#my county voted to raise it at least

[growingupgreene]

An odd epiphany I had last night: part of the reason I don’t like most meat is because I don’t know where it comes from. Let me explain.

Tldr; growing up by a farm/ knowing hunters means I feel more comfortable eating meat that I know comes from local/ sustainable practices.

I was raised pretty much entirely vegetarian. My mom doesn’t allow meat cooked on her stove and was the primary cook, so that translated to my sister and I preferring a vegetarian diet. We did occasionally try meat at common meals with our neighbors, but we generally didn’t eat meat. Today my sister is a vegetarian, while I mostly describe myself as vegan for various reasons, but will try most things at least once (I’m not actually vegan but it’s easier than going on an at minimum five min rant). I’m not gonna insult my host by flat-out refusing to eat something unless it triggers a dietary issue for me.

Over the years I came to realize that I mostly like the various versions of pig and not cow or chicken. Now I tend to avoid eating pigs, since they’re highly intelligent and also my dream pet, so I end up not eating meat 99% of the time. I’ll eat it on special occasions though.

One of those special occasions is the farm End of Year Potluck. Every year one of the farm people makes venison. And it’s consistently the best meat I’ve ever had.

He kills the deer himself, often in the woods by my house. He prepares the meat, marinates it, and then finally slow cooks it to perfection.

I don’t eat a lot, since meat fills me up way faster than my regular diet. But I will always get at least one slice of the venison. I know exactly where it came from and that it was killed as part of the deer cull. The county has open season to keep the deer population down so they don’t overrun everything in suburbia. Part of the regulations is that you have to use a crossbow instead of a gun, since the places people are hunting are mostly residential.

When it comes to eating meat on other occasions, most of the time I don’t know where it came from. Sure, someone bought it in the supermarket, but where was it raised? In humane conditions? Who killed it? Were they fairly compensated? The lack of answers to questions like these, plus my knowledge of how the mass food industry works, is often a factor in whether I’m willing to eat the meat. Let alone whether it’s a type of meat of which I actually like the taste.

As mentioned previously, I didn’t have a lot of meat in my palate growing up. That’s my theory as to why I tend to not enjoy the taste of most meat now. And unless I have a fairly good idea of where it came from/ that it was raised and slaughtered humanely, I won’t go out of my way to eat it.

I have similar questions about my vegetables and other foods, though in those cases it’s almost entirely about the people farming them. I try to eat more organic and fair trade foods, as they have greater regulations and often have less toxins. And people tend to be treated better and paid more fairly. Not always, but it hopefully helps.

Of course it’s impossible to be constantly vigilant. All of the things I’ve said are broad generalizations. We live in a society where more and more often the food choices available to us have already been made for us. Like many industries, there is only the illusion of choice between companies. But I do believe that by consistently buying products that represent the world I want to see, there is a small difference made in the long run. After all, commercialist capitalism means that we vote with our purchases. After years of only seeing organic products in more expensive stores, they’ve become a staple in all grocery stores. And brands that started as niche health foods have become more mainstream. So maybe there’s hope

[rotationalsymmetry]

OK. I'm going to go off about voting for a minute.

First, it is fucking weird that the tumblr fight over this is Side One: You Must Vote For A Democrat For President No Matter What, Don't Even Think Of Voting Third Party Or Whatever, This Is A Moral Imperative vs Side 2: Voting Is For Chumps.

Uh, ok?

So, the people I know in real life have a spectrum of political beliefs, mostly I don't interact with actual conservatives much but I do interact with the sort of people who think that Bernie Sanders is too far left and people who think he's just about right and people who aren't really thrilled with anyone who has a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected president and people who think that states shouldn't exist. And people whose beliefs don't necessarily line up perfectly with the left-right framework, even when you let the left side go that far.

Mostly, I know people who want minimum wage to be higher and public schools to be better funded and immigrants to not be treated like complete shit, things like that. Sometimes they also do land acknowledgements and stuff.

And these people vote. And they call their representatives. And they campaign for politicians they like. And they go to protests. And they go to town hall meetings and ask questions and sometimes shout down whoever's speaking.

And you know what?

I want minimum wage to be higher. I want public schools to be better funded -- I'm critical of schools and I think truancy laws are fucked up, but given that schools are a thing I want them to have more money than they have. Similarly with minimum wage, I don't think anybody should have to work, but given that in practice most people do, I want a lower wealth gap and I want everyone to have enough resources to live on and raise kids on, and one of the most effective short to mid term ways to get closer to that goal is raising minimum wage. I want open borders, but failing that I at least want things like the DREAM act and less blatant cruelty from ICE and sanctuary cities.

And I want schools to be able to teach about historical racism and to use books like Maus as teaching aids and to be able to say the word "gay", and the most direct way to get that is to vote for people for school board who also want those things. (Although, being a PITA is sometimes effective against elected officials who don't want those things, so it's not the only option.)

And I want the criminal justice system to get completely scrapped, but that's not going to happen tomorrow but what can happen is electing more sympathetic and justice oriented people to roles like the district attorney and public defender. And sometimes getting the right people into local office, county boards of supervisors and whatnot, can mean that the cops get less funding and that programs designed to help ex-convicts have places they can live and work after getting out get more funding, or at least that things don't get worse.

And of course showing up to town hall meetings and protesting in the streets are still options, but they're still options whether there's relatively cool people in office or not, and when there's relatively cool people in office you can push things more towards what you want and when there's shitty people in office you end up doing reactive actions that might or might not work, like when Bush got elected president -- for the love of all that is good and worthwhile, autocorrect, I do not want to dignify that title with a capital letter -- and then 9/11 happened, and anti-globalization activism in the US basically stopped dead so that we could all protest the Iraq War instead, which may or may not have done no good whatsoever but certainly did not end the Iraq War.

A formative expeience in my life was Critical Mass. I got really into bicycle activism and I loved Critical Mass. And not everybody who does Critical Mass, which is basically the sort of protest where you don't have a permit and you might get arrested on wheels, seriously one time San Francisco mass went onto the Bay Bridge, also goes to town hall meetings, and probably not everyone who goes to the town hall meetings does Critical Mass, but a lot of people do both. There's nothing stopping people from doing both. It's not ideologically inconsistent to both sometimes block traffic with a bunch of bicycles because getting bike lanes striped takes too long and you want to be safe riding a bicycle on the streets right now, and begging/pressuring your elected representatives to stripe more bike lanes. You can do both. I did both. People do both all the time.

And sometimes eg some fucking jerk of a rich boy is running for mayor and wants to cut general assistance payments for homeless people to under $50 a month and is making this out to somehow be good for them, and you've been feeding people with Food Not Bombs but Food Not Bombs needs someone to be a liaison with the Coalition on Homelessness, and the Coalition on Homelessness is freaked out about the proposition, so you do electoral politics stuff with them while you're also feeding homeless people without a permit, because nothing's stopping you from doing both. (And maybe you're also a young person who has a lot of free time and a lot of energy but no real idea of how to get anything done, so you just throw a lot of energy at problems and hope something does some good.) (hypothetically, I mean.)

Like what was I going to do, just tell the more experienced people at the Coalition on Homelessness, most of whom had been homeless and who had way more expeience actually doing stuff than I did, that this whole distributing door hangers thing was bullshit and I wasn't going to help them do it? Because I knew better? Because I thought voting didn't matter?

I mean, I guess I wouldn't have had to look them in the face and say that, I could have just told Food Not Bombs I wasn't going to be a liaison -- I was an absolute dogshit liaison anyways, I had no clue what I was doing -- and then I wouldn't be doing anything with the Coalition anyways. But they had a problem, a threat that was going to make things worse for the group they were advocating for, a group that most of them at least used to be a part of, and I could help them, or I could not help them, and the way they wanted people to help was through electoral politics. Which also involved some protests because people do both all the time. But which also involved a lot of doorhangers.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jess Piper at The View from Rural Missouri:

This is a story of what happened in Arnold, Missouri on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Arnold is a bedroom community in Jefferson County less than 20 miles from St Louis. A town of about 20,000 people with a small town feel and mostly regressive politics. But, like I will always remind you — that’s not the story. The story is the folks standing up for their neighbors and their rights in a state whose lawmakers are using techniques found in fascist countries. This is a story of abortion rights in a state that has banned abortion. But, first… what happened to Missouri?

My state was known as the bellwether state. It looks like a microcosm of the country's political makeup; Missouri has its two big cities, reliably voting for the liberal consensus, located on the outermost boundaries of the state — much like the American coasts. St. Louis and Kansas City look like they are trying to flee the state, though, barely in our state border, where the GOP-dominates the north, middle, and southern spaces. The Missouri bellwether was a political phenomenon that meant that the state of Missouri voted for the winner in all but one U.S. presidential election from 1904 to 2008…I bet you can figure out what happened in 2008. Obama. A Black man won the Presidency and he did not carry Missouri.

But, even more than Obama, the Missouri GOP had won a supermajority in the House in 2002 and they haven’t lost that supermajority in 22 years. In fact. they hold a trifecta with a GOP-dominated House, Senate, and a Republican Governor. We have been slipping for two decades with our state outcomes for everything from schools to roads to healthcare falling and our rate of gun violence climbing. In a recent study that Gov Mike Parson happily quoted, “Missouri is ranked 4th for potential.” I guess when you’ve hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. It’s all “potential” at this point. But, back to Arnold. One of the “architects” of the Missouri abortion ban is State Senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman. She is notorious in the state for her anti-woman stances and bills. She even filed a bill to restrict the travel of pregnant women in our state with a bounty for Missourians to turn in their neighbors — it was never given a hearing. She did author the abortion ban, though, and below you can see her tweet bragging about passing a draconian bill that did not even include exemptions for rape or incest.

[...] Coleman has implied on several occasions that “out of state” interests want to gather signatures and that by signing, folks are at risk of identity theft. There is absolutely no proof of this happening, and all of the volunteers I’ve met gathering signatures were Missourians. I am one myself. Coleman isn’t being truthful, but more than that, the intimidation that follows her needs to be addressed. [...]

