neonvincent | Entries tagged with swim

This past week was probably the second busiest week for this blog so far. It surpassed last week in all categories, as I posted 16 entries, a record, readers left ten comments, and the blog received 1006 page views, only the second time that has happened. In contrast, the previous week saw 12 entries, five comments, and 783 page views. This week is off to a good start already, as two people have already left comments. You all keep reading and commenting, and I'll keep posting.

( The week that was behind the cut )

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: conference call for Coffee Party USA
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/369664.html

This past week maintained the pace set the week before, when I posted 12 entries, readers made five comments, and the blog received 783 page views. Last week, I again wrote 12 entries, readers left four comments, one of which was spam, and the blog had 753 page views, more than 100 a day. This past week also saw the first time the blog exceeded 4,000 page views in a month, which happened late Friday. The month ended with 4,181 hits, a record. The stats are already looking good for this week, as readers left six comments, none of which were spam, and the 114 hits for today are well above last Sunday's 65. If this is the new normal, then I'm happy.

This was the last full week of Swim posts and most of my posts fit this theme one way or another, beginning with the previous Weekly Roundup in which I summarized all the previous week's Swim posts. The real Swim posts began with the second post of last Sunday, when I began covering the story of Raquel Nelson in A petition against the criminalization of walking, the most popular post of the week with 128 views. I followed up with Update on petition to decriminalize walking and wrapped up Raquel's story, for this week at least, in Her day in court, in which I also covered the conclusion of Julie Bass's legal journey.

Swimming against the tide of politics was the theme of many of the rest of the week's postings as well, beginning with I haven't forgotten about Troy's library, in which I revisited the struggle to keep local libraries open. The election for the millage will be the day after tomorrow. Look for a post about it. The swim against ignorance continued in Why do Tea Partiers hate high-speed rail?--a post inspired by a reaction to a story covered in Silly Sustainability Saturday: Carmageddon, Tea Partiers against manatees, and Butterbeer from a few weeks ago. This same story made another cameo in Silly Sustainability Saturday: The Onion, more manatees, heat wave denial, and a poem in which a U.S. Representative from Florida actually took their conspiracy theory seriously. If it weren't for the fact that the Tea Partiers are the epitome of what Kunstler calls "corn-pone fascists" who are standing in the way of sustainable solutions, I'd just type "LOL Teabaggers" and be done with them.

I didn't only document other people's attempts to swim against the political and cultural currents. I got up on my virtual soapbox myself. In What motivates Americans to act, I expressed my cynicism about America's screwed up priorities. For further commentary on this subject, read the LiveJournal version of this entry in which I explained why the NFL lockout had been resolved but the debt ceiling hostage crisis so far hasn't. I became a more idealistic in Allow me this rant on an anti-tax meme. I despaired in We could have had the Moon, instead we get Afghanistan. By this morning I was getting a bit punchy, as you can see in Debt Ceiling Cat, which will be in the next weekly roundup.

Of course, I also had the linkspams. This week, I posted only two of them, Sustainability news from Michigan's research universities for the week ending July 23, 2011 and Sustainability news from midwestern research universities for the week ending July 23, 2011. There were articles left over, which I'll collect into another sustainablity in archeology post, probably along with another CoDominion post and a leftovers post. That's in addition to the two linkspams of material I already have saved in another file. Hey, I'm an environmentalist, I recycle.

If you noticed, the previous weekly roundup didn't include a back-catalog champion. That's not the case this week, as Portland is watching "The End of Suburbia" cracked the weekly top ten with 14 page views. It also ended up as one of the top ten posts for July with 47 hits.

By the way, next month's theme for Nablopomo is Fiction. I'm participating. Here's the badge.

More on this theme beginning tomorrow, which will be in a few minutes. See you then!

Originally posted as Weekly Roundup for July 24th through 30th, 2011 on Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: background music for Rift
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/367570.html

After a record-breaking week, things were bound to slow down and they did. I posted 12 entries, readers made five comments, and the blog received 783 page views, down from 14 posts, 13 comments, and 1577 page views last week. Even so, I count it as a good week, as it was on par with the week before with eleven posts, five comments, and 832 page views of the week before. If nothing else, page views remained well above the average of 560 per week for all of May and June. Besides, Saturday saw the 10,000th page view in this history of this blog and on July 20th the number of monthly page views exceeded 3,000 for the first time ever. People are reading me, so I'm happy.

