#corporate travel san francisco

[ultraluxtransport]

The Future of Corporate Travel: Trends and Innovations to Watch

As the business landscape continues to evolve, so does the world of corporate travel. With advancements in technology, shifting workforce dynamics, and changing expectations from travelers, it is essential for businesses to stay ahead of the curve. Understanding the trends and innovations shaping corporate travel can help organizations optimize their travel strategies, enhance employee experiences, and ultimately drive success. This article explores the key trends and innovations in corporate travel services that are set to redefine how companies manage their travel needs in the coming years.

1. The Rise of Remote Work and Hybrid Models

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally transformed how companies operate, with remote work becoming a viable and often preferred option for many employees. As a result, the need for corporate travel has shifted. While traditional travel for meetings and conferences may have decreased, businesses are increasingly adopting hybrid work models. This new approach combines remote work with occasional in-person meetings, requiring innovative travel solutions.Companies are now focusing on creating seamless travel experiences for employees who need to travel occasionally for critical face-to-face interactions. This trend emphasizes the importance of corporate travel services that are flexible, allowing for quick adjustments based on changing schedules or remote team dynamics. Ultra Lux Transport, for instance, offers customized transportation solutions that cater to the unique needs of businesses, ensuring that every trip is efficient and comfortable.

2. Technology-Driven Solutions

As technology continues to advance, its impact on corporate travel becomes more pronounced. From mobile apps that streamline booking processes to artificial intelligence (AI) that enhances travel management, technology is transforming how companies approach travel.Mobile applications are becoming essential tools for corporate travelers. They provide real-time updates on flight statuses, allow for easy itinerary management, and enable travelers to book transportation services on the go. Additionally, AI-driven travel management platforms can analyze travel patterns, optimize itineraries, and even suggest cost-saving measures. These tools not only enhance the traveler experience but also help organizations manage their travel budgets more effectively.At Ultra Lux Transport, we leverage technology to provide a seamless booking experience for our clients. Our platform allows businesses to easily book corporate transportation services, monitor travel logistics, and communicate with our team in real-time, ensuring that every aspect of the journey is well-coordinated.

3. Sustainable Travel Practices

Sustainability has emerged as a critical focus for businesses across all sectors, including corporate travel. As companies strive to reduce their carbon footprints, there is a growing demand for sustainable travel practices. This includes choosing environmentally friendly transportation options, reducing waste, and supporting local economies.Corporate travel services are adapting to this trend by offering greener alternatives. For instance, many transportation companies are investing in electric and hybrid vehicles, providing businesses with eco-friendly options for their travel needs. Additionally, travel policies are evolving to prioritize sustainability, encouraging employees to consider the environmental impact of their travel choices.Ultra Lux Transport is committed to sustainability, offering a fleet of vehicles that includes eco-friendly options. By choosing our corporate transportation services, businesses can contribute to their sustainability goals while ensuring their employees travel in comfort and style.

4. Enhanced Safety and Hygiene Measures

The pandemic has heightened awareness around health and safety, prompting businesses to prioritize the well-being of their employees during travel. Enhanced safety and hygiene measures have become a critical aspect of corporate travel services, with companies increasingly seeking transportation providers that prioritize cleanliness and safety protocols.Transportation services are now implementing rigorous cleaning measures, including regular sanitization of vehicles, contactless check-in and payment processes, and health screenings for chauffeurs. These initiatives not only ensure the safety of travelers but also build trust and confidence in the travel experience.At Ultra Lux Transport, we have implemented comprehensive safety protocols to protect our clients. Our vehicles undergo thorough cleaning between each use, and our professional chauffeurs adhere to strict health and safety guidelines, providing peace of mind for businesses and their employees.

5. Personalization and Customization

As corporate travel continues to evolve, personalization is becoming a key focus for travel services. Businesses are recognizing that every traveler has unique needs and preferences, and providing a tailored experience can enhance satisfaction and productivity.Corporate travel services are increasingly offering customizable options that allow travelers to select their preferred vehicles, amenities, and even routes. This level of personalization not only enhances the travel experience but also fosters a sense of value and appreciation among employees.At Ultra Lux Transport, we pride ourselves on our ability to provide customized corporate transportation solutions. Whether it’s a one-time event or ongoing transportation needs, we work closely with businesses to ensure that every detail is tailored to their specific requirements, creating a seamless and enjoyable travel experience.

6. Data-Driven Decision Making

In the age of information, data-driven decision-making is becoming essential for businesses looking to optimize their corporate travel strategies. By analyzing travel data, organizations can gain insights into spending patterns, traveler behaviors, and overall travel efficiency.Travel management platforms and tools are equipped with analytics capabilities that allow companies to track travel expenses, identify areas for improvement, and implement cost-saving measures. This data-driven approach enables businesses to make informed decisions that enhance their travel programs while maximizing ROI.Ultra Lux Transport supports businesses in their data-driven initiatives by providing detailed reporting and insights into their transportation usage. Our clients can access data that helps them understand their travel patterns, enabling them to make informed decisions about their future travel needs.

7. Focus on Employee Experience

As businesses compete for top talent in a challenging labor market, employee experience has become a key priority. Providing a positive travel experience is an important aspect of this, as it reflects a company’s commitment to employee well-being.Corporate travel services that prioritize the traveler experience can significantly impact employee satisfaction and morale. This includes offering comfortable transportation, flexible booking options, and prompt customer service. By investing in the travel experience, organizations can foster a culture of appreciation and support among their employees.At Ultra Lux Transport, we understand the importance of employee experience in corporate travel. Our team is dedicated to providing exceptional service, ensuring that every journey is enjoyable and stress-free for our clients.

Conclusion: Embracing the Future of Corporate Travel Services

The future of corporate travel is being shaped by a combination of trends and innovations that are transforming how businesses approach their travel needs. From the rise of remote work and hybrid models to the integration of technology-driven solutions and sustainable practices, organizations must adapt to stay competitive.By embracing these trends and focusing on enhancing the traveler experience, businesses can optimize their corporate travel services and ensure that their employees are well-supported during their journeys. Ultra Lux Transport is committed to providing premium corporate transportation solutions that align with these emerging trends, enabling our clients to navigate the evolving landscape of corporate travel with confidence.As you look to the future of corporate travel, consider partnering with Ultra Lux Transport for your transportation needs. Our team is here to provide seamless, reliable, and luxurious travel experiences tailored to your business requirements. Contact us today to learn more about how we can elevate your corporate travel services and support your organization’s goals.

[releveunlimited]

Why San Francisco is the Perfect Hub for Corporate Event Planning

San Francisco is a city with multiple dimensions. It comes with vibrant cultures and world-class amenities. That makes San Francisco the best destination for events and conferences.

Choosing the right corporate event production in San Francisco can help you reap the best benefits of event planning effortlessly. But, what makes San Francisco the best destination for your events?

[mvdlimos]

Prom Limo Rental in South San Francisco

Need a sleek ride for your South San Francisco prom? MVD Limos, has you covered! Our prom limo rentals combine elegance and affordability for an unforgettable night. Cruise to your prom venue in style, creating lasting memories with friends. With our trusted service, safety and glamour go hand in hand. Reserve your prom limo rental with MVD Limos today for an unbeatable experience in South San Francisco.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

What do you see happening to Harry when the inevitable divorce happens? The kids will be in the US so he can't really move to the UK. Though he doesn't seem that attached to them considering how much he travels and is away from them. Would he be set up in the UK if he did return? What is there to be done with him? He can't return as an official working royal even if Charles refuses to remove him from the website. He obviously needs someone to babysit him so he can't just be let left alone. Would he just play polo until he's too old? I wonder if the BRF actually have a plan if he was to return because I can't think what they'd do with him.