The abortion ballot signing event in Arnold was staffed by four volunteers and was set to run from 10-2 at the public library. All four volunteers were constituents of Senator Coleman and one told me the Senator showed up at the event right around 10am. The volunteers were set-up in the parking lot and had signs up directing voters to their location. Sen Coleman was having a hard time manning all four volunteers and became frustrated when she couldn’t try to talk her own community members out of signing the petition. Coleman was reported to have raised her voice over at least one of the volunteers and directed signers that the petition is “not like Roe” and that there was “no alternative if a doctor commits malpractice.” She also reminded signers that she was a “constitutional lawyer” as she flagged down cars in the parking lot.

A volunteer said that Sen Coleman would flat out tell her constituents, “Do not sign the petition” ordering them not to sign. Quickly after Sen Coleman arrived, a library staffer came out and told the signature gatherers that they must remove their signs and could only stand on the sidewalk. The volunteers did as instructed. Later, during the signing event, a volunteer did get off the sidewalk to approach a voter who wanted to sign the petition and Sen Coleman followed her into the parking lot. The police were called for the incident and three cruisers eventually responded. A library employee told a volunteer that she needed to leave because she didn’t follow the rules and the volunteer responded by saying that Sen Coleman should be forced to leave as well. By the time police arrived, both the volunteer and Coleman were back on the sidewalk. Neither were forced to leave the event.

The Arnold event did garner 143 signatures for the petition. It also shed light on the brazen attempt to intimidate volunteers and signers in Missouri — I am writing this post so that I can get the word out. This is the story of just one event. From the beginning of the process, volunteers have been threatened. The “Missouri Right to Life” organization set up a snitch line in the very first days of the petition trying to find signing events to send out their own folks to harass and intimidate volunteers.

Jess Piper wrote in her Substack about a story of how anti-abortion extremists such as State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R) and the “decline to sign” movement headed by Missouri Right To Life attempted to intimidate potential abortion access ballot measure signers out of signing it at a signature gathering event in Arnold, Missouri this past Saturday.

[mariacallous]

SLOVAKIA ELECTS A NEW PRESIDENT — AND MANY IN THE PREVIOUS ONE’S TEAM MAY LEAVE THE COUNTRY

The Slovak presidential election run-off between Peter Pellegrini and Ivan Korčok takes place on April 6, and my Slovak colleagues tell me it can truly go either way. Surprisingly, former foreign minister Korčok won the first run and may now have a chance to beat Pellegrini, the pro-Russian Fico government’s candidate. On the other hand, if Pellegrini can pick off the other candidates’ votes, that Korčok took round one may not matter much. Regardless of the outcome, nobody really expects the government’s crackdown on NGOs, the media and the anti-corruption institutions to stop, nor for the increasingly hostile and toxic nature of the county’s public discourse to improve – certainty not outgoing president Zuzana Čaputová’s team. According to multiple Slovak and Czech experts and officials in touch with the current Slovak presidential team, multiple Čaputová advisors – including those dealing with domestic and foreign affairs – are already looking for apartments and jobs in Prague, which is to say they are seriously considering leaving Slovakia for the Czech Republic. A Czech source in touch with them even said that “most of them” (in Čaputová’s team) are actually at least to some extent thinking about leaving their country, while a Slovak source added that, according to their knowledge, those who have already decided will do so regardless of the outcome of the presidential election. “Many of the advisors are looking for international jobs as well,” the source added. The situation since Fico returned to power looks increasingly similar to the 1990s, when thuggish Vladimír Mečiar’s rule forced many Slovak intellectuals to relocate to Prague. (In case you missed it, here’s my recent investigation into how Pellegrini secretly asked for Russian – and Hungarian – help in an attempt to win the 2020 parliamentary elections. Did he do the same this time? Hopefully we’ll find out soon.)

CZECHS NOW BRACING FOR SERIOUS PRO-RUSSIAN SHIFT IN BRATISLAVA

My seasoned subscribers may remember last autumn, when, in certain Goulash scoops, my Czech government and government-linked sources essentially shrugged off speculation that Robert Fico, previously known for his extremely pragmatic approach to foreign policy, would seriously shift Slovakia’s foreign policy eastwards. Well, I’ve just spent a week in Prague, met most of them again, and I can tell you: they sounded way less optimistic. “When (Slovak Foreign Minister) Juraj Blanár met with Sergey Lavrov in Turkey, they crossed a red line,” a Czech government official told me, adding that what is fully expected of Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó (who actually enjoys posing as Lavrov’s best buddy) was not expected of the Fico government. Moreover, according to a Czech diplomat dealing with security matters, some now fear that one of the outcomes of the Blanár–Lavrov meeting could be that the Slovak government accepts three or four additional Russian diplomats at the Russian embassy in Bratislava. The Czech Republic clearly sees this as a national security threat as they expect that Russia is essentially trying to replenish its decimated spy outposts in embassies around the region. (Also, if you’re interested in how Russian embassies are conducting signals intelligence operations too, I recommend this earlier article.)

But there’s more. Multiple Czech government officials and foreign policy experts with whom I spoke are now so pessimistic that they fear the Fico government may refuse any reinforcements to the 3000 soldiers strong NATO Multinational Battle Group in Slovakia (there are plans to raise its capacity by thousands). Moreover, if the country indeed goes down a pro-Russian path, my Czech sources don’t rule out the possibility of Fico deciding to kick the battle group out of Slovakia. “Two years ago, we already had to brand this battlegroup as a ‘Czech mission’ to make it acceptable to Slovak society. So there can be an issue” – one of my sources concluded.

[sophies-junkyard]

Been having some interesting conversations with people my age who wanna leave the south cause of the politics. And like… I get it. But also, don’t they see that’s precisely why they should STAY? 

No state or region is just one thing, ya know? America has never been homogenous, and that’s the best part about it! I just feel like we’re on the precipice of something. With every election my state turns that little bit bluer. County by county, birthday by birthday. Slowly but surely. Yeah this state raised Abb*tt, but it raised me too! This is my home just as much as anyone else’s. I love my home. I love the food and the culture and yeah even the people. I’m gonna hold my ground and either the shits gonna change or I’ll die opposing it. They don’t need my vote up north, but my god they need it down here. And they don’t just need us for midterms or the presidential elections. 

 Your town needs you at school board meetings, standing up against right wing curriculum changes. They need you to elect city councils and mayors who will enact positive change in your neighborhood. Not every election is glamorous, but every single fucking one matters.

I understand some people gotta leave and I don’t hold it against them. I really truly don’t. We all gotta do what we gotta do to get by in this fucked up world.

But if 29.95 million people on the map vote red and one person votes blue, at least I’ll know where I am.

[goldenhour-studies]

As I've mentioned in my pinned intro post, I'm seriously considering becoming an ESL teacher (ideally for adult learners). With that in mind...

I started the free Coursera program Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Being a Professional which is presented by the Commonwealth Education Trust—an Australian organization, I believe. This is the first of nine programs in the “Foundations of Teaching for Learning” series. This series seems to be geared towards grade school teachers (what would be K-12 education levels in the USA) for professional development. I’m taking these programs as a prospective ESL teacher, because I want to find out whether or not teaching is a good fit for me before I drop 800 USD on a TESOL certification program.

I have a hunch that I’ll enjoy being an ESL teacher, though; being a DM for D&D + an assistant dog trainer has shown me that I really enjoy helping people succeed in their lives, meet their goals, and learn new things. Thanks to my personal experience having friends & partners who are neurodivergent, I tend to be good at keeping calm during emotional crises and helping folks come out of anxiety attacks—so those are also points in my favor, I think. But I’ve never taught human beings as my job before, and I must admit that I’m kind of nervous about it. I don’t want to burn out!

Anyway, the first discussion post for Week 1 of the first “Foundations” program has this prompt:

One of the issues for teaching is that many responsibilities that were once taken on by parents and communities are now being passed on to the school and to teachers. Is this reasonable? Do families and communities have the right to be involved in the education of their children? What are the advantages and barriers to this?

I'll share my thoughts below the cut, but for organizational purposes this is:

Foundations of Teaching for Learning 1/9: Being a Professional

Week 1/6, discussion post 1/3

Schools and teachers are part of their surrounding communities, not separate entities. When I was very young, my elementary school’s librarian was my neighbor! (And I had the fright of my life when she came to my parents’ house one day to ask why I hadn’t returned my overdue books, haha).

If you believe that “it takes a village to raise a child” (which I do) then you should also believe that the work of raising a child cannot fall solely on the shoulders of their immediate blood relatives. I, personally, do not believe that the nuclear family is a good child-rearing unit all on its own. Children are intense and have a ton of needs—physically and emotionally—that 1-2 parental units cannot adequately provide for without a lot of support from figures like the childrens’ grandparents, uncles and aunts, youth group leaders (scoutmasters, coaches, tutors, religious authority figures, etc) and, yes, teachers as well.

I would also argue that families and communities are already involved in the education of their children, even if we follow the worldview that schools and teachers are indeed separate entities from the rest of the child-rearing ecosystem. At least in the US (where I am from & currently live), residents of a county within a state elect the members of the school board by way of the popular vote.

This is admittedly somewhat limited, since the school board’s decisions only affect public K-12 education (private and charter schools are beyond its purview), but the parents and the larger community have the power to elect the representatives who oversee the allocation of the county’s education budget and who create its policies. Should the school libraries have their print collections expanded? Should certain books be banned from those libraries? Should the schools’ arts programs receive more funding, or should the sports programs receive more? These decisions all affect the education and opportunities that the children within the US public school system receive.

Moreover, are not teachers, principals, and professors members of their communities? Do they not go to the same grocery stores and food markets, attend our sporting events, watch the same movies in our theaters, and walk on our streets? Of course they do, because they are us. They are just as much a part of our community as anyone else, and they most likely carry the same biases and cultural attitudes as other members of the community.

For example, many decades ago, what we would now call domestic abuse used to be referred to as “home discipline” in the US. Parents could and did intentionally physically harm their children, and that abuse could and was likewise carried out by teachers upon their pupils (read more on this topic here, but MAJOR CONTENT WARNING for child abuse). Now, however, American culture is losing its blasé attitude towards corporal punishment of children. A teacher hitting a student in 21st century America would most likely be seen as (at best) disgustingly unprofessional, and would result in swift and severe disciplinary action—upon the teacher! With all of that said, I believe it is clear that communities are already influencing the way their children are being educated.