Most of my posts counted as Swim posts this week, although they weren't quite the ones I had in mind this time last week. To begin with, I counted Weekly Roundup for July 10th through 16th, 2011 as a Swim post, as a good chunk of the opening described my swimming against the stream of spam that flows into any blog with traffic. Bloody Vikings! I continued pursuing the Swim angle in my followup to Silly Sustainability Saturday: Carmageddon, Tea Partiers against manatees, and Butterbeer, Cyclists, subway rider, and rollerblader all beat jet during Carmageddon involved the advocates of sustainable transportation as well as a blogger about California Highways swimming against the stream of conventional wisdom about traffic. I also included the peaceful yet entertaining cosplaying protesters of In Chile, superheroes dance against austerity as people swimming against the tide of austerity sweeping the planet.

In a way, the local stories I covered could also be considered swimming against the tide, sometimes unsuccessfully. The demise of Borders Books, which I wrote about in Borders Books 1971-2011 and The funeral for Borders Books begins chronicled the end of my favorite booksellers to remain in business after two decades of swimming against the tide of their competitors and their own poor business decisions. The same could be said about my coverage of the heat wave in both Hot enough for you? and Still hot enough for you?, which described how people, animals, and the power grid were trying to beat the heat and sometimes failing. Some attempts actually involved swimming pools, turning Swim from metaphor to reality.

Finally, even my compilations of sustainability news items could be considered Swim posts. I explicitly labeled Sustainability news from Michigan's research universities for the week ending July 16, 2011 and Sustainability news from midwestern research universities for the week ending July 16, 2011 as such because I was too tired to comment on each item and it was an effort even to post them. I didn't make that claim for Sustainability in unexpected places: archeology 2, but I didn't comment on the individual items there, either. The heat was getting to me, too.

On the other hand, I was able to make comments on both Science and society for the week ending July 16, 2011 and Silly Sustainability Saturday: Boobs and Haboobs. In the first, I voiced my frustration with people making pro-austerity and anti-sustainability decisions; I was the one swimming against the stream there. In the second, I pointed out how the people who are frustrating me are themselves swimming against reality. I have confidence that reality will win, eventually.

That's it for last week. As for this week, I already have at least one post a day planned. There are three nearly completed linkspams already saved to another file, as well as the notes for the same four Swim posts that I had on tap last week, along with an article about Detroit a reader posted on my Facebook wall that I've already promised to cover. That doesn't even cover anything else I might write about, such as Julie Bass's court date on Tuesday. As I keep writing, I don't have to worry about finding something to write about the rest of the month. Blogging about sustainability in metro Detroit means never running out of material!

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: air conditioning
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/365400.html

Video removed because it autoplays--watch it at Crazy Eddie's Motie News

Video accompanies The Daily Telegraph's article Chile superheroes dance for education reform
Hundreds of caped avengers dance in downtown Santiago, as part of a demonstration for education changes.

After being bummed by Borders going out of business, I could use something like the above to cheer me up. Not only is it a demonstration by young people against austerity (the students want lower tuition and cheaper bus passes), something we've seen from Cairo to London, it's a creative and fun way to attract attention and get the point across. In fact, the students in Chile have been particularly creative, as the BBC video about this story shows, as they also staged a kissing protest. The BBC video, in fact, gives a lot more context than the one above, but I couldn't find an embed code for it, so The Telegraph wins.

As for how the story is being covered in the U.S., I present the lede from NBC 9 News in Colorado.

Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman demonstrated for education reform in Chile Monday night.

I saw more than just those the big three from DC Comics. I also recognized Huntress, Sailor Moon, and Mario from the Mario Brothers video games. It was a true geek riot.

I salute the Chilean students, who are swimming against the stream while flying their geek flag high!

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: "Everybody Dance Now"
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/364765.html

...are over at Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Silly Sustainability Saturday: Carmageddon, Tea Partiers against manatees, and Butterbeer

Cyclists, subway rider, and rollerblader all beat jet during Carmageddon

I figured out how the subway rider beat the flight in the second post. That I worked on the first leg of the subway helped. Also, cahwyguy gets a cameo in the second post as well.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: dogs barking
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/363878.html

This past week was the busiest so far at Crazy Eddie's Motie News, whether one measured it in terms of posts (14), page views (1577), or comments (13). This topped last week, where the comparable stats were eleven posts, 832 page views, and only five comments, itself a very good week. For comparison, this blog averaged 560 views/week during all of May and June, 486 views/week for April, May, and June, its first three full months, and 488 views/week the week before last. As I mentioned in Boosting the signal about Oak Park's "War on Veggies", I thank the readers of Oak Park Hates Veggies for making this possible, with 369 referrals last month, at least 216 of which came last week alone. This puts Julie Bass's blog in third place as the source of views for this blog throughout its history so far, behind only Kunstler's blog, where I have been promoting my blog every week since my first post here, and Google, which just happens to own Blogspot. Again, thank you, and keep reading!