Ask from August 3rd

There are three and a half options for Harry post-divorce if it should happen.

Option 1: if Meghan gets custody of the kids and keeps them in the US, he’ll stay in the US, probably remaining in the LA area or moving up to his corporate BetterUp apartment in San Francisco and commuting down to LA when it’s his custody time. There is a chance he could move to New York since the East Coast is more “old money” and he probably fits in better, society-wise, there (but I think it’s a very low chance). Harry will continue being the BetterUp mascot and travel all over the world playing polo and “running” Invictus Games. He’ll be like a Vince Vaughn/Jon Hamm-type character (perpetual bachelor, kinda dickish but without the charm), still very much living with PTSD, and the kind of weekend dad who’s all fun and games so Meghan/the nannies will always be the bad guys.

Harry will probably trauma-bond to the first woman that can get her claws in him and it’ll probably be another Meghan/Durek-type (holistic, new agey, controlling). I don’t think they’ll marry because Meghan will make their lives a living hell being that close. (But good news, Meghan will probably move her target from Kate to the new girlfriend.)

Option 1B: If by some miracle Harry gets out of California and moves someplace else in the US - like to NYC/northeast, Texas, or Jackson Hole, then he might not be as dickish and might actually level out from all the mental health trauma Meghan put him through. The risk is still high for him to be with a new agey/holistic woman but she’s probably be more of a Shannon Beador-type (from Real Housewives of Orange County; well-meaning but kinda nutty) than a charlatan grifter-type and I can see her influence being calmer and more stabilizing on Harry, perhaps even to the point that he stops the constant PR blitz and just lives his life. If this is what happens, then there’s a good chance that Charles and Eugenie could reach out and relations with the BRF thaw out to the point that Harry can see people when he goes to the UK for “work” instead of getting the door slammed in his face.

Option 2: If Harry gets custody of the kids or the kids go to a UK boarding school, he’ll go back to the UK and be welcomed back in on the family side. No royal work and no public engagements/appearances unless the entire BRF is there (eg, like the Platinum Jubilee service) or it’s exclusively a private family event (like the Easter and Christmas walks). King Charles will throw Harry a bone every once in a while by supporting Invictus Games. His mental health will be addressed and Harry will probably begin healing from all this trauma so he may not be dickish at all, just his usual entitled prince self which someone, probably younger and blonder, will eventually find charming and she’ll “take over” Harry for the BRF in return for a cushy paid-for life (allegedly this is what they offered Meghan but Meghan wasn’t aware of how bad Harry’s mental health was and kept demanding more and more money to stay).

Since it sounds like Harry is pivoting again to the Spencers, he’ll probably settle close to them near Althorp (otherwise King Charles will probably buy a lease for him at/around Highgrove House since William never goes there). Maybe Earl Spencer will take pity and give Harry a small cottage house on the Althorp estate (if there are any).

William might thaw out eventually but their relationship will never be the same and Harry won’t ever be back in the Waleses’ inner circle, and of course, it will depend on whether Harry continues all of his PR. (If Harry continues PR and continues using William for PR, there’s no thawing but if Harry shuts up and stops talking to press, he has a chance of William acknowledging he exists.)

Option 3: Harry moves to Africa or someplace else in the Commonwealth, regardless of custody rulings. Probably the best option for Harry. He just needs to get far, far away from the press, Meghan, and the BRF as possible, reset, and start over. King Charles will take care of/pay for everything. King William will probably continue supporting Harry in this case since it keeps him away from the UK but again, the issue is PR. If Harry stops talking to the press, then his chances with William are better. If he keeps talking to the press, he keeps running PR stories about olive branches or the good old days or wanting to come back, then nothing will change.

[misfitwashere]

Strong winds

ROBERT REICH

DEC 12

Friends,

I’m sitting in the United Airlines terminal at the San Francisco airport. The plane I was scheduled to travel to Newark, New Jersey, has already been delayed three times. It was scheduled to depart at 1 pm. It’s now departing at 4:40 pm. 

They’re blaming strong winds in the Northeast. But another United scheduled to depart at 2:30 pm just took off on time. I asked the service attendant why the 2:30 pm to Newark had departed despite strong winds. He explained that the real problem wasn’t strong winds; it was a lack of air traffic controllers in Newark. My suspicion is United is trying to minimize the number of late flights; rather than risk two, it sacrificed my 1 pm. 

I asked the attendant if he thought my flight will actually depart at 4:40, because I have to get to a Hilton Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey by early enough to get a few hours sleep before attending meetings tomorrow morning. The attendant said “there are no guarantees. This flight could depart anytime, or it could be cancelled.” 

When I phoned the Hilton Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to tell them I’d be checking in very late tonight, I got a menu that told me to “press 2” to change or modify a reservation. When I pressed 2, an automated voice said I could not change my current reservation but could make a new reservation. The automated voice also said if I was experiencing any difficulty I should go to the Hilton website. 

I found the Hilton website, which asked me to fill in reservation number. But I didn[t have a reservation number. When I reserved a room, Hilton had given me a confirmation number but not a reservation number. I typed in the confirmation number but the website said the confirmation number was incorrect. 

I spent the next half hour trying to find a human being at the Hilton Hotel to ask them to keep the room for me despite my lateness. Finally, I connected with someone who didn’t understand what I was asking. I asked them where they were located. They said they were not permitted to say. 

It’s now 3:35 pm and I’m still sitting here in the United terminal in San Francisco. The customer service person I just spoke with told me the plane “may or may not take off.” I’m about to phone the people I was to meet with tomorrow to tell them I won’t be there. 

I relate this to you because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the frustrations that might drive people to vote for a strongman who promises to “shake things up” even if he’s intent on destroying our democracy, or might cause people to cheer for someone who murders the CEO of a giant health insurers. 

United Airlines is one of four remaining national carriers (there were ten in 2000). In the third quarter of 2024, had pre-tax earnings of $1.3 billion, with a pre-tax margin of 8.7%. In other words, it’s doing fabulously well. 

Hilton Hotels is almost as profitable. In fact, its net operating profits have shot up from what they were a year ago. It’s also doing fabulously well. 

Big American corporations are doing better than ever. The stock market has hit record highs. CEO pay is hitting new highs. 

But American workers and consumers are being shafted with lousy service at ever more expensive prices. 

Something’s got to give. Right?

[adventure-showdown]

What is your favourite Doctor Who story?

ROUND 1 MASTERPOST

synopses and propaganda under the cut

Vampire Science

Synopsis

In the days when the Time Lords were young, their war with the Vampires cost trillions of lives on countless worlds. Now the Vampires have been sighted again, in San Francisco. Some want to coexist with humans, using genetic engineering in a macabre experiment to find a new source of blood. But some would rather go out in a blaze of glory — and UNIT's attempts to contain them could provoke another devastating war.

The Doctor strikes a dangerous bargain, but even he might not be able to keep the city from getting caught in the crossfire. While he finds himself caught in a web of old feuds and high-tech schemes, his new companion Sam finds just how deadly travelling with the Doctor can be.