Lastly, I will argue that there are advantages to the extant community members influencing the way its children are educated, as well as disadvantages and barriers. For a start, a community of people is never a monolith; there are Black, Asian, Latinx, and Native people living cheek-and-jowl with white people in the US, just as there are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, and pagan folks rubbing elbows with Christians of various denominations. However, at least in the part of America where I grew up, the dominant cultural group was very WASP-y.

The result of that kind of dominance within education is that things are fine and dandy if you and your children either are part of or assimilate to that dominant cultural group—nothing is amiss, everything agrees with your sensibilities, and all is well. If you are not a member of that dominant group and refuse and/or are unable to assimilate into it, however, suddenly you are a square peg in a round hole. Until recently, my local public school district didn’t give any vacation days for the Jewish High Holy Days… but it has always provided vacation time for Christmas and the Gregorian calendar's new year. Muslim holidays have yet to be acknowledged in any way, shape or form.

This discussion post has grown very long, and I want to stop here before I end up writing a book. However, since I spent the better part of two hours typing out my thoughts like this, I would sincerely love to hear yours in return. Please tell me your thoughts on the original question above, and/or my response to it.

[dankusner]

Candidate: ‘High time’ to legalize marijuana

TEXAS HOUSE

Democratic state House candidate Sally Duval gave a direct answer to a question about why she made a political video ad of her sparking up a joint, while sitting in a comfortable lawn chair with the bucolic Texas Hill Country in the background, to promote her underdog candidacy in a conservative district against a popular Republican incumbent.

“Maybe we’ll get some attention and raise some money,” the 59-yearold businesswoman said in an interview with the American-Statesman a few days after posting the video on social media this month.

“I believe that the recreational use of marijuana, or cannabis, whatever you want to call it, should be legalized.

I think having a regulatory regime similar to that of cigarettes and alcohol and liquor, beer, stuff like that, seems quite reasonable to me.”

Her tactic worked, at least to a degree, she said.

Since the post went live Sept. 9, her campaign has taken in about $1,000 a day in contributions, she said.

But not quite enough to cover the production cost for the video that ends with her taking a hit off a bong while coughing and laughing.

The tagline voice-over says, “I’m Sally Duval, and I believe it’s high time for change in Texas.”

Duval is running to unseat Carrie Isaac, who is seeking reelection to a second term, in House District 73, which includes Comal County and parts of Hays counties, southwest of Austin.

Isaac, who has lived in Hays County since the mid-2000s, was elected to the open seat in 2022 with 70% of the vote against her Democratic opponent.

The decision by Duval to make legalizing marijuana the most visible theme of her candidacy comes at a time when public attitudes toward marijuana use and possession appear to be moving away from the “just say no” mantra of generations past.

In 2023, the Texas House passed legislation by a bipartisan 87-59 vote to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana and related paraphernalia.

Isaac voted against that bill by El Paso Democrat Joe Moody.

Her campaign did not respond to a Statesman email asking about legalization efforts.

Moody has introduced versions of his bill for several sessions but has never been able to push it over the finish line to become law.

The measure was never considered in the Senate.

However, a year earlier, voters in Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Denton and Elgin voted to decriminalize marijuana in their cities.

This year, voters in Dallas, Bastrop and Lockhart will vote on similar measures.

Voters in Lubbock in May rejected decriminalization.

Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association, which represents about 33,500 local, county and state law enforcement officers statewide, said rank-and-file membership is likely split 50-50 on marijuana decriminalization and the association has not weighed in on local efforts.

The organization as a whole opposed Moody’s bill, Lawrence said, but on fairly narrow grounds.

“As of yet, we still don’t have a courtaccepted, scientifically approved field sobriety testing system for marijuana in Texas,” Lawrence said.

“We are concerned that that if we, if we legalize marijuana in Texas, we’re going to have more people driving while under the influence, and no really good way for enforcement to take place.”

Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia is taking a more forceful view of the proposal that would decriminalize the possession of 4 ounces of marijuana in his city “In my opinion, 4 ounces is not a small amount for personal use,” Garcia told the Dallas City Council in

August. “Four ounces can contribute to 38 different drug transactions. And who prospers? Drug dealers and drug houses prosper.”

That would lead to a lower quality of life, especially in already-struggling neighborhoods, Garcia said.

Duval said Texas law regarding the sundry products of the cannabis plant is confusing.

Medical cannabis in limited instances is legal in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law in 2019 that tracks a federal law from the year before making hemp legal, which opened the door for the legal sale of certain THC edibles, such as gummies.

Recreational use of marijuana is not legal in Texas.

The product that Duval smoked in her video, she said, “was one of those federally legal hemp products that you can buy at any store in town.”

In her 90-second ad, she says, “You might already know what’s in this,” as she lights up a joint, “but do you know who has no idea and no way to test it? Law enforcement. They arrest people every day for marijuana possession, but they don’t have the funding to test if it’s illegal marijuana or a federally legal hemp product. Our laws are confusing and unclear.”

Moody’s bill went nowhere in the Senate last year in no small measure because Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the chamber’s president, opposed it.

Heading toward the 2025 legislative session, Patrick shows no sign that his mind might change on decriminalizing marijuana.

He has asked senators to craft a bill to make it clear that less potent, but still intoxicating, cannabis products known as Delta 8 and Delta 9 should be illegal in Texas.

Asked if state leaders fighting legalization, or at least decriminalization, of marijuana are out of touch with public sentiment, Duval replied, “I think they’re rather way behind.” Texas voters, she added, would probably support a statewide referendum on the topic, if given the opportunity.

“Because Republicans decide what’s on that ballot,” Duval said, “they’re never going to let us have a chance to vote on it.”

[meetthetruthblogger]

VOTE ON NOVEMBER 5TH, 2024

September 10, 2024

Hello! I hope this note finds you and your family in good health, physically well and spiritually a disciple of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Eight weeks from today is voting day 2024 when we elect a President, a third of the United States Senators, all 435 U. S. Representatives, a new Governor, and many State-wide and local elections.

To register to vote In the State of Missouri you need to be at least 17 ½ years old, be a United States citizen and a Missouri resident. The deadline to register to vote in the November 2024 General Election is October 9th, 2024. Other states’ requirements and deadlines will differ; contact your Secretary of (your) State for assistance.

It is a privilege and an honor to be able to vote. I will go so far as to say it is your duty to vote. You are responsible to inform yourself about the candidates and the issues and vote as your conscience dictates. At a minimum, you should expect honesty, high moral character and a desire to serve from your candidate. Also, I want my candidates to be Christian.

“Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

A word to the Christians reading this: For some reason, that is not Biblical, Christians have a reputation as being non-voters – shame on you if this is you! You have a mandate directly from Jesus to be salt and light, to be an example to other Christians and non-Christians alike! There are plenty of issues requiring your attention; if you do not vote you are giving the abortionists, the LGBT community, the sex-traffickers, the illegal aliens and others a free ride to cause further damage and destruction to our beloved country.

 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16)

 How do you know who to vote for? I am here to help you! You will need a Bible opened to Exodus, Chapter 20, Verses 1-17: Now just go through God’s Commandments and align the people on your ballot with His Law. For example, the 6th Commandment says, ‘You shall not murder,’ so you should pick a candidate who believes in life; this would eliminate any candidates who advocate abortion. The next Commandment is that ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ so you would want to pick a potential legislator who believes in marriage and sexual relations between one man and one woman. Apply this logic to each candidate, using each Commandment and you will know exactly who to vote for. You might want to get a sample ballot and do this research in advance.

My message in that last paragraph will, undoubtedly hold me up to ridicule and criticism; using the Bible as a guide to voting? Crazy! Or is it? I can assure you that our Founding Fathers would not even have raised an eyebrow at the thought of using the Bible as a voting aid. Most of our Founders were very well versed in Scripture and being self-educated, for the most part, expected  United States citizens to use the Bible as a guide in their lives. It is only in the last 60 years, since the godless United States Supreme Court ruled in the 1962 Engel v. Vitale decision that God and His Bible have experienced a loss of popularity.

 Please be sure to register and vote, our County is in deep trouble and needs your help!

Next week will be an introduction to God’s Law and Prophecy; it is my intention that these two topics will help you to decide to give your life to Jesus Christ. See you then.

Tom Maloney

THE END

[sa7abnews]

Rural residents reveal how they feel about Gov Walz's 'very liberal' policies: 'We're mini California'

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/13/rural-residents-reveal-how-they-feel-about-gov-walzs-very-liberal-policies-were-mini-california/

Rural residents reveal how they feel about Gov Walz's 'very liberal' policies: 'We're mini California'

REDWOOD COUNTY, Minn. — Rural Minnesotans are unhappy with Democrat Gov. Tim Walz’s policies, which they say have hurt them over the years.Minnesotans at “Farmfest,” a local agriculture trade show, revealed what they thought about Walz as their state leader after the governor was tapped as Vice President Harris’ 2024 running mate, while speaking with Fox News Digital.Matthew A., a Minnesota resident who owns a farm with his family raising corn and soybeans, said Walz has “done very little to help rural Minnesota.””We joke that we’re mini California. Most of us, if we could, we would annex into South Dakota. He’s put policies in place that have hurt small businesses. I have friends that have lost small businesses because of his policies. It’s killing our small towns, our rural development,” Matthew A. told Fox News Digital. HARRIS VP PICK MINNEOSTA GOV TIM WALZ LAVISHED ILLEGAL MIGRANTS WITH TAXPAYER-FUNDED ‘BLANKET OF BENEVOLENCE’”He point-blank said we’re just rocks and cows out here, and he has done very little to help us. And honestly, a man that can sit and let a city burn to the ground and not do anything about it like he did in 2020, that’s no integrity. And he … doesn’t deserve any vote.”Dan Fedders, a salesman in Minnesota, described the Harris-Walz ticket as “very liberal.”‘WE ARE SUFFERING’: OMAR CHALLENGER RIPS WALZ FOR PUSHING SAME ‘DANGEROUS’ POLICIES AS ‘SQUAD’”I think they’re a great team, the two of them together. God bless them. But they’re not going to have a chance at all,” Fedders said of Walz and Harris. “In my opinion, he is just about as far liberal as she is. And I think most of the people in Minnesota are happy about it because he might leave or at least be gone for a period of time.””Governor Walz has been, I think, a disaster for Minnesota,” a local resident, who requested his name not be shared, told Fox.”He has no more time for rural America. I think as a potential leader right now, he’s showing a lot of disdain for his opponents, the way he’s addressing them. It might be the way the game is played, but it’s not the way that I want to see our leaders act. It just hasn’t been good for Minnesota,” he said, adding that he believes Walz’s “fiscal responsibility has been very poor for the citizens of Minnesota.””He’s been bad for the state. There’s no other way to say it,” said a farmer and local restaurant owner, who also requested his name not be used. “He has hurt this state more than he’s helped it.”Farmfest has been described as the largest gathering of farmers and agriculturalists on Walz’s home turf. His administration has garnered national attention for his policies designed to invest in sustainability and biofuels, subjects typically unpopular with people in red states and cultivating farmland. Walz has represented the state as governor since 2019.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPFox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign for comment.

