sure that is a good descriptor here).

At any rate, another article from May 5th, a day after the one above, reports that the mystery may be solved:

A Ring security camera caught a man in the neighborhood cleaning out uncooked pasta from his mother’s house after she died, said Nina Jochnowitz, the resident of the Middlesex County township who first posted photos of the pasta mess on social media last week.

The man, who neighbors said is a military veteran, came across the hoard of dry pasta and likely dumped it in the woods because of the sheer quantity, she said.

“There was so much of it, he was probably a bit overwhelmed,” said Jochnowitz, who had previously run for town council in Old Bridge’s sixth ward.

Jochnowitz said she’s been in contact with his family. But, she declined to name the man.

“I don’t want him to relive the trauma,” she said, referring to his military career and the death of his mother. “I certainly don’t think that it’s fair that the media gets this story out of somebody else’s woes.”

And frankly, that is all well and good, but...

Very obviously, these are not mounts of dry pasta. It looks very much like mounds of *cooked* pasta. The article does go on to say that it's been suggested that heavy rains in the area are what soaked the dry pasta and made it pliable.

I guess? Apparently this is 15 wheelbarrow loads of pasta. That is a LOT of trips. (The articles do not say how far into the woods it is.)

I totally understand being overwhelmed in a case like that. I'd think that cleaning out the house would involve a dumpster or trips to the dump or even just setting bags out for trash pickup, and if I were confronted with that much dried pasta, I think I would have gone with the trash bags idea first, as involving less work. (Or trying to donate it?) But who knows. I half wonder if the guy vaguely thought that birds or animals might eat it? (I doubt any would, and it wouldn't be good for them; but I can see someone thinking that.)

We may never know, though, as I agree with the person quoted above that if this guy is responsible, folks shouldn't be bothering him further.

But I think this person is being kind of nitpicky about "the media getting this story out of somebody else's woes". The media could hardly have KNOWN that when the story broke and circulated. If she didn't want him to be bothered by people asking about it, you'd think she could have kept the explanation quieter, and just let people continue to regard it as a mystery. (Not town officials, of course; and I guess, who knows, it may have gotten out anyway.)

CBS News: Hundreds of pounds of cooked pasta mysteriously dumped in New Jersey woods

[fhylie]

Another post about my 5ED&D game.

I'm doing this kind of scattershot since that's the way my brain works. Reasonably I should post some stuff about the world or the main city that most of the game has taken place in. So, let's talk about that aspect of the present setting.

Because it's D&D and you're contriving a bunch of things so that there can be wizards and clerics and the like in a pseudo-medieval setting, I decided to draw on some known sources. Many of the naming schemes I decided to use language groups from southern Europe (primarily Basque and Occitan for the predominant human group in the area, with others using Portuguese, Spanish, Lombard, Corsican, and Italian). I certainly wanted to draw on a Mediterranean feel for the place.

A major thing to understand is that the planet the campaign takes place on is tidally locked to its star, with a small amount of "wobble" that approximates seasons, but causing both the 'bright' and 'dark' sides of the planets to be inhospitable under normal circumstances. Most sentient races live in the wide(-ish) habitable band between these extremes, and have developed different strategies and beliefs to deal with the resulting eternal day or night.

The beginning of the campaign (most of it actually) has taken place in a mostly human city called Sanctuary, established on the continent of Thet about 1500 years ago during a time when humanity was fleeing some of the consequences of their own actions in learning and implementing magic. Basically, the "find out" after the "fuck around" part included a set of two planet-wide catastrophes that are somewhat lumped together due to an effective dark age of record-keeping in their wake, but these will have to be another post on their own.

Sanctuary is a fantasy megalopolis of interconnected cities and boroughs, a few million people sprawled out along the south coast of the continent. As you might understand, that's an unreasonable amount of people for a medieval-esque city, and I wanted it to be unmanageable and an enormous bureaucratic and logistical struggle for its ruling class to handle, forcing them by necessity to lean hard on the use of magic to address or reinforce fundamental issues.

(Don't worry; I remembered that people need to eat food. There are wide areas of farmland to the north and east of the city, but even that has to be propped up by government soil fertility programs.)

The borders of the city-nation are threefold: first, a long, semi-encircling curtain wall miles and miles in length around the non-coastal perimeter of the city (but not outlying villages or farmland), perhaps uselessly, since in most directions Sanctuary doesn't have a real major threat that walls would be useful against; second, an arcane construct called the Fence, administered by the College in a widescale effort to keep the Mist at bay (though astute observers might note that using magic to keep magic at bay is silly); and third, outlying military fortifications, naval patrols, and magical scrying which are all designed to function autonomously from the other borders and report only to the city's Crown Council.