Propaganda

I could say many things about this book, but honestly the fact that there’s a vampire snail is enough (anonymous)

you know that meme with the wikipedia page that's like "instead of brain there is [insert thing here]"? that was me after reading this. it's extremely good (anonymous)

vampire crack squirrels. (@eighthdoctor )

Camp! And! Vamp! Also 8 keeps getting swarmed by kittens (anonymous)

Alien Bodies

Synopsis

On an island in the East Indies, in a lost city buried deep in the heart of the rainforest, agents of the most formidable powers in the galaxy are gathering. They have been invited there to bid for what could turn out to be the deadliest weapon ever created.

When the Doctor and Sam arrive in the city, the Time Lord soon realises they've walked into the middle of the strangest auction in history — and what's on sale to the highest bidder is something more horrifying than even the Doctor could have imagined, something that could change his life forever.

And just when it seems things can't get any worse, the Doctor finds out who else is on the guest list.

Propaganda

Doctor ends up at an auction for his own dead body (anonymous)

One of the most notable Eighth Doctor books, the first by Lawrence Miles and the beginning of Faction Paradox. Generally very good. (anonymous)

Banger of a story where 8 goes to an auction in order to purchase 3's dead body. Then the weird shit starts happening. (@eighthdoctor )

Seeing I

Synopsis

He has no idea why Samantha Jones ran away from him.

Sam is homeless on the streets of the colony world of Ha'olam, trying to face what's just happened between her and the Doctor. He's searching for her, and for answers. While she struggles to survive in a strange city centuries from home, the Doctor comes across evidence of alien involvement in the local mega-corporation, INC — and is soon confined to a prison that becomes a hell of his own making.

Where did INC's mysterious eye implants really come from? What is the company searching for in the deserts? What is hiding in the shadows, watching their progress?

Faced with these mysteries, separated by half a world, Sam and the Doctor each face a battle — Sam to rebuild her life, the Doctor to stay sane. And if they find each other again, what will be left of either of them? "

Propaganda

did you want 8 slowly breaking down under extended mental torture? of course you did. also eye gore. (@eighthdoctor )

The Scarlet Empress

Synopsis

Arriving on the almost impossibly ancient planet of Hyspero, a world where magic and danger walk hand in hand, the Doctor and Sam are caught up in a bizarre struggle for survival.

Hyspero has been ruled for thousands of years by the Scarlet Empresses, creatures of dangerous powers — powers that a member of the Doctor's own race is keen to possess herself: the eccentric time traveller and philanderer known only as Iris Wildthyme.

As the real reasons for Iris's obsession become clear, the Doctor and Sam must embark on a perilous journey across deserts, mountains, forests and oceans. Both friends and foes are found among spirits, djinns, alligator men and golden bears — but in a land where the magical is possible, is anything really as it seems?

Propaganda

features my favourite couple of all time, a giant spider and a cyborg who fall in love and fuse into one giant ice spider robot. and they were both girls (it is also a beautiful story about stories themselves and the regulars are at their best) (anonymous)

Unnatural History

Synopsis

"They called it the Millennium Effect", said the Doctor. "But the millennium was only beginning."

San Francisco has changed since the start of 2000. The laws of physics keep having acid flashbacks. There are sightings of creatures from outside our dimensions, stranded aliens and surrealist street performers. The city has become a mecca for those who revel in impossible creatures — and those who want to see them pinned down and put away.

Sam's past is catching up with her — a past she didn't know she had. The Doctor is in danger of becoming the pièce de résistance in a twisted collection of creatures. And beneath the waters of the Bay, something huge is waiting.

With time running out, the Doctor must choose which to sacrifice — a city of wonders, or the life of an old and dear friend.

Propaganda

You too want to read a full novel explanation of why Dr Who canon is Like That (hint: it's little assholes who opt to look like 10 year olds wearing skull masks). Also unicorns in San Francisco. Unsurprisingly does feature Fitz being astoundingly gay for 8. (@eighthdoctor )

The villain of the week wants the Doctor to have a consistent backstory. This is bad because it’s not Doctor Who without plotholes and inconsistencies. Plus, it was published in 1999 (?) and there’s a line about how Gallifrey is always destroyed and un-destroyed. They didn’t even know… (anonymous)

Interference

Synopsis

Five years ago, Sam Jones was just a schoolgirl from Shoreditch. Of course, that was before she met up with the Doctor and found out that her entire life had been stage-managed by a time-travelling voodoo cult. Funny how things turn out, isn't it?

Now Sam's back in her own time, fighting the good fight in a world of political treachery, international subterfuge, and good old-fashioned depravity. But she's about to learn the first great truth of the universe: that however corrupt and amoral your own race might be, there's always someone in the galaxy who can make you look like a beginner.

Ms Jones has just become a minor player in a million-year-old power struggle... and as it happens, so has the Doctor.

Both of him, actually.

Propaganda

Father Kreiner war crimes because they are so in love with the Doctor and so depressed they want to die Romeo and Juliet style. Oh and it is the superior third Doctor regeneration story. (Anastasia Cousins)

[fellow-travelers-fic-recs]

Fellow Travelers Fic Recs | Current WIPs: April 2024

Active WIPs with most recent updates posted in the past month featuring awkward hospital room conversations, a hospital room meet-cranky, and hospital whump... I'm sensing a theme, here. More fake-ish dating, Mama Fuller wisdom, Professor Hawk, a couple road trips, some time travel and a few modern AU's. There really is something for everyone!

Happy reading!

✨ Be sure to show the authors some love and appreciation with kudos and comments on the fics you enjoyed!

🌺 Remember Our Love - Remember Me by Larnee💠[G, 638] Tim Laughlin - the love of Hawkins life is gone. Hawk struggles to move forward until someone unexpected shows up at his doorstep. Tim has never left Hawk, not now, not ever.

🌼 Chances Are by @bluebellsinburbank | ConsumingLove [G, 3K] After a family Thanksgiving, Estelle and Hawk talk. Then she meets Tim.

🌺 I Know I’ve Never Lived Before by @bluebellsinburbank | ConsumingLove [G, 3K] Wherein Hawk completely accidentally and through no fault of his own intentionally ends up dating the man he's sleeping with.

🌼 Within The Heart of Me by drabbleswabbles💠 [NR, 3K] Lucy goes to the hospital to talk to Tim. When she arrives, Hawk is already there.

Otherwise known as, a prompt fill that wanders a bit off the mark, but is close enough in spirit to give credit where credit is due as far as inspiration goes.

🌺 Darkness Before the Dawn by @beyondxmeasure | Cyantific [NR, 350] It’s June 1944, following the US offensive against the German-led Caesar line that tore through a small squad of the 141st Regiment, killing two men and wounding others, along with Sergeant Hawkins Fuller. Following the blast of the Nazi’s K5 railway gun, he underwent surgery to repair sustained shrapnel damage and is now recovering in the Army’s 32nd Evac Hospital. In the bed next to him lies Corporal Marcus Gaines from the 85th Infantry Division, also wounded in action.

Or, the story of how Hawk and Marcus met.

🌼 A Disaster Beyond Measure by drabbleswabbles💠 [NR, 23K] Hawkins Fuller is a campaign manager with a PR disaster on his hands. The solution involves pretending to date none other than Timothy Laughlin.

Featuring: unrealistic portrayals of the life and job of a campaign manager for the sake of the fake dating trope.

🌺 Who Are You (who am I?) by Anonymous [G, 2K] AU- Hawk fails his security clearance after Tim goes to the army and Senator Smith locks him in a mental hospital where he is lobotomised

Or, Tim receives a letter from Mary saying Hawk needs him.