[cyarskj1899]

Karen Bass elected, becoming first woman as L.A. mayor

By Julia WickStaff Writer 

Karen Bass, speaking to supporters on election night, is the first woman and the second Black Angeleno to serve as mayor of Los Angeles, according to a projection by the Associated Press.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Rep. Karen Bass has defeated businessman Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, according to an Associated Press projection Wednesday, making her the first woman and second Black Angeleno elected to lead the city in its 241-year history.

The 69-year-old congresswoman achieved victory despite Caruso spending more than $100 million of his own fortune on his mayoral bid, shattering local spending records and pumping previously unprecedented sums into field outreach and TV advertising. 

“The results are in, and it is the honor of my life to be elected as your mayor,” Bass said in a Wednesday afternoon email to supporters. “It’s time to house people immediately, increase safety and opportunity in every neighborhood, and create a new standard of ethics and accountability at City Hall.”

Caruso, 63, outspent Bass more than 11 to 1 but was ultimately unable to prevail as a former Republican in a sapphire-blue California city. 

Preliminary results seesawed on election night, but by early the next morning Caruso had eked out a thin lead, buoyed by support from voters who marked ballots in person. Vote-by-mail ballots processed after election day strongly favored Bass, and her margin in the race steadily grew. As of Wednesday, she was leading by just over six points.

“I’m proud of the work we did to engage long-neglected communities, giving a voice to the unheard, and to the light we shined on the biggest challenges facing our great city,” Caruso said in a concession statement. “There will be more to come from the movement we built, but for now, as a city we need to unite around Mayor-elect Bass and give her the support she needs to tackle the many issues we face. Congratulations, Karen, and God-speed.”

Bass’ path to City Hall had begun to seem like a foregone conclusion in recent days, though more than a hundred thousand votes likely still remain to be counted. The L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office is expected to certify the results on Dec. 5. 

Born in South L.A., raised in the Venice-Fairfax area and now a longtime resident of Baldwin Hills, Bass has spent her life deeply rooted in Los Angeles. Her social justice ideals have taken her from a county emergency room to nonprofit leadership and, ultimately, the halls of power in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

Her commute will grow far shorter on Dec. 12, when the Baldwin Hills resident is sworn in to succeed Eric Garcetti as Los Angeles’ 43rd mayor. 

“This moment is tremendously historic for two reasons,” said USC political science and international relations department chair Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, citing Bass’ win, along with a broader transformation in local political leadership.

Five years ago, there were two women on Los Angeles City Council and none held citywide office. By the end of 2022, at least five women will be seated on the council and two will hold citywide office — Bass and incoming City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto. At the county level, women now hold all five seats on the powerful Board of Supervisors, which historically had been overwhelmingly male. 

“Los Angeles is really experiencing what I would call a moment in women’s leadership in history,” Hancock Alfaro said. 

Bass will take control of a city marred by corruption scandals, with a spiraling homelessness crisis and profound inequities deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Confidence in local government is seemingly at a nadir after a series of City Hall indictments in recent years, and the release of a leaked audio recording less than a month before the election that revealed top officials making racist comments and scheming to maintain political power.

In the days before the election, Bass said her first priority upon taking office would be to declare a state of emergency on homelessness and work to get people housed in a city where as many as 41,000 people sleep in tents, RVs and other makeshift housing.

The city’s first competitive mayoral race in nearly a decade was a story of contrasts, with two candidates who symbolized divergent visions of the city.

Bass, a Black woman, has spent decades in public service, evolving from an activist organizer to pragmatic elected official as she fought for incremental gains in underserved L.A. communities. 

The former Assembly speaker and six-term member of Congress has a reputation as a decidedly low-key politician known for her skills as a coalition-builder.

Caruso, a white man, built a real estate empire on spectacle and spectacular attention to detail, creating highly controlled private spaces like the Grove shopping center that evoke an idealized version of urban life. 

His high-sheen candidacy — which largely focused on his easily digestible pledge to “clean up L.A.” — painted the former Police Commission president as a political outsider with the business chops to succeed where longtime politicians had failed.

Ultimately, however, it was the candidates’ disparate political histories that became the defining divide of the race. 

Bass, a lifelong Democrat, built up a virtual wall of support from the Democratic establishment in the general election. Those lockstep endorsements from Democratic elected officials and clubs helped buttress Bass’ frequent contention that she was “the only Democrat” in the race to lead an overwhelmingly blue city. 

The real estate developer registered as a Democrat for the first time in late January, less than three weeks before he declared his candidacy. Party history weighed less heavily during the early months of a primary defined by voter frustrations around homelessness and crime. 

But Caruso’s Republican past became an inescapable albatross in the summer and fall.

This race — the first modern L.A. mayoral election to be held in an even year, synced up with state and federal elections — advanced amid an encroaching backdrop of hyper-partisan national politics.

The rancorous battle for control of Congress was never far from view, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade two weeks after the June primary made abortion rights an unlikely but potent campaign issue. Caruso loudly touted his support for abortion rights throughout the race, but his past donations to antiabortion politicians and murky history on the issue lent Bass a formidable line of attack.

Caruso blanketed his campaign materials with the word “Democrat” and largely sought to avoid discussion of his partisan political evolution on the trail. But he shifted tactics in mid-October, airing a TV ad that addressed the subject head on and discussed how the Republican Party “shifted to a place that didn’t represent my values.”

His campaign hoped to replicate the success of Richard Riordan, a centrist Republican businessman whose victorious 1993 bid for mayor relied on his outsider bona fides and a then-record-breaking influx of the first-time candidate’s personal funds. 

Riordan succeeded Tom Bradley, the city’s first Black mayor, who was elected in 1973 and shepherded Los Angeles through a two-decade tenure as mayor. 

The 2022 race grew uglier in its final months, as both candidates fought fire with fire. Much of the bombardment centered around one of the most prominent private institutions in the city, with Bass and Caruso attacking their opponent’s relationships to scandals at USC. Caruso also hit Bass for a speech she gave praising Scientology. Bass and her supporters frequently hammered Caruso for his Republican past, with her allies branding him as a “liar” and a “phony.”

Bass became an immediate front-runner when she entered the race last fall, more than four months before Caruso.

The real estate developer built some of the region’s best-known retail centers but had little name recognition when he entered the field. Unprecedented spending and an onslaught of advertising helped Caruso surge propulsively into contention and finish second in the primary, but Bass retained her status as a robust front-runner through much of the months-long battle to succeed Garcetti.

It was only in the final weeks before the race that polling significantly tightened, as Caruso poured roughly $3 million to $4 million a week into his barrage of advertising.

Caruso aimed to run up his lead with San Fernando Valley voters, Latinos and moderates, but Bass maintained strong backing from women, liberals and registered Democrats.

Bass’ political consciousness took shape at the apex of the civil rights movement, as a young girl listening to the news before dawn each morning with her letter-carrier father.

She started her career as a nurse and physician’s assistant, working through the height of the crack cocaine epidemic as the crisis devastated South L.A. communities. Community Coalition — the politically influential nonprofit she founded — began with a living-room meeting Bass led in 1990.

Long before she became the first Black woman to lead a legislative body as California Assembly speaker, Bass’ community-based leadership frequently brought her to City Hall as an advocate pushing lawmakers from outside the system.

Now, amid fractious battles and frequent protests in council chambers, she will return to City Hall as the ultimate insider — the leader of the nation’s second-largest city. 

Sent from my iPhone

[samwisethewitch]

Witchcraft and Activism

The word “witch” is a politically charged label. If we look at how the word was used historically, it referred to someone who existed outside of the normal social order. The people accused of witchcraft in the European and American witch trials were mostly — experts say between 75% and 80% — women. They were also overwhelmingly poor, single, or members of a minority ethnicity and/or religion. In other words, they were people who did not follow their society’s accepted model of womanhood (or, in the case of accused men, manhood).

If you choose to identify with the witch label, you are choosing to identify with subversion of gender norms, resistance to the dominant social order, and “outsider” status. If that makes you uncomfortable or uneasy, then you may want to use another label for your magical practice. Witchcraft always has been and always will be inherently political.

In her book Witches, Sluts, Feminists, Kristen J. Sollee argues that the “slut” label is in many ways a modern equivalent to the “witch” label. In both cases, the label is used to devalue people, most often women, and to enforce a patriarchal and misogynist social order.

Superstitions around witchcraft are connected to the modern stigma around abortion (and, to a lesser extent, contraception). Midwifery and abortion were directly linked to witchcraft in the European witch hunts. Today, women who seek abortions are condemned as sluts, whores, and murderers. The fight for reproductive freedom remains inextricably linked with the witch label.

During the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, the socialist feminist group Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (W.I.T.C.H.) used the image of the witch to campaign for women’s rights and other social issues. They were some of the first advocates for intersectional feminism (feminist activism that addresses other social issues that overlap with gendered issues). They performed acts such as hexing Wall Street capitalists and wearing black veils to protest bridal fairs. The W.I.T.C.H. Manifesto calls witches the “original guerrillas and resistance fighters against oppression.”

In her book Revolutionary Witchcraft, Sarah Lyons points out that both witchcraft and politics are about raising and directing power in the world. In a postmodern society, most of our reality is socially constructed — it works because we collectively believe it does. Money only has value because we believe it does. Politicians only have power because we believe they do. Our laws are only just because we believe they are. Like in magic, everything in society is a product of belief and a whole lot of willpower — and that makes witches the ideal social activists.