This past week also saw another milestone--my first spam comments. I know a blog hasn't arrived until it gets enough traffic to make it a worthwhile target for spammers.That's the good news. The bad news is that I should be careful what I wish for.

Honestly, I'd like more comments. I could even deal with a couple of trolls, as I'm not above trolling my own comments sections.

Trolls I don't mind, as I can hold my own against them. Spammers are another matter. From July 13th:

This blog achieved a milestone today. It received its first spam comment. However, it's not such a milestone that it was worth saving. The spam was canned.

Now, July 16th:

This blog has arrived. I've gone from no spam comments to not one, but two spam comments in one week. I have advice for you. If you want to promote your blog or a relevant news story, fine. If you want to advertise for a commercial enterprise not germane to the topic of this blog (and education isn't really it), your comment will be hidden. Bye!

I don't make any money off this blog, so no one else gets to, either!

( Enough of my swimming against the stream of spam--on to the week's posts in review. )

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/363672.html

In addition to my posts about the travails of Julie Bass here on Crazy Eddie's Motie News, I've been blogging about it elsewhere, beginning with posts to my Dreamwidth and my LiveJournal. I've also posted it to ontd_political on Dreamwidth, unfunnybusiness on JournalFen, and peakoil_prep and ontd_political twice on LiveJournal. The results have been very satisfying.

For starters, those posts have received lots of comments. The winner so far has been the first post on ontd_political on LJ, Michigan Woman could go to jail for planting vegetable garden, which prompted 126 comments. Next is the unfunnybusiness post, Woman in Oak Park, Michigan, could go to jail up to 93 days for planting a garden, with 39 comments. The followup to ontd_political, Update: Michigan woman no longer going to jail for her garden but now in trouble for her dogs, has 21 comments and counting. The mirrored posts on my LJ currently have nine comments and their counterparts on Dreamwidth have six. In contrast, I have a grand total of eight comments on the same posts so far here on Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

This mirrors the situation with the rest of the Swim posts here on Crazy Eddie's Motie News, which have a grand total of three comments on the non-Julie Bass posts, two on the five posts about Kunstler and one on the post about Elaine Meinel Supkis, two once I respond. In contrast, the LiveJournal mirror of James Howard Kunstler swims against the stream on gender role equality, too alone received 13 comments, which I pointed out in Follow up to women in Kunstler's fiction. Honestly, I'd like more comments. I could even deal with a couple of trolls, as I'm not above trolling my own comments sections.

On the other hand, I have been getting readers from the signal boosting posts, with 108 views from JournalFen and 69 from ontd_political on LJ during the past week, handily beating out what I'm getting from Facebook, just 16 referrals. Even the hits coming from my own LJ, nine so far this week, are beating out what came in from Twitter, which is not even in the top ten sources. Facebook and Twitter may be the big boys on the blog, but they aren't the traffic drivers people think they are. Google, on the other hand, is my friend, with 176 hits. The big winner turns out to be Julie's own blog, which referred 296 readers in one week. Thank you, all of you coming here from Oak Park Hates Veggies!

Just the same, I've had nine days in a row and 11 days out of the last 12 with more than 100 hits, so I have no room to complain. On that note, welcome new readers, and keep the page views coming!

Speaking of signal boosting, above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: dogs barking
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/363114.html

In the previous installment, I described how Oak Park's "War on Veggies" went viral. The resulting brouhaha had the effect it intended--the prosecution against Julie Bass for her raised garden beds in her front yard--but Oak Park has found another way to continue waging war against her for daring to fight city hall. The video won't embed here, but it did embed at Crazy Eddie's Motie News, where it is larger than the version embedded at Oak Park Drops Charges Against Julie Bass and Her Vegetable Garden: MyFoxDETROIT.com. You can also read the Detroit Free Press article, Oak Park woman faces dog trouble after veggie case is dropped. Then come back here.

