Woman in Oak Park, Michigan, swims against the tide by planting vegetables in her front yard

On Dreamwidth and LiveJournal, I passed on the following yesterday.

July's theme for daily blogging: SWIM. Hopefully the Southern Hemisphere will forgive the Northern Hemisphere for having swimming on the brain. But it's more than just pools -- when things are going well, we say they're going swimmingly. We can sink or swim. And of course there are always bloggers swimming against the stream. I think it's a theme everyone can dive into.

For today's example of "bloggers swimming against the stream," I present Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan, who blogs as OakParkHateVeggies on Wordpress. I wrote about her on Crazy Eddie's News on Tuesday in Oak Park Woman plants vegetable garden; city objects, which is the most read post on the blog this week. I guess rebels for sustainability are popular.

Here's my summary of her situation.

[T]he Bass family of Oak Park lost their lawn when the sewer line running under their front yard was replaced. Instead of replacing it with a lawn, they replaced it with a vegetable garden. Their neighbors complained to the city and the city has cited them with a criminal violation of city ordinances. The Basses and the city have a court date on July 26th. Mrs. Bass has started a blog, OakParkHateVeggies on Wordpress, to record her experience.

ETA: Mrs. Bass posted a more complete summary after I wrote (and she read) the above. Please read it.

Those are the facts. For commentary, surf over to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

ETA: She now has a Facebook page up, Oak Park Hates Veggies.

Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Weekly Roundup for June 25th through July 2nd, 2011

It was a busy week on Crazy Eddie's Motie News, as I posted ten entries to this blog, eleven including this one.

This week's sustainability roundup grew like Topsy from the usual three posts to five plus a follow-up for a total of six entries. Unlike last week's linkspam, I had no trouble finding general sustainability stories. You and I can thank President Obama for that. He really likes the idea of sustainable development packaged as making America competitive. In fact, he made cameo appearances in the first three parts.

The first two parts went according to plan, with Sustainability news from Michigan's research universities for the week ending June 25, 2011 and Sustainability news from midwestern research universities for the week ending June 25, 2011 posted in their usual order. Then the material started dictating the format and order.

Part three split into three posts, with what would normally have been part four, Sustainability in unexpected places: archeology 1 posted in the third slot. This post served double duty, as it was not only a linkspam, but started off an irregular series about sustainability in unexpected places. I posted the nominal part three, Sustainability news from national and international sources for the week ending June 25, 2011 fourth in the series. The last post split off the planned part three became Sustainability video linkspam for the week ending June 25, 2011. That post begat a follow-up, More on Slutwalk in Grand Rapids, which I also posted to my Dreamwith and my LiveJournal as "Grand Rapids Slutwalk" and a different version to ontd_political on LiveJournal as Grand Rapids holds first Slutwalk in Michigan. As for why I devoted two posts to the event on a sustainability blog, I provided my own answer.

Remember, the social component of sustainability is about promoting a just society. So is the movement described above.

I closed out first the month of June and then the week about a very local issue that goes to the heart of obstacles in the way of preparing for sustainability. On Thursday, a video on WXYZ-TV's YouTube channel caught my attention and prompted me to write Oak Park Woman plants vegetable garden; city objects. I combined that entry, the most popular I wrote during the past week, with the NaBloPoMo posts on my Dreamwidth and my LiveJournal to produce the follow-up, Woman in Oak Park swims against the stream, plus Nablopomo for July. Watch for more on this story throughout the rest of July.

I began July by wishing Detroit's neighbors across the river Happy Canada Day! It's the first of three patriotic holidays I celebrate on my blogs during the month of July, so expect greetings for July 4th and 14th as well.

I also posted my weekly summary of gas price action here in metro Detroit in Meta about Kunstler's blog and gas prices, a follow-up to the previous week's Gas prices drop for a second week in Metro Detroit, which just happened to be the most popular post this week from my back catalog, handly beating out U.S.-China EcoPartnerships: The CoDominion plans for sustainability, last week's back catalog champion. Promoting posts on Kunstler's blog pays off again!

With that, this week's cycle ends. It begins anew with the weekend sustainability news linkspam, which I will start preparing as soon as I post this entry and then post starting tomorrow night. See you then!

Originally posted on Crazy Eddie's Motie News as Weekly Roundup for June 25th through July 2nd, 2011.