Lyons argues that witchcraft is inseparable from politics, because witches have always opposed dominant political power. She makes a connection between the witch trials and the rise of capitalism and classism. She connects the basic concepts of magic to historic activist groups like the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), who used ritual as an act of protest.

Not every witch is a hardcore activist, but every witch should have a basic awareness of political and social issues and be willing to do what they can to make a difference.

Ways to Combine Witchcraft and Activism

Perform a ritual to feel connected to the earth and her people. Activism should come from a place of love, not a place of hate. Make sure you’re fighting for the right reasons by frequently taking time to reconnect with the planet and the people who live here. This can be as simple as laying down on the ground outside and meditating on all the ways you are connected to other people, as well as to the ecosystem, animals, and the earth herself. If getting up close and personal with the grass and dirt isn’t your thing, try to find a beautiful place in nature where you can sit and journal about the interconnected nature of all things.

Unlearn your social programming. This is the most difficult and most important part of any activism. Before you can change the world outside yourself, you have to change your own psyche. Think about how you have been socialized to contribute to (or at least turn a blind eye to) the issues you want to fight against. For example, if you want to fight for racial justice, you need to understand how you have contributed to a racist system. You can do this in a variety of ways: through meditation, journaling, or divination, to name a few. Note that whatever method you choose, this will probably take weeks or months of repeated work. Rewriting your thought and behavior patterns is hard, and it can’t be done in a single day. Also note that if you are a victim of systemic oppression or prejudice, this work may bring up a lot of emotional baggage — you may want to involve a professional therapist or counselor.

Go to protests. Sending energy and doing healing rituals is great, but someone has to get out there and visibly fight for change. If you are able to do so, start going to protests and rallies for causes you care about. Don’t just show up, but be an active participant — make signs, yell and chant, and stand your ground if cops show up. Be safe and responsible, but be loud and assertive, too. If you want to go all out, you can don the black robes, pointed hats, and veils of W.I.T.C.H.es past, which has the added bonus of concealing your identity.

Turn your donations into a spell for change. When you donate to a cause you care about, charge your donation with a spell for positive change. You can do this by holding your cash, check, or debit card in both hands and focusing on your desire for change. Feel this desire flowing into the money, filling it with your determination. From here, make your donation, knowing that you’ll be sending an energy boost along with it.

Organize an activist coven. Do you have a handful of friends who are interested in witchcraft, passionate about activism, or both? Start a coven! Go to protests together, hold monthly rituals to raise energy for change, and collect money for donations. Being part of a group also means having a support system, which can help prevent burnout. Make a plan to check on each other regularly. You may even choose to do monthly group rituals for self care, which may be actual magic rituals or might be as simple as ordering takeout and watching a movie. Activism can be intensely draining work, so it’s important to take breaks when you need them!

Hold public rituals with an activist slant. Nothing gets people’s attention like a bunch of folks standing in a circle and chanting. Holding public rituals is one of the best ways to raise awareness for a cause. You might hold a vigil for victims of police brutality, a healing circle for the environment, or some other ritual that is relevant to the issue at hand. These rituals serve a double purpose, as they both bring people’s attention to the issue and give them an opportunity to work for change on a spiritual level. Use prayers, chants, and symbolism that is appropriate to the theme, and ask participants to make a small donation to a charity related to your cause.

Begin your public rituals with a territory acknowledgement. If you live in the United States, chances are you live on land that was taken from the native people by force. If you seek to have a relationship with the land, you need to first acknowledge the original inhabitants and the suffering they endured so you can be there. Use a website like native-land.ca to find out what your land was originally called and what indigenous groups originally lived there. Publicly acknowledge this legacy at your ritual, and publicly state your intention to support indigenous peoples. (Revolutionary Witchcraft has an excellent territory acknowledgement that you can customize for your area.)

Make an altar to your activist ancestors. If activism or membership in a marginalized group is a big part of your life, you may want to create a space for it in your home. Like an ancestor altar, this is a space to remember influential members of the community who have died. Choose a flat surface like a tabletop or shelf and decorate it with photos of your “ancestors,” as well as other appropriate items like flags, pins, stickers, etc. As a queer person, my altar to my LGBTQ+ ancestors might include images of figures like Sappho, Marsha P. Johnson, and Freddie Mercury, as well as items like a pink triangle patch, a small rainbow pride flag, and dried violets and green carnations. You may also choose to include a candle, an incense burner, and/or a small dish for offerings. Just remember to never place images of living people on an altar honoring the dead!

Do your research. Staying educated is an important part of activism — not only do your actions need to be informed, but you need to be able to speak intelligently about your issues. Read the news (on actual news websites, not just social media). Read lots of books; some I personally recommend are Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Love and Rage by Lama Rod Owens, and (as previously mentioned) Revolutionary Witchcraft by Sarah Lyons. If you can get access to them, read scholarly articles about theories that are influential among activists, like the Gaia Hypothesis or Deep Ecology. Read everything you can get your hands on.

VOTE! And I don’t just mean voting for the presidential candidate you like (or, as is often the case, voting against the one you don’t like). Vote for your representatives. Vote for city council. Vote for the county sheriff. Voting gives you a chance to make sure the people in office will be susceptible to your activism. Yes, your side might lose or your electoral college representative might choose to go against the popular vote. Even so, voting is a way to clearly communicate the will of the people, and it puts a lot of pressure on the people in charge. It’s important — don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

In my experience, combining activism with my witchcraft is a deeply fulfilling spiritual experience. It strengthens my connection to the world around me, with helps grow both empathy and magical power. I truly can’t imagine my practice without the activist element.

Resources:

Witches, Sluts, Feminists by Kristen J. Sollee

Revolutionary Witchcraft by Sarah Lyons

The Study of Witchcraft by Deborah Lipp

The Way of Fire and Ice by Ryan Smith

[returntobeaconhills]

Time & Tide

“Time and tide waits for no man.” Scott clapped a hand on Stiles’s shoulder as they looked up at the mostly rebuilt Hale house.

“Enjoying your “Foundations of English Lit” class I take it?” Stiles asked.  

Scott gave him a very pleased look and it reminded him of when Scott was studying for the PSATs and constantly trying to incorporate those words into conversation. He loved the big goofball.

Stiles took in the structure that had slowly, slowly been restored to…well, maybe not its former glory but something livable. Derek had huffed and puffed his way through it, but Stiles helped him get the property back from the county. There were a lot of hoops to jump through, and Derek still didn’t like any problem he couldn’t just punch in the face.  

But between finishing up getting his degree, working part time as a PI, and an internship, Stiles hadn’t had time to breathe, let alone come back to Beacon Hills to visit for the last year. Sometimes Derek would call him, exasperated with some particular task, and Stiles would have to send him a YouTube video to walk him through it because the man had no sense of technology and seemed hardly able to work Google.

Now he was here to take it all in.

Scott darted up the steps and Stiles followed. Before they even knocked, Derek had the door open for them.

“What are you doing here? This is private property.” Derek scowled at them for just a moment before his lips curled up into a smirk.

And there was something about him repeating those first words he had ever said to them, something about him actually teasing, that made Stiles realize he had really missed the guy. He couldn’t believe they had both made it to this point in their lives that they were able to actually do something with their lives instead of just constantly worrying about dying.

Before he knew what he was doing, Stiles had his arms around Derek in a hug that seemed to surprise both of them. Derek was frozen for a moment, before he seemed to lean into it and give Stiles a pat on the back.

Stiles fell back on his heels with an awkward cough. “Nice house,” he said, pushing on past Derek.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping aside so that Scott could come in.

But Scott stayed on the porch. “Actually, I just realized I promised my mom I’d have lunch with her at the hospital. But you guys catch up. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Stiles glared at Scott, but Scott just gave him a warm smile. “Time and tide,” he reminded Stiles before heading back to his car.

Stiles took it back. He totally hated the big goofball.

“So…” Stiles took in the hardwood floors, the comfy armchair in a little reading nook, and he couldn’t help but notice that Derek hadn’t added back the fireplace that Stiles remembered in the ruins of the previous house. Finally, Stiles took in Derek himself. His beard was a little longer and he was wearing an honest-to-God cardigan.

“You’re so domesticated,” Stiles told him. “You’re a domesticated wolf now.”

Derek ducked his head with a small laugh. “I guess I am.”  

Wearing a cardigan and laughing? Who was this man?

Stiles stepped right in front of Derek and gave his face a thorough inspection.

“Um, what are you doing?”

“Trying to see if you are just a Derek impersonator.”

Derek rolled his eyes, and Stiles decided it was really him after all.

Stiles gave a small tug on the end of Derek’s beard and stepped back.

“You’re older but still the same,” Derek said, but Stiles could detect a hint of fondness in his exasperation.

“Yep. I’m older. Twenty-two. I can drink, smoke, vote…just not all at once, or so I was told on election day.”

Derek chuckled. “Are you staying in Beacon Hills long?”

“The summer, at least. Not sure about after.” Stiles crossed his arms over his chest but then that felt defensive so he put them in his pockets and since when did he not know what to do with his own hands when talking to someone?

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Stiles tells him. “It’s homey.”

“I wanted it to feel inviting.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow. “For who?”

“You,” Derek said. He quickly cleared his throat. “You guys. All the pack.”

“Right.” Stiles rocked on his heels. “Well, I guess I should-“

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Derek blurted out. “I mean, a thank you dinner is the least I can do. I wouldn’t have this place if it weren’t for you.”

“Yeah.” Stiles wanted to play it cool, but he couldn’t help the huge smile that stretched across his lips. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

And that was the moment Stiles decided he might not just stay for dinner, he might stay forever. 