So the good news is that Julie Bass is no longer facing charges. All of you who raised a stink by reporting and blogging on the issue, commenting on blog and news posts, signing the petition, and sending in letters and emails to the city of Oak Park can pat yourselves on the back. Your efforts succeeded.

The bad news is that the way the story is being reported, not only in the Fox 2 Detroit clip above, but also in the Detroit News article and on Julie's own blog, indicates that the city dropped the charge by asking for it to be dismissed without prejudice. That means that that the city could reinstate the charge any time before the statute of limitations ran out. Note the coda of the report was that the city prosecutor was going to re-examine the language of the statute. If he figures out a defensible reading of the statute that allows him to go after Julie, he can file those charges again. As Julie herself describes it, it feels like her own Sword of Damocles hanging over her.

The ugly news is the city resuming their prosecution of Julie for her dogs. The sequence of events makes it look like the city is being, as Julie wrote in her most recent post, "malicious." Julie's lawyer Solomon Radner elaborated in this quote from the Detroit News, "This is really nothing other than a personal vendetta against the Basses either because somebody doesn't like them, or because they had the nerve to fight this unjust prosecution." I think the answer is mostly the latter.

Since I believe in closing circles, I think the good news is that Julie and her lawyer will appear in court on July 26th, present the proof that the dogs are licensed, and those charges will be dismissed. Even so, this entire affair has made the city of Oak Park look even worse in my eyes than it already did.

When my wife and I were looking for places to live in Oakland County, my co-workers who lived in Oak Park tried to convince me to move there. Unfortunately, when my wife and I looked at houses in the city, we were less than impressed. We got a very conformist, unfriendly, and not-at-all fun vibe from the place, so we decided to look in Ferndale and Royal Oak, which were more to our liking.

When I played the Fox 2 Detroit clip to my wife, she said that we were never going to live in Oak Park. She didn't care if we found the ideal house there at a perfect price in a great neighborhood, we won't move there. I completely agree.

Finally, stay tuned. This isn't over yet.

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: air conditioning
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/362999.html

Paul Krugman being reviewed in a sustainablity blog? Yes. Remember that the intersection between a thriving economy and a just society is a bearable social economy, and Krugman is all about that, while his rivals are not. Besides, he's probably the most visible mainstream economist who takes the environment seriously, and doesn't just write it off as a series of externalities. However, that's not why I'm writing about him tonight. Krugman is also an academic, and he's dismayed at how his intellectual opponents at the University of Chicago refuse to accept the reality of today's economic situation.

Reading Noah Smith reading John Cochrane solidified a thought I’ve been grasping at for a while: the extraordinary lengths to which the Chicago School is going to avoid a straightforward interpretation of the mess we’re in.
...
[A]t Chicago and elsewhere in the freshwater universe they’re playing Calvinball (and what a good coinage that was from Mike Konczal). All kinds of novel and implausible effects — effects that weren’t in any of the models they were using before the crisis — are invoked to explain why we’re in a sustained slump; strange to say, all of these newly invented models just happen to imply the need for tax cuts and a shrunken welfare state.

But I don’t think it’s just political bias: part of what’s happening, I’m sure, is intellectual embarrassment. These people come from a movement that declared, with great arrogance, that Keynesian economics was dead – then failed to produce a workable alternative, and now finds itself in what is very recognizably a Keynesian world. Recognizably, that is, to everyone but them, because admitting that Keynesian-type thinking is useful now would just be too humiliating.

As one academic to another, I pointed out both the deeper problem and the solution.

The physicist Max Planck had this to say about progress in his field, "Science advances one funeral at a time." If economics works the same way, then the freshwater economists have exploited this process to make economics retreat, not advance. It will take decades of work by the saltwater economics departments churning out Ph.D.s to undo the damage.

So, Dr. Krugman, how many grad students are you advising these days?

I've seen this dynamic in action before, so I know what Krugman has to do in addition to being a public intellectual--train more people who think like him to outcompete his rivals. If nothing else, doing so would piss off his academic rivals no end, as it would be a sign that they haven't won, and won't have succeeded for the rest of their lifetimes.

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: cranky
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: background music for Rift
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/362126.html

Today, you get a two for one special: The Bard of Murdock on Julie Bass--two bloggers swimming against the stream.

With the permission of the author.