Speaking of this, the city government is a massive tangle of layers of bureacracy ruled by a semi-effective noble class whose power base tends to be their grip over important aspects of the city (various aspects military, magic, finance, infrastructure, etc), without any one family necessarily having full control over any of these aspects. There's no king, because of, well, past mistakes and treaties, and instead the city-nation is ruled by a body loosely resembling noble electors of the Holy Roman Empire in our history. The highest body, the Crown Council, is made up of seven electors, generally from noble families, representing the Castle (military), the Road (making the entire place run), the Vault (banks and finance), the Guard (intentionally separated from the military), the Craftsman (currently Craftswoman, but representing the industrial base), and the Book (representing mages and magical forces and defenses).

These are by no means the only powers in the area, of course. There's organized crime in the form of the Attendant, a gang of blackmailers and drug pushers, there's the Gallery of the Percipient, an underground library/cult who see the gathering of knowledge as above morality, the Leriva family, a smuggler group ruled by two dragonborn twins that really lean into the serpent vibes, the Horseman's Weight, a group of thugs attempting takeover of one of the city districts, and their rivals, the Honest Men, who on the surface say they really would just prefer the Guard roll back in and take care of things, but low-key prefer to handle things their own way with vigilante justice.

The mages of Sanctuary's College Arcane have as many or more factions as the noble scions that tend to fill the College's rolls. Wizardry and its application are expensive, and the coveted title of a Magister conferred by the College's approval of some form of reproducible or valuable work that the city can use. Weather magic, new kinds of potions, advances in warding, or sometimes just a convenient excuse to award a title by political appointment as long as there's at least some excuse for their competency. The environment itself results in a somewhat cutthroat press of noble scions, merchants' progeny looking for social advancement, and sponsored students engaged in a subtle dance for position, prestige, and perhaps most importantly, funding.

Sanctuary's culture in general is mildly supremacist and xenophobic, holding pure humans above what they term as demi-humans (you know, all the other races), but not expansionist, due to their fear of the outside world and the ways magic and the Mist might affect them. In fact, it's only in the past few decades that non-humans have enjoyed full rights as citizens rather than being an established underclass, and some bigotry and distrust still remains. This is not to say that the players wanted to roleplay racists, and in fact, I'm careful to portray this sort of thing as overtly evil and destructive, because it is. You gotta have bad guys, man.

Exterior to all this are, well, the exterior political influences on the city. Sanctuary's main peer nations are Arra, an island nation ruled by theocracy and a divine sage-king that has recently started to reach out and colonize nearby coastal land on the continent; the Fanno Empire, a declining nation of elves (in the high/wood elf sense) trying to reclaim its past glory as explorers and philosophers, but thrashing in belligerent and sometime violent outreach or outright exiling portions of their population based on internecine religious struggle; Am Allanar, a different nation of elves and fey (these elves being eladrin mechanically) who prefer to remain isolationist except where their ironclad bargains with powerful beings of the Feywild compel them to protect what they see as their borders; Leda, a collection of dragonborn nation-states ruled by immortal dragon-kings, who passively watch what they see as the inevitable decline of younger kingdoms; and the Yeherit, a militant theocracy insisting on the perfect harmony of their ancient philosophical system that just happens to be highly stratified and offer very minimal freedoms to its underclasses, though materially its citizens are safe, sheltered, and well-fed. All of these except for Arra and Am Allanar occupy other smaller or larger continents or island chains, and so ships and magical travel or remote contact become important to conduct political relations.

These lists are by no means exhaustive, but they are the major ones that have come up in the campaign, with one notable exception that I'll have to address in a later post: the aberration-dominated nation of Citlali, the main adversarial political structure of the campaign.

[jkdanu]

Car rental company Getaround lays off 30% of staff after ditching SF headquarters http://dlvr.it/T2jmf4 #BestRealEstateAgentElkGrove http://dlvr.it/T2jmfF http://dlvr.it/T2jmfG http://dlvr.it/T2jmfH

[swldx]