[whatifsandspheres]

I think one of the things I didn't even grasp until I became older was how much I really did take to heart the events surrounding the Danielle Van Damme in the same County of San Diego that I lived in. Around that time I had been bored and fed up with school, I started either faking or causing myself stomach aches just to get out of needing to go, and in case I needed to go to the doctor about it I wouldn't be fake sick, but to me it was worth it because when I did feel bad nobody would listen. It was almost like the opposite of "The Boy who Cried Wolf." I was able to watch some of the trial on television at home, which was either during school or during summer, but my summers were never really mine. My parents demanded that I go to work with my father some weekends and at least a large part of my vacation time. The trial was interesting to me, all the forensic science they talked about, they even had an entomologist take the stand. But something was obvious to a lot of people. The parents, and especially the mother, were not innocent. Someone else may have committed the set of crimes, but the reality was that the mother was more than complicit and far, far, far less than ignorant. I know around that age there was a lot of wicked stepmother fairytale stuff fresh on my mind, but this was different for many reasons. The mother was practically let off the hook entirely. I also had read the Myst books before 2002. Ghen was a bit of an absentee father figure. He had a God-complex. But in the Book of Ti'Ana you could see and understand that his parents meant well, were good people. And yet he went on to commit genocide, destroy worlds, and influence his grandchildren to do the same. I guess it's just easier for me to intuitively understand that you don't have to pick a side to avoid neutrality. You don't have to side with your mother or your father, because that's not all there is, even when you're a kid. I think it's important to have examples of flawed, even bad, parents and people in media. I think it helps take a little bit of the pressure off the individual to realize that it could be worse, but that doesn't make it okay. And maybe you can't go to the police or you can't tell friends or relatives, but you have to try to find the right and proper side, even if you have to make it yourself. Just because they say that there are proper ways to go about things doesn't mean they care about doing things right or that they even understand how to solve those problems for you. There's all this emotional-porn for people nowadays that tries to peer-pressure people into sentimental reasoning and self-sacrifice. Chicken Soup for the Stockholm Hostage. They Live, They Laugh, They Love... You're in this alone, in the end, and their best weapon against you is to convince you that that in and of itself is not enough to get by on, that you need them more than they need you. It's a lie. It's ironically antisocial because it erodes the integrity and self-valuation of the individual component that constitutes that social group and society. "You're a piece of shit and you need the majority." Why does such a powerful majority need to concern itself for a second with such a lowly piece of shit? Vote Democrat or vote republican, but you must vote or else you're not contributing to democracy and good government. I see your gamble, and I call it. But I want to raise that wager. I want to raise the bar, and you just want to push me down lower so that you don't have to see that higher set of standards. You want me to fail worse than you in order to validate you. You don't want to look bad or obsolete in front of your peers.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The future is symmetrical

When Mitch Kapor articulated the principle that “architecture is politics” at the founding of EFF, he was charging technologists with the moral duty to contemplate the kinds of social interactions their technological decisions would facilitate — and prohibit.

At question was nothing less than the character of the networked society. Would the vast, pluripotent, general purpose, interconnected network serve as a glorified video-on-demand service, the world’s greatest pornography distribution system, a giant high-tech mall?

Or could it be a public square, and if so, who would have the loudest voices in that square, who would be excluded from it, who will set its rules, and how will they be enforced?

As with its technical architecture, the political architecture of the net is a stack, encompassing everything from antitrust enforcement to spectrum allocation, protocol design to search-and-seizure laws, standards to top-level domain governance.

Among those many considerations is the absolutely vital question of service delivery itself. What kinds of wires or radio waves will carry your packets, who will own them, and how will they be configured?

For decades, a quiet war has been fought on this front, with two sides: the side that sees internet users as “mouse potatoes,” destined to passively absorb information feeds compiled by their betters; and the “netizen” side that envisions a truly participatory network design.

This deep division has been with us since the internet’s prehistory, at least since the fight over Usenet’s alt.* hierarchy, flaring up again during the P2P wars, with ISPs insisting that users were violating their “agreements” by running “servers.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/altinteroperabilityadversarial

Above all, this fight was waged in the deployment of home internet service. The decision turn the already-monopolistic cable and phone operators into ISPs cast a long shadow. Both of these industries think of their customers as passive information consumers, not participants.

As an entertainment exec in William Gibson’s 1992 novel Idoru describes her audience: “Best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It’s covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth…no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections.”

Contrast this with the other cyberpunk archetype, the console cowboy who doesn’t merely surf the digital, but steers it — the active participant in the technological/media environment who is more than a recipient of others’ crafted messages.

For a long time, Big Tech and Big Telco tried to have it both ways. AT&T promoted teleconferencing and remote family life conducted by videophones in its 1993 “You Will” marketing campaign. Youtube exhorted you to “broadcast yourself.”

But AT&T also set data-caps, kicked users off for running servers, and engaged in every legal, semi-legal and outright illegal tactic imaginable to block high-speed fiber networks.

Youtube, meanwhile, blocked interoperability, leveraged vertical integration with Google search to exclude and starve competitors, and conspired with Big Content to create a “content moderation” system that’s two parts Kafka, one part Keystone Kops.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#content-id

While the questions raised by broad participation in networked society are thorny and complex, one question actually has a very simple and factual answer: “How should we connect our homes to the internet?” The answer: “Fiber.”

There is no wireless that can substitute for fiber. Wireless — 5G, Starlink, whatever — shares the same spectrum. We can make spectrum use more efficient (by tightly transmitting the wireless signals so they don’t interfere), but physics sets hard limits on wireless speeds.

Each strand of wire in a wired network, by contrast, is its own pocket universe, insulated from the next wire, with its own smaller, but exclusive, electromagnetic spectrum to use without interfering with any other wire on the other side of its insulation.

<img src=”https://craphound.com/images/broadband_comparison.jpeg" alt=”EFF’s broadband comparison chart, showing the maximum speeds of 4G (100mb), DSL (170mb), 5G (10gb), cable (50gb) and fiber (100tb).”>

But copper wire also has hard limits that are set by physics. The fastest theoretical copper data throughput is an infinitesimal fraction of the fastest fiber speeds. Fiber is millions-to-hundreds-of-millions times faster than copper.

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

We should never run copper under another city street or along another pole. Any savings from maintaining 20th century network infrastructure will be eradicated by the cost of having to do twice the work to replace it with 21st century fiber in the foreseeable future.

Trying to wring performance gains out of copper in the age of fiber is like trying to improve the design of whale-oil lamps to stave off the expense of electrification. Sure, you don’t want anyone sitting in the dark but even the very best whale-oil lamp is already obsolete.

But besides future-proofing, there’s another reason to demand fiber over copper or wireless: symmetry. Our copper and (especially) wireless infrastructure is optimized for sending data to end-points, not getting data back. It’s mouse-potato broadband.

(this is especially true of any satellite broadband, which typically relies upon copper lines for its “return path,” and even when it doesn’t, has much slower uplinks that downlinks)

By contrast, fiber tends to be symmetrical — providing the same download and upload speeds. It is participatory broadband, suited for a world of distance ed, remote work, telemedicine, and cultural and political participation for all.

Fiber is so obviously better than copper or wireless that America paltry fiber rollouts needed to be engineered — they never would have happened on their own. The most critical piece of anti-fiber engineering is US regulators’ definition of broadband itself.

Since the dawn FCC interest in universal broadband, it adopted a technical definition of broadband that is asymmetrical, with far lower upload than download speeds. Despite lockdown and broadband-only connections to the outside world, Congress is set to continue this.

The latest iteration of the Democrats’ broadband bill defines “broadband” as any connection that is 100mb down and 20mb up (“100/20”). Both of these speeds paltry to the point of uselessness, but the upload speed is genuinely terrible.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/future-symmetrical-high-speed-internet-speeds

US broadband usage has grown 21%/year since the 1980s. 100/20 broadband is inadequate for today’s applications — let alone tomorrow’s (by contrast, fiber is fast enough to last through the entire 21st century’s projected broadband demand and beyond, well into the 2100s).

Any wireless applications will also depend on fiber — your 5G devices have to be connected to something, and if that something is copper, your wireless speeds will never exceed copper’s maximum speeds. Innovation in spectrum management requires fiber — it doesn’t obviate it.

Today, the highest growth in broadband demand is in uploads, not downloads. People need fast uploads speeds to videoconference, to stream their games, to do remote work. The only way a 100/20 copper network’s upload speeds can be improved is by connecting it with fiber.

Every dollar spent on copper rollout is a dollar we’ll forfeit in a few years. It’s true that cable monopolists will wring a few billions out of us if we keep making do with their old copper, but upgrading copper just makes the inevitable fiber transition costlier.

China is nearing its goal of connecting 1 billion people to fiber. In America, millions are stuck with copper infrastructure literally consisting of century-old wires wrapped in newspaper, dipped in tar, and draped over tree-banches.

https://mn.gov/commerce-stat/pdfs/frontier-service-quality-report-final.pdf

Indeed, when it comes to America, monopoly carriers are slowing upload speeds — take Altice, the US’s fourth-largest ISP, which slashed its upload speeds by 89% “in line with competitors’ offerings.”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

America desperately needs a high-fiber diet:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/30/fight-for-44/#slowpokes

But it has a major blockage: the American right, who have conducted history’s greatest self-own by carrying water for telecoms monopolists, blocking municipal fiber:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/17/turner-diaries-fanfic/#1a-fiber

It’s darkly funny to see the people who demanded that “government stay out of my internet” now rail against monopoly social media’s censorship, given that a government ISP would be bound by the First Amendment, unlike Facebook or Twitter.

Luckily, Congress isn’t the only place where this debate is taking place. In California, Governor Newsom has unveiled an ambitious plan to connect every city and town to blazing-fast fiber, then help cities and counties get it to every home.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#fiber-now

In tech circles, we use the term “read-only” to refer to blowhards who won’t let you get a word-in edgewise (this being one of the more prominent and unfortunate technical archetypes).

The “consumer” envisioned by asymmetrical broadband futures is write*-only — someone designed to have other peoples’ ideas crammed into their eyeballs, for their passive absorption. A consumer, not a citizen.

As Gibson put it, it’s a person who “can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote.”

Cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion.