🌼Too old to play (and too young to mess around) by @bejeweledmp3 | ninav [M, 61K] Kimberly Fuller goes on a two-week vacation to San Francisco, in which she: drinks excessive amounts of tea, gets betrayed, cries more than she should, eats donuts, and seeks out truth with the help of a man she only knows from a presentation card; not necessarily in that order.

But mostly, she finds her father in every least expected place. And learns to make her peace with what that means.

🌺Sands of Time (Turn Backwards) by @brouill3r | brouiller [NR, 22K] 1987 Hawkins Fuller is full of regrets for the life he's lived, though Tim once told him he regrets nothing. Hawk so wishes he could say the same.

In the still night air of a hotel room, clutching a cracked paperweight to his chest like it's carved of the finest gold, Hawk gets his wish.

Or, a time-travel fix-it fic that nobody asked for.

🌼 Is it over now? by @satelarry | satelarry [M, 43K] Seeing the love of your life walk away without being able to tell him that you love him has to be one of the worst situations a person can go through. But Hawk decided to fulfill Tim's request, knowing it will be the last. What happens when he wakes up, 18 years before, with the knowledge of what's going to happen if he makes the same decisions? Does the ending always stay the same?

Or, the Time Travel AU in which the only thing ruining Hawk's plan is Tim's stubbornness.

🌺 Again, only better by @madsmeetsmisha | madsmeetsmisha [M, 17K] Hawk had no idea what was really going on here. All he knew was that he was back in 1954 and a completely distraught Tim was standing outside his door. And he also knew that he certainly wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

🌼 🪴His great consuming lovage* 🪴 by @carnivalrow | nightfall_in_winter [T, 2K] Tim's potted plant has a story to tell...

🌺 We'll be on the road like Jack Kerouac by @jesterlesbian | captainquint [M, 4K] He tried to think of what Tim would do or say. The man who had only spoken to his son a handful of times over one weekend in 1968, but had seemed to understand him far better than Hawk ever had.

The business card felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket.

An idea burst to life in Hawk’s mind. This was an emergency if he’d ever seen one.

“What would you say to coming with me to San Francisco?”

Or, Hawk and Jackson go on a cross-country road trip to San Francisco.

🌼 Educate Me by @fullerthanskippy | fullerthanskippy [E, 13K]  A Hawk x Tim AU in which the timelines jump from 2012-2014 to present day 2024. When present day Tim receives an invitation to the 10-year reunion of his Georgetown graduating class, he is filled with both hope and dread that he will run into one particular professor.

One man who was the through-line of his two years in grad school. The man who taught him more than he could have ever learned in the classroom.

When Tim is re-acquainted with Professor Hawkins Fuller, he immediately flashes back to 12 years prior, when he first encountered the man that he had no idea would be the greatest love and loss of his life.

Or, tons of garbage filthy smut sprinkled in between pining, angst, and fluff. Contains explicit material including but not limited to the likes of top!hawk, bottom!tim, top!tim, bottom!hawk, dom!hawk, sub!tim, bratty!tim, and much, much more. Enjoy!

🌺 I Sing the Body Electric by telescape8💠 [M, 28K] Modern AU. It all starts on Election Night 2016. Tim falls hard. Hawk falls harder.

💠Authors: if your tumblr (or other socials) isn’t linked, and you'd like it to be, let me know and I'll be happy to add it! Or, if you’re linked already and would prefer not to be, please contact me to remove it.

[vintagelasvegas]

Rendering of a monorail on the Strip, 1973

Several competing companies vied for contracts to build a monorail system in Las Vegas in the mid 60s to mid 70s.

• Magi-Cab, an effort by Lockheed and Guerdon Industries, which included styling and architectural elements to be designed by Paul R Williams Associates, was proposed in '66. As late as '68 Magi-Cab proposal was developing to include access to the airport.

• Custom Cabs Inc. proposed a monorail system linking the airport, the Strip, and Fremont St in the early 70s.

• Aerial Transit Systems of Nevada, backed by the Pullman and Bendix corporations, proposed a line on the airport, to the Strip, to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

• Monocab was the concept of monorail developer A.J. Kavanaugh and Rohr Industries, the builders of the San Francisco Bay Area's BART system, who spent four years and $2 million trying to sell the project to the City, County officials, and the general public.

Efforts were abandoned by early '75, then revived in the 90s.

Photo Caption: “New York Times, 5/4/73-Las Vegas: Artist’s rendering of part of projected $80-million elevated transit system in Las Vegas. Construction is supported by private business interest, opposed by environmentalists and the city’s taxi industry.” | “Skylift Travel Plan Revealed.” Review-Journal, 12/18/66; B. Vincent. “Air Travel and Airports of the Future.” The Nevadan, 2/4/68; “Tramway application set to be filed.” Review-Journal, 8/16/70; J. Hanna. “Rapid transit offered by Nevada firm.” Review-Journal, 6/11/71; “Tourist nix monocab survey.” Review-Journal, 1/10/74; SkyLift Magi-Cab, Las Vegas, Nevada, Paul R Williams Project.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

#20yrsago EFF is suing the FCC over the Broadcast Flag! https://web.archive.org/web/20040314151119/https://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20040309_eff_pr.php

#20yrsago ICANN’s tongue slithers further up Verisign’s foetid backside https://memex.craphound.com/2004/03/09/icanns-tongue-slithers-further-up-verisigns-foetid-backside/

#20yrsago Nader kicks Mastercard’s ass in fair-use fight https://web.archive.org/web/20040401171817/http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/03/nader_wins_pric.html

#15yrsago AIG has insured $1.6 trillion in derivatives https://web.archive.org/web/20090312010613/https://www.scribd.com/doc/13112282/Aig-Systemic-090309

#10yrsago Putin your butt https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1zrchl/check_out_my_3d_printed_putin_butt_plug/?sort=new

#10yrsago Public Prosecutor of Rome unilaterally orders ISPs to censor 46 sites https://torrentfreak.com/italian-police-carry-out-largest-ever-pirate-domain-crackdown-140305/

#5yrsago Palmer Luckey wins secretive Pentagon contract to develop AI for drones https://theintercept.com/2019/03/09/anduril-industries-project-maven-palmer-luckey/

#5yrsago Pentagon reassures public that its autonomous robotic tank adheres to “legal and ethical standards” for AI-driven killbots https://gizmodo.com/u-s-army-assures-public-that-robot-tank-system-adheres-1833061674

#5yrsago Elizabeth Warren reveals her plan to break up Big Tech https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-tech-9ad9e0da324c

#5yrssago The US requires visas for some EU citizens, so now all US citizens visiting the EU will be subjected to border formalities too https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/us-citizens-need-visa-europe-travel-2021/

#1yrago The AI hype bubble is the new crypto hype bubble https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

[maddrumsticks]

Undertale AU Idea I'm too Lazy To Draw

Except for the initial concept, I came up with every detail five minutes ago while I was showering. (So there will in fact be gaps)

It was a completely normal AU, with no changes whatsoever from the original. But the ground suddenly gave way. Every single citizen of this AU fell into the vast expanse of the void and shattered. Broken pieces just floated around emptily in the void, with no thoughts or memories left.

Somebody once started creating an AU that was now left abandoned. This AU was basically going to be a copy of San Francisco but in the Undertale universe. This creator never added people, abandoning it basically as soon as they created it.

But a shattered piece of Sans found this empty, vast city. And once one piece finds something, the other pieces follow.

Sans pieces found their way in buildings, in the ground, and everywhere in this city. Everywhere except a concrete body.