RE: The Oak Park Outlaw Poem

If you'd like to post my verse
At Crazy Eddie's News,
I say, "Why Not? Go Ahead."
For how could I refuse?

I ask for attribution
And with the poem a link:
thebardofmurdock.com
A fair exchange, I think.

Thank you, and done.

The Oak Park Outlaw

The scofflaw, Julie Bass,
Rejected trees and grass,
And took to life of crime
With parsley, sage and thyme.

Her crime is avant garde:
The beds in her front yard
Contain illegal greens,
Like peppers, peas and beans.

Thank God the planner saw
Within the public law,
A means to prosecute
Before she planted fruit.

The plaintiff, Kevin R.,
The Oak Park planning czar,
Will see the line is toed
By pointing to the code.

But folks can misconstrue
What’s ‘suitable’ to do,
So Kevin has deferred
To ‘common’ as his word.

And what is more unique
Than cucumber or leek,
When planted in a bed
Where grass should grow instead.

Uncommon as they are
Outside a mason jar,
She’ll need to clear her yard
Of broccoli and chard.

Then justice will prevail,
And Oak Park can exhale,
Devoid of squash and kale,
With Julie safe in jail.

Originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: background music for Rift
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/361888.html

In James Howard Kunstler swims against the stream on marriage equality, I pointed out three areas, marriage equality, hard currency, and immigration, where Kunstlers ideas didn't square with his self-professed liberal identity. I emphasized his issues with immigration policy in Happy 4th of July from James Howard Kunstler's Tea Party!, in which I commented on the following passage from My Tea Party.

My tea party would reduce legal immigration to a tiny trickle and get serious about enforcing sanctions against people who are here without permission...The truth is that neither party really wants to do anything about the extraordinary influx of Mexican nationals because they want to pander to a growing segment of Hispanic voters (or secondarily want to maintain the pool of cheap labor for US businesses). My party does not believe in unbounded multi-culturalism. My party also views the lawlessness of the current situation to be corrosive of the rule-of-law generally. My party views the global population overshoot problem as a condition that requires a more rigorous defense of US territory, sovereign resources, and even whatever remains of American common culture.

One particular paragraph of my response bore directly on this paragraph.

There is already an answer to the Tea Party based on critical thinking. It's called the Coffee Party...They quite agree with Jim about the major parties being hostages to political money, and would also agree about many of his goals. The only thing they would not agree with Jim about would be severe restrictions on legal immigration, as Annabel Park, the Coffee Party's nominal leader, is Korean-American and would not get on board with any policy she sees as immigrant bashing.

Given that background, it should come as no surprise that Kunstler himself would bring up his zero tolerance stance on immigration, however indirectly, and that I would jump on him for it.

Old Allen Ginsburg got it right fifty years ago: "America, go fuck yourself with your atom bomb," he said. Even back then, in the age of purple people eaters and the weird neutered figure of Ozzie Nelson lurking in kitchen with nothing to do but drink endless cups of coffee, all was not so well. Freedom to cruise for burgers turned out to be a pretty trashy thing, considering all the blood and sacrifice that preceded those days of fun in the California sunshine. Look at California now: Nathanial West Meets Aztlan (coming soon on home video). Who put that locust in my burrito?

( My response caught a lot of fish, including one that I kept and am putting on display as a trophy. )

Above originally posted at Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Location: Detroit where the weak are killed and eaten
Current Music: rain
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/361635.html

I posted the following to unfunnybusiness on JournalFen, where it is awaiting moderation. It was adapted from Oak Park's "War on Veggies" goes viral on Crazy Eddie's Motie News. I'll be posting a different version on ontd_political on both Dreamwidth and LiveJournal shortly.

Here's a story I've been following on my blog since July 30th, when I posted Oak Park Woman plants vegetable garden; city objects. In it, I summarized the situation.

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

( As someone familiar with the area, I'm not surprised this is happening in Oak Park. )

Beginning Friday, July 8th, the number of hits on that post began climbing dramatically. When I investigated how that happened, I found out that Drudge happened.

A couple of days ago, Matt Drudge placed a link to The Agitator's post on his front page with the headline "Woman faces 93 days in jail for planting garden in front yard..." Since then, the story has spread like wildfire. ( Here is a list of the media sources I've found covering this story with links to their articles. )

As for how Drudge was indirectly responsible, he drove traffic to The Agitator, which drove traffic Julie Bass's blog OakParkHateVeggies, where she has a link to my post. Even from three steps away, Drudge increased my readership. Behold the power of Drudge.