[freehawaii]

THE US OWES HAWAIIANS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF LAND - THE US CONGRESS MADE SURE THE DEBT WASNʻT PAID

By Rob Perez, Honolulu Star-Advertiser/ProPublica ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. In the 1990s, Hawaii’s two elder statesmen — U.S. Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka — were at the forefront of efforts to ensure that the U.S. compensated Native Hawaiians for ancestral lands taken from them over the years. “Dan Inouye believed that a promise made should be a promise kept,” Akaka, a Native Hawaiian, said in 2012 upon the death of his longtime Senate colleague. But an investigation by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and ProPublica has found that those same senators voted several times each to support must-pass legislation that included provisions undermining efforts to repay millions of dollars in land debt to Hawaiians. At least six other current and former members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation have supported such legislation one or more times. Between them, Hawaii’s members of Congress voted for at least six laws authorizing the federal government to sell dozens of excess properties to private parties rather than offering them to a Hawaiian trust established to repatriate the land. In one must-pass military spending bill spanning more than 500 pages, lawmakers slipped in a single sentence that helped a handful of nonprofits to acquire the land. In another, they added language that effectively put the need for military housing ahead of the need for housing Hawaiians. The circumvention of the landmark 1995 Hawaiian Home Lands Recovery Act, which has not been previously reported, sent the excess lands to a variety of buyers instead: the Catholic Church; the nonprofit operator of a private school; a developer that intends to sell a site to another company with plans to construct hundreds of private-sector homes there. The transactions mostly involved lands on Oahu, the state’s most populous island, and were executed during a period in which the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which manages the trust, faced a severe shortage of developable residential land there. About 11,000 Hawaiians are now seeking residential homesteads on Oahu, nearly double what the figure was when the recovery act passed. As the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica reported in December, the trust has only enough land to accommodate less than a third of those homestead-seekers in single-family homes, although it is moving to develop more multi-family housing. Many waitlisters are homeless, and thousands have died without getting a homestead lease. Even as the federal government was selling excess properties to private buyers, it offered only two parcels to the trust over the past decade, according to the news organizations’ investigation. And one was for a remote mountainside location that DHHL rejected because it determined that the property — a former solar observatory — wasn’t suitable for residential use or to lease for other purposes. The findings confirmed the suspicions of Mike Kahikina, who said he had a hunch something was amiss during the eight years he served on the Hawaiian Homes Commission, which decides policy for DHHL. Kahikina joined the commission in 2011, 16 years after the recovery act was signed. Along with eight other commissioners, his job was to help the department get beneficiaries onto residential, ranching and farming homesteads in a timely way — a task DHHL has struggled with historically. By the time he left in 2019, the federal government’s debt was the same size as when he joined. Kahikina said he periodically raised questions with DHHL about the land debt, but they were never satisfactorily answered. The news organizations shared their findings with Kahikina — an Air Force veteran, former state legislator, ordained minister and outreach worker for troubled youth — as he sat outside the West Oahu homestead residence that has been in his family for three generations. With his long salt-and-pepper hair tied back in a bun, Kahikina, who now heads the Association of Hawaiians for Homestead Lands, a statewide nonprofit organization of waitlisters, was stunned as he learned details of the private deals. “You connected the dots for me,” he said, repeating himself to emphasize the point. “It’s like we’re an invisible people.” The investigation relied on federal, state and county records and revealed nearly 40 deals over the past decade involving about 520 acres, all authorized by special language inserted into at least six bills passed by Congress. Beyond the Catholic Church, the developer and the private school operator, the special legislation also allowed land deals with a veterans association, individual homebuyers, another nonprofit private school operator and several religious organizations. Had it not been for that legislation, advocates say the recovery act could have allowed some of these same entities to access the land while benefiting DHHL at the same time. That’s because under the recovery act, DHHL is permitted to sell certain properties for fair market value and use the proceeds for homestead development. The Navy, which had owned the majority of lands involved in the private deals, defended its actions. The special legislation expressed the intent of Congress at the time, and if a new law conflicted with a prior one, the new one applied, according to a spokesperson. “Navy followed the law,” she wrote. The General Services Administration, which plays a key role in federal land disposal, would not address criticisms about bypassing the recovery act. But in response to a letter from one of Hawaii’s two current U.S. senators, a GSA official acknowledged that congressional actions — a reference to the special legislation — allowed some agencies to bypass the recovery act. William J. Aila Jr., who now heads DHHL and the Hawaiian Homes Commission, said the congressionally approved workarounds deprived the trust of promising development opportunities. “It’s a conscious effort to go around the spirit of the recovery act,” Aila said in an interview. “Somebody had to consciously propose legislation.” Aila also said that some of the Oahu parcels that were sold would have been especially appealing to the commission because they were relatively flat and already had roads and utility connections. The high costs of installing such systems have contributed to DHHL’s slow pace in developing homesteads in recent years. “It wasn’t the department that was deprived,” Aila said. “It was the beneficiaries and the people on the waitlist.” Inouye and Akaka were widely known as strong advocates for Native Hawaiians and were credited with helping secure passage of major legislation benefiting Hawaii’s indigenous people, including the recovery act and bills related to health care and education. But extensive reporting on the special legislation did not turn up evidence that Inouye, Akaka or other legislators publicly addressed the potential impact on the debt. For their part, Hawaii’s current U.S. senators vowed to stop the practice of workarounds — even though both voted years earlier for legislation allowing it. They said they hadn’t realized at the time that the trust effectively would be left out the loop. Beneficiaries also said they didn’t know Congress was shortchanging the trust all these years. Many greeted the news with shock. “My heart’s broken,” said Ian Lee Loy, who lives on a Big Island homestead and served on the commission from 2011 to 2013. “The promises to Native Hawaiians continue to go unfilled while the political machine keeps churning and deals are made.” More Land Still Owed The circumvention of the recovery act is only the latest chapter in the struggle by Native Hawaiians to reclaim their lands. The U.S. debt to Hawaiians began accruing in the 1890s, after the U.S.-supported overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. In 1898, when the U.S. annexed the island chain, it took possession of 1.8 million uncompensated acres of former kingdom land. In 1921, as a form of reparation, Congress adopted the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, creating a trust of 203,000 acres from among those taken. In promoting the act, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole, considered the father of the program, referred to the destitute conditions that many families lived in, particularly those in urban tenements. “That is why the race is fast dying out,” he said in advocating for the bill. “These conditions stare the Hawaiian people in the face.” The new law authorized the government to issue 99-year land leases to people who are at least 50% Hawaiian for $1 annually. In the decades that followed, the state and federal governments took control of thousands of those acres for public purposes — roads, airports, schools, military uses — again paying little or no compensation. The recovery act was specifically meant to compensate for over 1,400 acres the U.S. was using without authorization. Under the act, the trust must be notified whenever most federal land in Hawaii is designated “excess,” or unneeded, by a federal agency. That designation triggers a screening process in which other federal agencies are given an opportunity to claim the land. It also triggers a requirement that the Department of Defense or GSA notify the chair of the Hawaiian Homes Commission of a potential acquisition candidate. If no other federal agency claims the land, the trust has the option to acquire the parcel. If that option is exercised, the land value is deducted from the outstanding debt. The new law kicked off rounds of negotiations about how to settle that debt. Because not all acres are created equal, the two sides focused on land values and eventually signed a landmark agreement to settle all claims: The federal government would transfer to the trust nine properties totaling 960 acres, roughly comparable in value to the 1,400 acres in question. The land was almost all on Oahu and described in news coverage as prime land. At a 1998 signing ceremony at the Hawaii governor’s residence, the Royal Hawaiian Band entertained a crowd of VIP guests. The newly inked settlement was hailed as a turning point for the trust. But things haven’t turned out that way. The trust has not received about 70 acres, including 47 that were removed from the settlement. Two other parcels have yet to be transferred because of a variety of environmental or other complications. DHHL staff last year told the commission that the land debt was worth between $24 million and nearly $34 million in 1998 values, which is how the department tracks the debt. That equates to roughly $39 million to $55 million in today’s dollars. What’s more, some trust beneficiaries — those who are at least half Hawaiian — believe the homesteading program is due more compensation because of the relatively poor quality of the nearly 900 acres it has received thus far. None of that land has been used for residential homesteads, according to DHHL, mostly due to the location or condition of the property or the prohibitive cost of installing infrastructure. The land is largely being used for industrial purposes. The federal government did offer, last year, an 80-acre site in Ewa Beach, a former tsunami warning center surrounded by residential neighborhoods and a golf course, along the West Oahu coastline. Hundreds of homes could be developed there, and DHHL said it accepts the offer. If, as expected, the acquisition goes through, the federal government still would owe DHHL more than $11 million worth of land in today’s dollars. When the Department of the Interior, which oversees the trust for the federal government but doesn’t decide which lands are offered to DHHL, was asked why a balance still remained after 25 years, a spokesman in a December statement gave three reasons. The first was that few excess lands have become available since 2000. The second was that the trust declined several offerings because of contamination or other concerns. And the third? The impact of the congressional workarounds. Making the Workarounds Explicit Inouye, a decorated Army veteran who lost his right arm during World War II and went on to become a political legend in Hawaii, was a key figure in winning passage of the recovery act. But the new reporting shows that he also played a critical role in the creation of the workarounds. One key example came in the 2000s, when nonprofit organizations near Pearl Harbor unsuccessfully tried to purchase the lands they had long been leasing from the Navy. They turned to Inouye for help. By the late 2000s, Inouye was one of the most powerful members of Congress, eventually becoming chair of the influential Appropriations Committee and the Senate’s president pro tempore, third in line for succession to the U.S. presidency. The nonprofits had built churches, schools and other facilities on the land, and they told his staff they wanted to remain. In interviews, the nonprofits said that after they contacted his office, Inouye in 2009 got language added to the annual military spending bill that enabled the organizations to purchase their leased lands from the Navy for fair market value. Two years later, Inouye added language — a single sentence — to a 566-page spending bill, adding a “clarification of land conveyance” to the 2009 law, specifically exempting those land sales from the recovery act, according to his former chief of staff, Jennifer Sabas. Sabas said in an email that her memory of how the exemption provision came together was fuzzy, but she recalled several lessees had contacted the senator’s office seeking assistance in acquiring the land. Because they had invested so much in those locations over the decades, “he wanted to provide them the opportunity to stay,” Sabas wrote. At the time, Sabas added, Inouye believed other nearby Navy parcels would become available and DHHL could pursue those if interested. But no such offers were made to the trust, according to GSA and Navy records. The Navy told the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica that all the lands covered by that special legislation were acquired by the nonprofits. Through the 2009 and 2011 legislation, six churches, a veterans group and a private school operator purchased more than 20 acres from the Navy between 2013 and 2019, generating roughly $9 million for the federal government, according to public records. That money did not go to the trust. Several of the nonprofits said they were unaware that the land sales had been exempted from the recovery act until they were contacted recently by the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica. Bishop Robert Fitzpatrick of the Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii, which acquired its nearly 3-acre site in 2016 thanks to the special legislation, said that had the diocese known that the trust and its beneficiaries were left out of the process, the church would have reconsidered the purchase. He noted that the church was founded in Hawaii in the 1860s with the aid of the monarchy. “Respecting Hawaiian sovereignty is a core value for us,” he said. Hawaii’s former U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, who voted for the 2009 bill authorizing the land sales, didn’t recall the trust issue being raised at all. “It certainly never occurred to me,” said Abercrombie, who vacated his congressional seat in 2010 to begin a four-year term as governor. “I thought we were doing a good deed.” In addition to the Inouye efforts, one other bill explicitly included a recovery-act exemption. The military spending measure in 2013 authorized the sale of an 11-acre parcel at Navy Hale Keiki School to its nonprofit operator. The exemption language — inserted into the 494-page National Defense Authorization Act — was a copy of what Inouye had put in the 2011 bill, allowing the Navy to convey title to the land before it is “made available for transfer pursuant to the Hawaiian Home Lands Recovery Act.” Robin Danner, chair of the Sovereign Council of Hawaiian Homestead Associations, the largest statewide organization representing those eligible for the homesteading program, blamed Hawaii’s congressional delegation and DHHL for the lost opportunities. She pointed out that DHHL basically has two main federal laws to monitor and said its failure to flag the circumventions was glaring. “This would not have happened if DHHL had been doing its job,” she said. Kahikina, the former commissioner, agreed, saying no one from the agency was aggressively monitoring the situation, enabling the private deals to continue under the radar. Aila, however, pushed back on this point. He said DHHL doesn’t have the staff to monitor all federal legislation, but that it periodically asked GSA about the availability of property. He also pointed out that the recovery act requires the federal government to notify the trust as excess lands become available. A More Indirect Route In addition to the two explicit exemptions, several other pieces of special legislation did not mention the recovery act but had the same end result: The federal government transferred excess lands without offering them to the trust. Many of those acres were in Kalaeloa, part of the region where DHHL has been concentrating development on Oahu in recent years. Close to a dozen other parcels on Maui and the Big Island were in residential neighborhoods. Critics pointed out that the residential quality of the land represented lost opportunities for the trust’s future housing plans. Two of the laws benefitted Hunt Cos., a Texas-based developer that has done Hawaii projects for more than a quarter of a century. Legislation that Congress passed in 1999 and 2006 authorized the Navy to sell or lease land on Oahu to pay for redevelopment of Ford Island, a historic Navy base in Pearl Harbor. Hunt issued a brief statement acknowledging the acquisition of Navy properties but declined to respond to criticisms over the deals. Alan Murakami, who recently retired as an attorney for the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., a nonprofit advocacy group, drew on history to criticize the property deals. Given that the Navy never properly owned the Kalaeloa lands, it “had no moral right to treat [them] as a piggy bank,” he said. Abercrombie, who as a Hawaii congressman and member of the House Armed Services Committee was a key advocate for the 1999 Ford Island legislation, also questioned the Navy’s actions, saying the law was designed to keep all the land in use for military housing. Once the property was placed for sale without maintaining that use, it should have been offered to the trust, Abercrombie added. “It’s crystal clear the Navy had that obligation,” he said. Asked to respond to the criticisms, the Navy spokesperson said the Ford Island law “speaks for itself.” Quoting from the statute, she noted that it was enacted “for the purpose of developing or facilitating the development of Ford Island.” “A Slap in the Face” Just as the workaround deals were picking up momentum, Bode Kalua, 28, a landscaper who is at least half Hawaiian, applied through DHHL for a residential homestead on Oahu. He wanted a place to call home for the family he planned to eventually start. In 2012, DHHL added him to the waitlist, more than 10,000 spaces from the top. Since then, he’s moved up roughly 700 spots, a pace that will keep him waiting for years. Kalua, now the father of three young kids with a fourth on the way, said the circumventions prolonged the waits for applicants ahead of him. He is renting a home on Oahu’s windward side but, like many other lower-income applicants on the waitlist, he and his family have spent time homeless. And the private deals were made during a period in which DHHL’s residential awards fell to record lows, hitting single digits in recent years, as the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica reported last year. “It’s even worse than just a broken promise,” Kalua said of the workarounds. “It’s like a slap in the face.” Sharon Pua Freitas, 55, who applied for an Oahu residential homestead a year after Kalua, shares his disdain. “It bothers me to my core because that was the land that the United States of America illegally took to begin with,” said Freitas, who is more than 9,000 slots deep on the waitlist and has yet to receive a homestead offer. “Now it’s still in somebody else’s hands.” Senators Vow Change Both of Hawaii’s current U.S. senators have voted for legislation to circumvent the recovery act, but they now say they will take steps to ensure the trust isn’t bypassed going forward. “I won’t defend the circumvention of the recovery act,” Sen. Brian Schatz, chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which deals with Native Hawaiian issues, said in an early March interview. “It’s something that I was just made aware of, and I don’t think it should happen going forward.” Schatz voted for the 2013 military spending bill that included one of the two explicit recovery act exemptions and allows a sale to the operator of Hale Keiki school near Pearl Harbor. “I will scour every must-pass bill for anything like this to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said. Sen. Mazie Hirono, who voted for the 2011 legislation with the exemption sentence, said she too was unaware of the implications of the measures for DHHL. “It’s clear there’s a gap here that shouldn’t have existed,” she said in an interview. Prompted by the news organizations’ inquiry, she recently wrote to the heads of the DOD and GSA, the federal agencies required to notify the trust of excess lands, expressing alarm that the state agency wasn’t being properly notified. A senior Pentagon official wrote back to Hirono, saying his office would review the military’s processes for disposing of property in Hawaii “to ensure each is fully consistent” with the recovery act and the 1998 settlement agreement. He also named a liaison within the department to deal directly with DHHL. GSA, which did not comment about the news organizations’ findings, told Hirono that the agency would work with the trust to resolve outstanding recovery-act claims — an apparent continuation of the status quo. “As noted in your letter, GSA is aware of specific congressional actions that have also allowed some landholding agencies to bypass the HHLRA to achieve other goals,” Gianelle Rivera, an associate administrator, wrote in her April 19 letter to the senator. Beneficiaries, lawmakers and others say the best way to prevent the circumvention problem is twofold: Don’t pass legislation allowing that to happen and make sure the federal government notifies DHHL when any excess lands become available.      