Sans could think, he could feel, and although his brain was a mess, he was corporeal.... He was a whole entire city, what the heck.

Sans missed his brother. It didn't take long to discover that he could create holograms of his brother wandering around. It made his city feel less empty.

Outcodes began to wander here. And this place became known as Sans Francisco.

A few extra details: Sans Francisco can serve as a travel point for AUs that can't travel between worlds on their own.

Sans Francisco usually has his teeth as the ground, and his eyes appear anywhere on buildings.

He can talk, but he's very, very hard to understand.

Dumb AU but fun to think about. Feel free to ask whatever questions you want and stuffs!

[theevilmaninyourcomputer]

I finished the bell jar two months ago, and the quote that's stuck with me (off the dome, this could be wrong) is "I don't see why I can't live in the city and the country, why I can't have two mutually exclusive things at once." To which her boyfriend makes a comment about her having the personality of a 'true neurotic.' Now, I know this is thematic, and doesn't LITERALLY translate to Esther's indecisiveness over where to live, but I get it. When I think about the future I don't envision work or school; I picture places...and those places aren't here. I imagine myself living on the coast, in the woods, in the mountains (I hate nature but I love the idea of going totally off the map), I see myself hiking the Appalachian trail (I could never but a girl can dream). Somewhere far away where I don't have to worry about job security. I can live in a cabin and write poems when I feel like it, write songs when I feel like it. Sleep when I need to. But then, I hate dirt and bugs, so I'd last approximately two days before I left for a house with a working toilet. Mad respect for hermits everywhere but I am NOT shitting in a hole. I picture myself moving to a big city. New York, Chicago, San Francisco. I'd live in a loft apartment, work for an office. It would destroy me, but I'd kick ass at a corporate job. I'd own like, five cats, and I'd use the money from my soul-crushing job to fund my hobbies. La vida loca, except I've never actually been to a big city. Everything I know about NYC I learned from Annie the movie musical, plus I know I'd get mugged the second I stepped off the subway. I think the smog and the people and the pee-smell would get to me as much (if not more) than the bugs in the mountains. So, where do I go? Because I'm not staying here, I refuse to spend the rest of my life in Oklahoma, and I don't foresee myself ever making it out of the U.S. It's not that I want to live everywhere at once, I could travel the world searching for contentment and come back empty-handed. Still, being unhappy everywhere and wanting to be nowhere are two separate things. Maybe I'll live in the sewers. The sewers are warm, AND they have running water. Oh well.

[rabbitcruiser]

Tonopah, NV (No. 3)

The Mizpah Hotel is a historic hotel in Tonopah, Nevada, U.S. It is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Mizpah and the nearby Belvada Building, both five stories high, shared the title of tallest building in Nevada until 1927. The hotel was named after the Mizpah Mine and was the social hub of Tonopah. The hotel was pre-dated by the Mizpah Saloon, which opened in 1907, and was the first permanent structure in Tonopah. The hotel was financed by George Wingfield, George S. Nixon, Cal Brougher and Bob Govan and designed by George E. Holesworth of Reno, Nevada (other sources state that the architect was Morrill J. Curtis). Brougher in particular was involved with the Belmont, Tonopah, Midway and Tonopah Mining Company and the Tonopah Divide Mining Company. Brougher owned the Tonopah Banking Corporation, which had an office in the lobby of the 1905 building, and was a director of the Bank of Italy in San Francisco.

The reinforced concrete hotel was faced with stone on the front and brick on the sides and rear. The neighboring three-story Brougher-Govan Block, with rooms on the upper floors, served as the first Mizpah and remains connected. Cast iron columns were used in the windows and fire escapes. The three and five story buildings are joined with a wood stairway crowned with a skylight. Steam heat was provided, along with the first elevator in Tonopah.

According to legend, Wyatt Earp kept the saloon, Jack Dempsey was a bouncer, and Howard Hughes married Jean Peters at the Mizpah. But Wyatt Earp left Tonopah before the Mizpah was built, Hughes was married in Tonopah, but not at the Mizpah, and Dempsey asserted he was never a bouncer. The hotel nevertheless features the Jack Dempsey Room and the Wyatt Earp Bar.

The hotel is said to house a ghost deemed the Lady in Red by hotel guests who have experienced her presence. Legend says that the Lady in Red is the ghost of a prostitute who was beaten and murdered on the fifth floor of the hotel by a jealous ex-boyfriend. Another widely accepted description of the events is that The Lady in Red had been caught cheating by her husband at the hotel after he had missed a train, who then proceeded to kill her in a jealous rage. The Lady in Red haunting of the Mizpah was featured in season 5, episode 2 of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel.

The Mizpah changed hands several times through the years until Frank Scott of Las Vegas (who also built the Union Plaza Hotel) bought it in 1979. Scott updated the hotel with “all the modern conveniences,” acting as a bridge to the modern day, all the while preserving the antiquated romance that had first drawn him to the hotel. In all, the work took 2.5 years and cost almost $4 million.

The hotel had been shuttered since 1999, but in early 2011, the hotel was purchased by Fred and Nancy Cline of Cline Cellars, Sonoma, California, who renovated and reopened the building to the public in August 2011. The newly renovated hotel has 47 rooms, a bar, and two restaurants; The Pittman Cafe and the Jack Dempsey Room. There are plans to renovate further rooms in the hotel annex and to add a small casino to the property.

Source: Wikipedia

[releveunlimited]

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[pathofregeneration]

Joseph Parker, The Path to Glory

* * *

The Visions of Joseph Parker, part II

“Increasingly dissatisfied with his career as an accountant, Parker devoted himself to Rosicrucianism, joined the Theosophical Society, and took up singing and playing a musical instrument. A second epiphany in 1962, allowed Parker to overcome his fears of failure and financial ruin, and choose the life of an artist. He studied art briefly in Sydney and then moved to Paris and later Israel. His life in Israel and later in India, led to encounters with spiritual leaders such as the chief of the Rosicrucian order, the head of Jain Buddhism, and the well-known Indian philosopher, Krishnamurti. Parker continued traveling, settling next in Mexico where he attended two art schools and began a career as a portrait painter.

Continuing to travel, he moved to the U.S. in 1977 and lived in San Francisco where a Chicago writer, Gregory Vlamis saw and began collecting Parker’s paintings. With Vlamis as his ally, Parker exhibited his work in numerous galleries including the Walther Kelly Gallery in Chicago and sold paintings to many private collectors, corporations and museums including the Art Institute of Chicago. Parker was one of the featured artists in an exhibition at the cutting-edge P.S. 1 Gallery in New York City, his first exposure in the New York gallery scene.

Learning of his work in New York, E.B. and Maureen Smith became Joseph’s most active collectors until they lost track of his whereabouts as he moved across the country in a RV, painting wherever he traveled. Joseph cared little about the prestige of galleries or the lure of money and decided to give up painting in 1991 to commit himself to studying the ‘divine scheme.’ The Smith’s later found him in Desert Hot Springs and convinced him to recommence painting, supported by their generous patronage.”

— Joseph Parker, Carl Hammer Gallery

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: David Moulton

Published: Mar 10, 2023

Last month, GLAAD wrote an open letter to The New York Times protesting the paper’s coverage of trans issues. In particular, the group took issue with the way the paper has covered medical sex changes or “gender affirmation” for minors. Contrary to clinicians and experts quoted in the Times, GLAAD asserted the science behind this practice is “SETTLED.” The letter was co-signed by a wide array of human rights groups as well as celebrities like Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow.