In case you're wondering what you can do about it, there is a petition. 4,400 people signed it by Friday, less than a week after it was put up.

Current Mood: irate
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: cicaidas
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/360963.html

It's been a full week since I last updated on Oak Park's "War on Veggies", so it's time to recap this week's developments.

First, I stopped by Julie Bass's house on Thursday just to see for myself what all the fuss was about.* I didn't have a camera, but Julie herself posted a photo of her front yard earlier that day, saving me the trouble. The images aren't embedding properly, so surf over to her blog to see for yourself.

Here's what the beds look like from the sidewalk (posted last Saturday).

Thanks, Julie, for posting those photos. I hope you don't mind my ~~hotlinking~~ borrowing them to illustrate this post!

Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with her front yard. In fact, I think it looks better than her neighbor's lawns, which the July sun has turned dry and yellow. While I think I know what the city of Oak Park's problem is, if I didn't have any preconceived notions, I wouldn't understand why they are objecting.

In other news, Sue Ann Reed from Care2 commented on my first post on the issue with the following.

Hello,

I saw your blog post about Julie Bass and the ridiculous idea that she is facing criminal charges and potential jail time for growing a garden in her own yard.

The folks from the Urban Homesteading Facebook page have set up a petition on Care2 and we would love your help spreading the word.

Here's the link to the petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/oak-park-hates-veggies/

I promised to post that link the next time I updated on the issue, so, to quote the Emperor of Austria-Hungary from "Amadeus," there it is. Of course I signed, and I urge all of you reading to do so, too.

Other people besides Julie and I have started blogging about this issue. Julie herself published a guest post from Sundari Kraft of Eat Where U Live. Sundari had earlier published an entry to her own blog, Front Yard Gardens vs. a Lack of Common Sense the same day I first posted about Oak Park's "War on Veggies". Sundari agrees with me about the esthetics of the garden.

The vegetable are not unruly or untended — in fact, it’s one of the tidiest raised-bed gardens I’ve seen in a long time.

It's a great post, and you should read it.

Finally, the same day Julie published Sundari's guest post, Urban Homestead Diaries posted In Oak Park Michigan it is Illegal to Grow Veggies in your Front Yard, Seriously. As you read, they were the ones who set up the petition mentioned above. As of the day of the post, 500 people had signed the petition.

As for the rest of the story, read Julie Bass's blog. She has more to say on the matter than I could possibly summarize in a "brief update!"

*My commute takes me through Oak Park, so I didn't have to go far out of my way to do this.

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: tipsy
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: battle on Rift
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/360935.html

In James Howard Kunstler swims against the stream on gender role equality, too, I mentioned another blogger in passing.

By the way, was one of the people who objected to your protrayal of women your neighbor up on the hill, Elaine Meinel Supkis?* I know she thinks you got it wrong about dogs in the "World Made by Hand" and I agree with her.
...
* Elaine Meinel Supkis blogs on Culture of Life News. I reviewed her old blog on my LiveJournal. She is another great example of a blogger swimming against the tide who deserves her own post, and I'll have to review her new blog later this month. Yes, my plate continues to fill up.

( The review of Elaine's use of anime at her old blog, with elaborations on the post from my archives, behind the cut. )

As for her telling Kunstler that he was wrong about dogs in his post-peak-oil future, she did so in her review of "A World Made by Hand." It's a long post, and she has even more to say about dogs on both her old site and her new one, so look for my commentary on those posts later.

Above originally posted at Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: my wife singing to the cats
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/360329.html

I mirrored James Howard Kunstler swims against the stream on gender role equality, too to my LiveJournal, where a lively discussion resulted. In particular, pay attention to this thread, in which commenters provided even more examples of Kunstler's misogyny and masculism, such as Kunstler's review of "Master and Commander."

The commenter Nebris has a special perspective. Kunstler was his summer camp counselor at Camp Mascoma during the early 1960s, so Nebris known him for a long time. For his insights, I recommend you read his entry In Which Her Prophet Cogitates Upon The Deeper Motivations Of Two Doomers. One of the two doomers is Kunstler, and Nebris' observations take new meaning in light of what I wrote yesterday. The other is John Michael Greer, the Archdruid. Nebs has even more pointed things to say about him. I plan to post commentaries on Nebris' observations of both of them as part of this month's series on bloggers swimming against the stream. Nebs himself will not be immune. He'll have his time in the spotlight this month as well.

Originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: The Daily Show
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/359700.html

A couple of days ago, I wrote this conclusion to my post about Kunstler's skepticism about marriage equality.

I already have my plate full with completing the sustainability linkspams and at least two more posts about Kunstler swimming against the tide, including even more gender fail.

That's right. Kunstler's skepticism about marriage equality was not the only gender equality fail in Man Down, as he defended his depiction of gender roles in his fiction in the very next next paragraph.

I had an interesting experience with my last two books (World Made By Hand and The Witch of Hebron), which were set in a post-oil, post economic collapse American future and depicted daily life in a way that was quite unlike the way we live right now. I received a heap of criticism from female readers - including peak oil activists - full of consternation that I did not present female characters in the kinds of dominant valorized roles that are favored today: the post-oil equivalent of CEO, news anchor, CIA-Ninja warrior, Presidential candidate. What struck me was their complete failure of imagination. They could not conceive of male / female relations that were different than today's, even in a world that had been turned economically upside down.

( I had something to say about that paragraph, too. )

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: air conditioning
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/359457.html

I made two comments about what I'd post on July 4th. First, from the most recent weekly roundup:

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.

Then, in part one of my sustainability news linkspams, I speculated on what I'd do for July 4th.

I might also make a special post on July 4th to observe Kunstler's My Tea Party, which was posted almost exactly a year ago. He's also swimming against the flow in that one. Since I'm a member of Coffee Party USA, I really can't leave that opportunity unexploited.

Why not combine the two?

First, happy U.S. Independence Day!

( And now, James Howard Kunstler's My Tea Party, edited for clarity and Fair Use, with commentary afterwards. )

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: air conditioning
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/359185.html

In my previous post on Crazy Eddie's Motie News, I made this programming note.

Another departure is that I won't be posting the sustainability linkspams one right after the other. I plan on interrupting them tomorrow with another post about bloggers swimming against the stream. This one will be about what Kunstler wrote regarding marriage equality in New York and will be a demonstration that I don't admire all bloggers who go against the flow.

Kunstler had the following to say about marriage equality.

Which brings me to the troublesome subject of gay marriage, which is lately up for debate in the legislature of New York State where I live, making it the public's business. I have an unpopular view of it for men of my demographic (Democrat, Boomer). I'm not in favor of it. I don't think it is a good idea. I don't have empirical proof, but I suspect that unsettling such an age-old and fundamental social arrangement will produce strange unanticipated consequences that we are not prepared for. I don't believe gay marriage is a genuine social justice issue. I think it is a bid for a kind of broad social approbation which does not require ritual enactment in law, and would be socially mischievous to pursue. Civil unions would cover the necessary legal issues. Otherwise, it is a case of unwarranted relativism, a Boomer weakness. Not all conditions or states of being in this world are the same. Some things are on the margins because they are marginal.

What fascinates me in the debate is the narcissism of Boomers, males especially, who advocate so earnestly in favor of gay marriage. Is it really about the law and social relations, or is it about making yourself feel good? Is it just more posturing for moral brownie points, for approval? Is your job and social position or maybe even sense of yourself at stake if you have a differing view?

( As you can guess, this did not go over well. )

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: air conditioning
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/359129.html

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.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: air conditioning
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/358479.html

The following arrived in my email last night.

Hi bloggers,

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.

As always, bloggers planning on posting every day in July who would like to be on the blogroll can go here and follow the directions at the top of the page. The "official" July badge is here, but please feel free to create your own and add it to the comments there for others to share.

Of course I'm participating. The only question is which blog to submit to the blogroll. I don't have to decide right away. As the instructions at the top of the July blogroll state, "The July blogroll is open until July 4th." I'll probably post to both my Dreamwidth/LiveJournal and Crazy Eddie's Motie News on Blogspot and see how I feel about each on the 4th. Either would work, but I never get worn out from blogging on LJ. I do get burned out knowing I have to blog daily on my Blogspot. Based on that alone, I should probably use my LJ. Since I'm a procrastinator, I'm still waiting until the 4th to decide.

Current Mood: indifferent
Current Location: Detroit
Current Music: background music for Rift
Crossposts: http://darksumomo.livejournal.com/358318.html