RNZ Pacific 1328 4 Feb 2024

7390Khz 1259 4 FEB 2024 - RNZ PACIFIC (NEW ZEALAND) in ENGLISH from RANGITAIKI. SINPO = 55344. English, s/on w/bellbird int. until pips and news @1300z anchored by Catriona MacLeod . The opposition has been told not to lick its wounds for too long, so it can join the fight against the new government's policies affecting Māori. The Labour Party and the Green Party were welcomed onto Te Whare Rūnanga on the Waitangi Treaty Grounds on Saturday afternoon. The new government has committed to supporting legislation to redefine the principles of the Treaty up to the Select Committee stage, on top of repealing Te Aka Whai Ora (The Māori Health Authority) and Oranga Tamariki law allowing iwi and hapū involvement in the uplift of children. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has repeatedly stated National has no intentions of supporting the Treaty Principles Bill beyond first reading but stopped short of categorically ruling it out. Wellington City Council staff will look at what may fix broken storm water pipes leaking leachate from a closed landfill into Houghton Bay. Wellington Water has assessed the pipes via CCTV and recommended relining the stormwater network to address the contamination issue, which would cost $7 million. Two helicopters equipped with monsoon buckets are on their way to a large scrub fire near Doubtless Bay in the Far North. The blaze, in 1.5 hectares of pines and dense scrub at Taemaro Bay, was reported just before 11am. Northern fire communications manager Michael Anderson said two fire trucks from Mangōnui were at the scene with more on the way from the Karikari rural brigade. The Cancer Society says it is great to see the new government invest in cancer drugs, but it also needs to ensure the drug-buying agency acts more quickly to save lives. Sunday marks World Cancer Day. Cancer Society chief executive Rachael Hart said National's promise to pay for 13 cancer treatments should make a difference, but Pharmac's processes also need to be overhauled. Queenslanders are being warned of another wave of wild weather as a tropical low off the coast threatens to form into a cyclone. The system isn't expected to make landfall but could still wreak havoc on communities recovering from ex-Tropical Cyclone Kirrily. Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill has made history after she was appointed Northern Ireland's first nationalist first minister. The DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly has been appointed deputy first minister. The return of power-sharing follows the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) ending its boycott over post-Brexit trade rules. O'Neill told the assembly chamber it was "a historic day" which represented "a new dawn". Northern Ireland's devolved government was restored on Saturday - two years to the day since it collapsed. @1303z trailer for RNZ "Morning Report". @1304z Weather Forecast: Mostly Fine and warm, some areas rain with some heavy falls. @1305z "All Night Programme" anchored by Catriona MacLeod. Backyard fence antenna, Etón e1XM. 100kW, beamAz 35°, bearing 240°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 12912KM from transmitter at Rangitaiki. Local time: 0659.

[ultraheydudemestuff]

John Huntington Pumping Tower

28600 Lake Rd.

Bay Village, OH

The John Huntington Pumping Tower is located at 28600 Lake Road (U.S. Route 6) in Bay Village, Ohio, in the Huntington Reservation (a park), Huntington Reservation, on the shores of Lake Erie, was the former country estate of John Huntington (1832-1893), a prominent Cleveland industrialist and philanthropist.  John Huntington was born in Preston, England. His father was a mathematics teacher in the English school system. He made sure John had a good education. In 1852, John emigrated to the United States and Cleveland, Ohio.  He went into the roofing business with his brother, Hugh, and was successful. He soon became a respected Cleveland businessman.  At the turn of the century, many wealthy Clevelanders had homes in the city and beautiful estates in the country.

     Huntington was contracted to roof an early oil refinery by John D. Rockefeller. Mr. Rockefeller offered the brothers payment in cash or stock, and John, daring to adventure a little, accepted part payment in stock. He acquired considerable wealth by this venture and eventually a partnership in the Standard Oil Company. John Huntington was a creative individual with a lively interest in improving ways of doing things efficiently. In 1863, he took up the business of refining oil and invented many new methods. So great were the advantages from his inventions that the company outstripped all competitors. He patented several improvements in oil refining methods.

     Huntington had many commercial, civic, and cultural interests. He was involved in the oil business, a fleet of lake vessels, mining, and quarrying in the Cleveland Stone Co. John was elected to Cleveland City Council where he served for 12 years.  He also helped to initiate the construction of swing bridges on the Cuyahoga River, construct sewer systems throughout the city, and build the Superior Street Viaduct. One of Huntington’s biggest contributions to the city was the Art and Polytechnic Trust which he created in 1889 to fund the establishment of the Cleveland Museum of Art. His other major trust, the Huntington Benevolent Trust, supported 19 charitable institutions in the Cleveland area.

     The Huntington country house burned down in the 1920s and the Huntington barns in 1970. The tall tower on the bluff of Huntington Reservation is one of the few remaining features of the Huntington’s country estate. Although the structure looks like a lighthouse, it is actually a water tower built between 1880 and 1890. It was used to store the water once needed to irrigate the fields of the estate. Most country estates had fancy vineyards, orchards, and gardens with unusual European botanical specimens. The Huntington estate was no exception. The tower is made of cypress wood, but today, the outside has been covered with siding. The original water pipes, stairway, and water tub enclosure still exist inside the tower.

     John liked to sit on top of the tower and watch the sun set.  Down the beach below the tower there is another original Huntington structure, the brick pump house, which contained the steam engine used to pump water from the lake to the tower. The “H” for Huntington is still on the outside of this brick building. Also in the park is the Huntington stepping stone used when stepping in and out of a carriage.  Cleveland Metroparks purchased the 98.76 acres of Huntington Property from the Union Trust Co. in 1925 for $500,000. Today, it is Huntington Reservation.  The pump house was listed with the National Register of Historic Places on February 28, 1979.

[santaclaralocalnews]

Santa Clara’s power problem continues to go unchecked as Silicon Valley Power (SVP) prepares to introduce another rate increase and warns that plans for new data centers in the City could consume the rest of the City’s power supply. At the Oct. 10 City Council meeting, SVP’s Chief Electric Utility Officer Manuel Pineda told the Council that the utility would ask for a new rate increase in December, less than six months after the most recent increase. Read complete news at SVVOICE.