GLAAD is a media watchdog group that was founded in the ’80s to protest what they saw as the media’s homophobic coverage of the AIDS crisis. Their name was originally an acronym for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, but in 2013 they formally dropped the words “gay and lesbian” to reflect their advocacy for transgender people and the broader “LGBTQ community.” This shift in emphasis has been typical of gay rights organizations over the past decade, as what was once a movement focused on securing the rights and safety of gay men and women has transformed into a movement with different goals altogether.

The first time I announced my pronouns, “I’m David, he/him,” I was a freshman in college attending a transgender discussion group. It was 2005. At the time it seemed quite progressive—even for me, an openly gay 18-year-old volunteering at my liberal college’s resource center for gay rights. In the most progressive clique at one of the country’s most progressive schools, being transgender was still mostly a theoretical concept—a new frontier that college kids were just beginning to discover.

My next “trans encounter” happened half a decade later when I was living in San Francisco. My best friend in the city was another gay man, about 15 years older than me. In the late ’80s and ’90s, he had been involved with ACT UP, the confrontational activist group fighting against AIDS stigma, and he served as my guide to both the new city and its politics.

He had studied recondite critical and cultural theories at Berkeley and later in New York at NYU and Columbia. I looked to him as a mentor and a model of what it meant to be gay. His homosexuality was not just a random fact like eye color but rather a vehicle to defy and critique social norms. Put differently, he wasn’t just gay, he was queer. This entailed, among other duties, being the first person to explain the word “cis” to me.

Despite his militancy—or perhaps because of it—my friend had a wicked sense of humor, and could be quite cutting toward the left-wing activist milieu that came to dominate queer and trans spaces. I remember once, when I was a bit under the weather, I complained about being congested and then apologized for whining. My friend deadpanned, “Sounds like a cisgender problem.” I laughed. “Trans people never get a stuffy nose?” I asked. He replied, “No, because they’re too busy snorting drugs to dull the pain of living in a transphobic world.” At the time (this would have been around 2012) it was still practically impossible to imagine these terms—cisgender, queer—being embraced and affirmed by Wall Street and the Pentagon. But my friend traveled in circles that had already moved beyond the mainstream acceptance of gays, and were advocating for new, more radical sexual and gender identities.

If trans was going to be the next civil rights movement (and make no mistake, before it was officially announced by Hollywood and the DEI offices of corporate America there was a vanguard pushing for it), it required not just an oppressed class but also an oppressor class. “Cis” filled this role even though it didn’t really mean anything other than “not trans.” Cis society became a battleground whose rules and norms had to be subverted.

It was in fact my friend who introduced me to the concept of “misgendering” as a personal offense. He told me that someone in his circles had been talking about me behind my back in glowing terms. He said that this person had been referring to me as “they,” so as not to assume my gender. I asked my friend if this person did that when talking about everyone. Not everyone, my friend said, just people who seem like they’re with it. This was deeply flattering. I was seen as cool and edgy enough to have a flashy new gender identity.

I started dating a man and my life became more stable and domestic. I ceased to desire being queer in the radical sense. I just happened to be a homosexual living my life. Meanwhile the public fortunes of gay people kept getting better and better. Obama became the first president in history to endorse gay marriage and it seemed to actually help his reelection campaign. In 2015 the Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell, identifying marriage as a fundamental right for all Americans, including gay ones. I had to marvel at the change in attitudes toward gay people in my lifetime. I first came out at 14, in 2001. My family was accepting, but there were still anti-sodomy laws on the books in some states. Homosexuals were not allowed to serve openly in the military. No viable presidential candidate from either party supported gay marriage. By 2015, in just a little over a decade, gay rights had won a total and unequivocal victory.

Today support for gay marriage is at an all-time high, with 71% of Americans backing it, including most Republicans. While left-wing causes like economic justice and equality have stalled, progressives can confidently claim to have won this culture war. If anything the victory was perhaps too sudden and total. In the fight for gay marriage, an activist infrastructure was built up; after Obergefell, the activists needed a new cause and found one in gender ideology.

The embrace of the transgender cause by America’s gay organizations is often presented as a matter of natural allyship between the closely related members of the LGBTQ coalition. In my view this is a misunderstanding. The interests of legacy gay rights organizations have increasingly become divorced from their traditional constituents, gay men and lesbians. For example: By 2016, the Human Rights Campaign, America’s largest gay rights organization, was using the word “transgender” more than “gay” and “lesbian” combined in its annual reports.

A number of states now have laws banning the practice of “conversion therapy” and an even broader stigma exists against efforts to medically alter the sexuality of gay people. But the same is not true when it comes to gender, where the situation is roughly reversed. Gender has become the point at which the interests of a professional activist class intersect with those of the pharmaceutical and medical tech industry.

According to GLAAD, gender identity is “one’s own internal sense of self and their gender,” and is separate from biological sex. This emphasis on the immaterial over the physical can lead to the body becoming fungible material for medical experiments. Physically healthy people can be turned into lifelong medical patients for profit. In the business press, trans tech is touted as a budding industry. One savvy entrepreneur has estimated the transition market as “in excess of $200B.”

The executive branch of the U.S. government actively supports pediatric gender transition. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine is a vocal proponent of medical transition as the appropriate treatment for youth with dysphoria; furthermore, the administration supports the right of K-12 public schools to socially transition students with or without their parents’ consent. Social transition is the practice of treating a prepubescent child as if they were literally a member of the opposite sex. While it does not involve any direct medical intervention, social transition has been shown to make it less likely for the child to resolve their dysphoria on their own. This can in turn lock them into a lifelong path of medicalization involving the off-label use of cancer drugs to block puberty as well as cross sex hormones and surgeries.

Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford, has said: “Given paucity of evidence, the off-label use of drugs … in gender dysphoria treatment largely means an unregulated live experiment on children.”

Gender is big business, but it would be a mistake to say this is all about the money. The ideology also provides a framework for young people coming of age in an increasingly disembodied culture. As a millennial born in the second half of the ’80s, I can remember adults warning me and my peers against spending too much time on the screen. Video games, TV, the early internet—the responsible adult world tried to ration our access to these things. They were united in their message that the real, physical world was superior. With the ubiquity of smartphones this became harder to maintain, and then in 2020 there was a normative shift with the pandemic response. Social distancing became the virtuous thing to do. The physical world was dangerous.

It should not be a surprise that a generation raised to think of physical reality as secondary to the personalized experience of digital reality would latch onto gender. According to one poll, 21% of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ+. This is an astonishingly high figure, but it makes sense when you consider that in its current use identity is conceived as an inner essence that has very little to do with sex or the body. The figure is consistent with other research showing teenagers today have much less sex than previous generations. In place of embodied experience, young people increasingly have incorporeal “identities.”

I can relate. I was as confused as anyone when COVID hit and San Francisco suddenly shut down in late March 2020. At first, I believed that I was just following the science, and was unaware of existing pandemic preparation guides that stressed the importance of maintaining a normal life as much as possible during an emergency. The new lockdown paradigm was to act as if it were possible to simply freeze society and move life online. This may have worked for some people but not everyone could see lockdowns that way. I had been working in the tourism industry and almost immediately lost my job. My boyfriend and I got into screaming fights that summer. Living in a cramped apartment I had always needed other places—cafes and bars—I could escape to. Without that our relationship unraveled.