[bard-llama]

“Doing Nothing” The Myth of Neutrality

Apparently when someone blocks you, you can’t even reblog your own posts from them. So sorry for the longpost, but I think the message is important to reiterate.

This all comes about because someone with the ironic name “decolonize the left” decided to argue that the only way to dismantle the system of politics in place is to... do nothing???

Amusingly (or not), this is the exact same thing that the GOP, Russian hackers, and other random trolls WANT you to think. Because it directly benefits them. How? Because doing nothing is not a neutral act. Doing nothing actively reinforces the status quo!

Now, it anyone would like to talk about actually decolonizing the left, by all means, feel free to message me. And what I mean by this is: if you want to talk about the impact white supremacy and racism and ableism and sexism and every other ism in the book has on politics? Great! I genuinely enjoy nothing more than dissecting these things!

But disengaging from the process entirely is NOT HOW YOU FIX IT! You can’t do shit if you don’t get involved! The status quo - aka the white supremacist, Christian, Western imperialist culture around us - depends on you doing nothing. Or on you punching down instead of up. Because when you do, you are actively supporting the very system you claim to hate!

I agree, I think things like the American Public Education System should be torn down and completely rebuilt. Why? Because when something was built to support the status quo, you can’t “fix” it. It’s not broken - it’s doing exactly what it was MADE to do: turn out obediant workers for the capitalist entreprenuers to exploit. And then keep them so overwhelmed with just trying to survive that they don’t care about politics. This is an INTENTIONAL thing that has been systemically built into every institution in the country. Because desperate people don’t have time to care about politics, so they can’t advocate for themselves.

That’s depressing, I know. It seems overwhelming - “if you can’t fix it, then what do you do?” The answer is ANYTHING but give up! What you do instead is get involved! Go to school board meetings. Show the electeds that you’re watching them and use the time for audience comments to tell them what you think! Run for school board! You’d be amazed how many school board electeds have exactly 0 background in education or education related fields. There’s a reason for that. It’s in their own self interest to sit on that board and make rulings that benefit them. Your job is to fight back. There are a LOT of ways to do that! I’d encourage everyone to think about if their own leadership journey could include elected office, but that’s far from the only option! Volunteer with community activist groups fighting the things you’re invested in! Pay attention to the policies so that you can spot the ones designed to harm you! Research candidates in your area and know who to vote for - and tell your friends! A TON of people leave the bottom half of their ballot completely blank, because they don’t know any of those names. They only vote for the federal seats, because those are the names you hear on the news. Those are ALSO the people least likely to make decisions that directly affect you! Yes, the president and your senator and your congressperson are important. But they’re not the only ones.

The decision to not raise teacher salaries, which have been stagnant for over a decade, didn’t come from the federal government. The decision to remove Mexican studies for “encouraging dissent” was not made by the federal government. The decision to zone that area for golf courses didn’t come from Congress. These things all happened on the local level - and I guarantee that if you look into your own area, you’ll find similar horrifying decisions that passed without hardly a news mention. This is done on purpose! The GOP and in particular the Tea Party fringe group actively worked from the early 2000s to now to get people that agree with them elected to all of these local positions. I’m talking about school boards and city councils and neighborhood commissions and state legislatures and state-wide and county-wide elected offices. Do you know who is on your water board? No? Do you think that it might be helpful to know who the people that decide how your water gets billed and taxed and treated and shared are?

tl;dr: Your vote matters, especially at the local level. Disengaging from the process only helps the people already in power maintain it.

And if you think that you’d be interested in running for elected office sometime? Good! Your voice is desperately needed, because no one else is speaking up for your community! So, seriously: run for office. And if you want some resources on how to do that, hit me up, because that’s half of what my job used to be.

In the meantime, I leave you with this last piece of advice: look at who the decisionmakers are and look at who is missing from the room. Whether you’re an elected official, an activist, a policy analyst, or... really anything, honestly. The most important question you can ask before finalizing a decision is “who haven’t we heard from? Whose voice has been missing from this conversation?”