I needed a vibrant city, and it was gone. San Francisco had been turned off like a light switch, and transformed into a faceless place. The life I’d built for myself after 10 years in San Francisco, humble as it was, had ended. By the end of the year I’d moved to Minneapolis where my family lived.

In summer 2020, before leaving the city, I would occasionally take to Facebook to voice doubts about the official COVID response. I was startled by the vehemence with which people I knew defended the lockdown model. I was accused of spreading Koch brother propaganda when I shared an article on herd immunity by Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff.

Virtually all the leftists I knew were strongly in favor of closing schools—and keeping them closed indefinitely. I found this hard to square with their supposed belief in public education as a human right. Any questioning of the official narrative, however, was caricatured as eugenics, science denial, or simply wanting people to die. The world came to be divided between the good people who “followed the science” and locked down and the bad ones who didn’t. I was on one side of that divide and the majority of the people in my life were on the other.

Seeing a pseudoscientific consensus manufactured in real time, I began to question everything else I thought I knew. Inevitably this brought me back to gender. Even before COVID I’d noticed that it was becoming more and more common to introduce your third person pronouns at the start of a meeting. The eccentric practice I’d first encountered as a teenager was widespread—sometimes even mandatory—by 2019. Now it was no longer just a select few; seemingly everyone had a gender identity.

As with COVID lockdowns, this is a radical new experiment being passed off as firmly established consensus. Researchers and clinicians who dissent are targeted by activists. Borderline fraudulent studies are trotted out as definitive proof. Just as it was for COVID, the manufactured consensus on gender gets enforced politically by the progressive left. It’s as if my old comrades on the left have given up on any optimistic vision of democratic social transformation. In lieu of that, they make do with technocratic social engineering.

I could choose to stop being a leftist but can’t stop being gay. It’s still the most fundamental part of who I am. I have to face the sickening fact that much of this medical abuse is being carried out in my name. All the major gay rights organizations support an affirmative model for transitioning minors. They could have closed shop after achieving full equality, but no. “Gay rights” became institutionalized and morphed into a permanent LGBTQ+ industry. The public goodwill built up for gays and lesbians over the past generation is now being channeled into an entirely different cause.

I think back to my old friend and mentor in San Francisco, always on the cutting edge of every social movement. In my 20s I wanted to emulate his wisdom and radical disposition. I could not foresee the ways this disposition would be coopted in less than a generation. These days, seemingly all of society is becoming “queer,” and Pride is now something that everyone is expected to celebrate, even NASCAR. This new regime is appallingly humorless and literal-minded, lacking my old friend’s intensity, creativity, and wit. Yet it uses a lot of the vocabulary I first learned from him—“cis” and “trans” as well as “misgendering,” and coopts this former vanguard’s moral courage.

We, as gay men, have gone from being outsiders to mascots of an ideology that’s pushing hideous medical experiments on children—the wedge, it almost seems, to a new medical dystopia. If I now feel the need to once again make my sexuality a political issue, to speak “as a gay man,” it’s for the sake of disavowing this turn of events.

[revlyncox]

Deeds That Beckon

Unitarian Universalism has a number of heritage stories of which we can be proud, some stories we should know even though they do not inspire pride, and a lot of stories that we need to reconsider in the context of our anti-racist and and anti-oppressive learning. May we respond to our history by seeking transformation, finding hope, and choosing the foundations we need for the future. Rev. Lyn Cox updated and delivered this sermon to The Unitarian Society in East Brunswick on October 15, 2023.

As Unitarian Universalists, we need stories that help us, on an emotional and metaphorical level, understand who we are and how to live in the world. Our history provides those myths. Stories about admirable Unitarian Universalists are grown from seeds of historical accuracy, yet they are family stories. When we study our prophetic ancestors and take up the path of service in our own generation, we are becoming part of that mythic story. 

The seminary I attended invited us into one such story. My school was named after Thomas Starr King, a minister who served both Universalist and Unitarian congregations in the 1840s through the 1860s. He got a lot done. Thomas Starr King was about five feet tall. One of his famous quotes is, “though I weigh only 120 pounds, when I am mad I weigh a ton.”

As a nature writer, he persuaded people of the importance of preserving places like the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Yosemite Valley in the West. His accounts were published in the Boston Evening Transcript. He has two mountains named after him, one in New Hampshire and one in California’s Sierra Nevada. 

He helped the Unitarian church in San Francisco grow into their mission as a vital congregation involved in the life of the city. Starr King was a vocal abolitionist. When the Civil War broke out, he traveled up and down California, speaking to everyone from miners to legislators about joining the Union instead of the Confederacy or trying to become a separate country. 

When I lived in California and walked the hills of San Francisco, sometimes I would think, “If Thomas Starr King could hike up the mountains, I can, too.”  Visiting Yosemite, I could see his point about the landscape being the scenic equivalent of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. Acts of service are like moveable temples, places where we can go to greet the spirits of our beloved ancestors, both blood ancestors and chosen ancestors.

Individualism and White Supremacy Culture

The story of Thomas Starr King can function as a UU religious story, bringing connection and inspiration, and a way to enter the story through acts of service. Even so, it’s worthwhile to go back and take another look at the stories that are important to us through the lens of white supremacy culture. 

White supremacy culture is a system of oppression that uses everything from social norms to cultural narratives to corporate policy to federal law to maintain the privilege of one group over all other groups. White supremacy functions even in the absence of people who self-identify as racists. By design, the power and operating rules of white supremacy are unnoticed by most of the people who benefit from it. 

Even when we have a story about someone like Thomas Starr King, who dedicated his life to causes like ecological preservation and abolition of slavery, we have to ask ourselves about what ways the form of the story we are telling upholds white supremacy culture. Sometimes oppression is baked in from the beginning, with our admired ancestors working against justice in certain facets while making progress in other facets. Sometimes the white supremacy culture is in our retelling, in the details we emphasize or the details we forget. 

Tema Okun has been writing since 1999 about the characteristics of white supremacy culture. She writes about white culture as an insider, and self-identifies as a white person with Jewish ancestry from an upper class background. Okun credits several teachers and learning experiences, including the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop from The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Okun focuses on the unspoken norms that maintain the status quo, even in organizations devoted to justice. The characteristics aren’t about individual people or specific groups of people, they are about a cultural and economic system that harms people and is good at perpetuating itself. She writes, “white supremacy culture trains us all to internalize attitudes and behaviors that do not serve any of us.” There is a lot to unpack in her writing, so I’d like to focus on one characteristic now and one a little later in the sermon. 

One of the characteristics of white supremacy culture that Okun describes is individualism. Organizations that are under the influence of individualism have difficulties with working in teams. Individuals believe they are responsible for solving the problems of the organization alone. There is an emphasis on individual recognition and credit, leading to isolation and competition. Few resources are devoted to developing skills in how to cooperate. 

The way we UU’s typically tell the story of Thomas Starr King is steeped in individualism. He did do important things, but a lot of his impact was through organizing and teamwork, and those are the strategies that are hard to replicate based on the mythology that we carry on in his memory. He didn’t just go around preaching on street corners, he traveled to speak with and work with coherent groups of people from different social classes and walks of life. He made a difference because of the way he was able to get outside his comfort zone and work with teams, not by his preaching skills alone. 

The way history is taught and discussed in general is susceptible to this pitfall, and the way we talk about Unitarian Universalist history in particular is vulnerable to individualism. Sometimes our quick introductions focus on famous Unitarian Universalists, trying to make our religious movement more familiar by reminding people of its famous adherents. 

One of the most famous UU’s is Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote an essay called “Self-Reliance” in 1841. In his memory, I worry that Unitarian Universalism has taken individualism to a place that limits our mutual accountability and our responsibilities to the most vulnerable among us. In his defense, Emerson’s 19th-century version of the concept of self-reliance is not the same as how most people think of the concept in the 21st century. He shares these characteristics with his friend Henry David Thoreau, who I mentioned earlier in the Time for All Ages story. 

I appreciate Emerson’s healthy skepticism toward the way things have always been done. Emerson’s suggestion that sometimes social expectations are not the most important value is important for our anti-racism work, because you have to push back on politeness at least a little bit if you are challenging white supremacy. And. It is important not to let our admiration for Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” prevent us from being in covenant with each other, being loving in our truth-telling, and opening ourselves up to learning new ways of cooperation.    

Contrast the image of Emerson as a poet who stands apart, an individualist hero, with what we know about another writer, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Harper was born into a family of free Black educators in Baltimore in 1825. She joined the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia in 1870, and also maintained her membership in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Like Emerson, Harper wrote poems, essays, and lectures. She also wrote short stories and novels. Like Emerson, she wrote about personal development and used her writing to promote social causes.

Unlike Emerson, Harper also wrote about responsibility to the community, and she practiced it in concrete ways. In her 1855 article, “A Factor in Human Progress,” she spoke of “the science of a true life of joy and trust in God, of God-like forgiveness and divine self-surrender.” In other words, she was more clear about working together with entities outside of her own mind.

Harper worked in her community feeding the poor and mentoring youth. She was part of several groups who moved toward progress together, for women’s suffrage and for Black suffrage, against lynching, for peace. We learn from her legacy that a writer can be a literary voice and also be a leader who encourages cooperation, solidarity, and true relationship with the people who are most impacted by oppression. 

Individual effort has its good points, yet there is more to Unitarian Universalist history and more to our current character and potential than we can access through that doorway alone. Hyper-individualism maintains white supremacy culture when it prevents us from getting outside ourselves and building relationships with interfaith partner and community partner organizations. Hyper-individualism privileges the lone dissenter to the point where it is hard to put personal preferences aside so that congregations can work one one thing together. Hyper-individualism leads us to celebrate only the heroic faces of social justice, forgetting to gather in those who are called to work behind the scenes. There is a place in this congregation, this faith, and in the movement for people with many different talents and ways of being. As we study the past, may we celebrate the groups and movements as well as the superstars, knowing that progress is a team effort.

In addition to individualism, another characteristic of white supremacy culture we can explore in our UU history is paternalism. Paternalism is a cultural norm that shows up, as Okun writes, when “those holding power control decision-making and define things [such as] standards, perfection, [and the] one right way.” She goes on to name that “those holding power often don’t think it is important or necessary to understand the viewpoint or experience of those for whom they are making decisions, often labeling those for whom they are making decisions as unqualified intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, or physically.” 

From the perspective of the person who thinks they are doing a good deed, paternalism can feel like compassion, yet often paternalism gets in the way of true progress. Impact is more important than intention. Among other suggestions, Okun advises, “when working with communities from a different culture than yours or your organization, be clear that you have some learning to do about the communities’ ways of doing; assume that you or your organization can't possibly know what’s best for a community in isolation from meaningful relationships with that community.” 

If we want a positive example of grounded leadership in our UU history, consider Fannie Barrier Williams. She was an organizer, lecturer, journalist, artist, and musician. She was born in 1855 to one of the few Black families in Brockport, New York. She is most famous for her work in Chicago, where she belonged to All Souls Unitarian Church. Williams made strides in integration through the establishment of the Provident Hospital, joining the Chicago Woman’s Club, and serving on the Board of the Chicago Public Library. She also worked within the African American community. She helped start the National Association of Colored Women, which, through their 200 local clubs, provided child care centers, classes, employment bureaus, and savings banks. 

The compassion that gets mixed up with paternalism might be a good impulse that gets misdirected. So let’s start with what’s good. Being true to compassion means meeting challenges and growing from them, allowing our minds and hearts to be transformed. 

Dorothea Dix found that out when she entered the East Cambridge Jail as a teacher in 1841. Dix was horrified by what she saw. The jail was unheated. All of the residents were housed together: people who had been convicted of crimes, people with mental illness, children with developmental disabilities, all mixed together in unfurnished, unsanitary quarters. The only thing the residents had in common was that society had given up on them.

Using her contacts in Boston, Dix got a court order for heat and other improvements at the jail. She then set about a systemic investigation of jails and almshouses in Massachusetts, making personal visits to document conditions. She said, “what I assert in fact, I must see for myself.”  She read about mental illness and treatment and interviewed physicians. She gave her data to a politically connected friend who presented her findings to the Massachusetts legislature. After some attempts at denial and misdirection, funding came through to modernize the State Mental Hospital at Worcester. Dix followed the same pattern in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Hospitals sprung up in her wake. 

OK, so all of that is great; however, in our continuing efforts at health care reform and mental health care and accessibility, we would need to do things differently today. Dorothea Dix did try to understand the experience of the people who were most impacted by incarceration, but she did not hold that all people have equal inherent worth. 

For instance, she did not think that slavery was wrong. [Dix’s failure to support abolition is mentioned in an article in Psychiatric News. On this point, Wikipedia cites Holland, Mary G. (2002). Our Army Nurses: Stories from Women in the Civil War. Roseville: Edinborough Press. p. 77.] Dix felt that mental illness for educated whites was a separate issue from the conditions of non-whites. [Jackson, Vanessa (2007). "Separate and Unequal: The Legacy of Racially Segregated Psychiatric Hospitals"]. Born to a Catholic family, Dix harbored prejudice against Catholics later in life, and this got in her way when she served as the Superintendent of Army Nurses during the Civil War. [Wikipedia cites Barbra Mann Wall, "Called to a Mission of Charity: The Sisters of St. Joseph in the Civil War, Nursing History Review (1998) Vol. 6, p85-113; and also Maher, Mary Denis. To Bind Up the Wounds, LSU Press, 1999, p. 128 ISBN 9780807124390.]

Compassion is good. Deciding that you and people like you have to take leadership in compassionate change because you are better than the people you want to help is problematic. 

Today, trying to undo the legacy of paternalism, we are called to support the leadership and voices of the people who are most impacted. We can work with coalitions led by people who are formerly incarcerated and their families. We can support organizations like ADAPT, led by people with disabilities; the organization is even now fighting for the right of people with disabilities to live in the community rather than in institutions. Books like Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole by Julia Watts Belser, recently published by Beacon Press, can give us theological grounding and encouragement for disability justice The legacy of paternalism gives a heroic glow to our ancestors who struggled for others, but it is time for us to learn new skills of struggling alongside neighboring communities, learning how to accept the leadership of people who know the most about the issues they are facing. 

The path of service spurs us to many kinds of transformation. We meet challenges and build skills we didn’t have before. We gain awareness of a timeless spiritual truth, which is our oneness. Reflecting on history and our own experience, taking in the lessons of dismantling individualism and paternalism, the transformation that compassion brings becomes a spiritual as well as an ethical reality.

Conclusion

Collective kindness is a tradition worth growing. Role models from UU history and from our own congregation help us to place ourselves on a path with a past, yet a path where we have a choice going into the future. The practice of compassion is a tradition we receive, nurture, and share with the next generation. May we find our place in the mythic story of UUism. May we be transformed. May we come to new understandings of our past and our future. So be it. Blessed be. Amen.