Santa Barbara Fire PIO: "Vehicle Into Building: 7300 Blk Calle Real, Goleta. Sedan w/two adult males drove through store causing major damage. Driver transported to Goleta Valley ER w/minor injuries. No injuries to customers. Fire personnel assisting with cleanup. Store closed. CT 3:35pm"
Family member (as we drive past the "demonstration bicycle lane" here -- which they are not aware of). "Why do they have to have so many cones here? I'm so tired of traffic cones..." 🥺
(The bicycle advocates here have complained that the "bicycle demo lane" only will cause driver complaints, and that seems to support that thought.)
@ai6yr These things are often done poorly because car-centric planners want them to fail. Not sure if that's what's happening there, but it has happened elsewhere.
Basically, you have to move as quickly as you do with auto infrastructure. There are no "pilot projects" for auto stuff - they just make the change and deal with any complaints as they come.
With cycle stuff, they still prioritize drivers' complaints, wishes and are tentative and half-assed about cycle changes.
I hate when media does inspiration porn stories in general, but particularly when:
They let a newly disabled person with tons of internalized ableism become "the voice of disabled people"
and
When that "success story" clearly came from access to therapeutic supports the average person doesn't have, yet now everyone who doesn't meet their standard of recovery "must not be trying hard enough". #Ableism@disability
@disability I mean, "I've always taken the approach of, ‘I don't want to let this limit me. I'm still going to just live life and push through any struggle that this might be.’ So I never really saw myself as ‘disabled,’ so to speak. It never crossed my mind that I could potentially classify for the Paralympics.”" is a dead giveaway as the internalized ableism.
AARP says AT & T is trying to eliminate landlines in CA. I have a landline not just for DSL but because it has beeen my experience that (a) regulation on landlines is better than regulation on cellphones (b) landlines often work better in an emergency than cellphones do.
Some people live places where they can get landlines, but cell service is awful. We need landlines!
I often see abled urbanists leaping on the words of any disabled person who says that they can get along without a car, but not being as eager to boost efforts of disabled people pointing out inaccessible infrastructure that often prevents them from dumping cars.
Don't be that person - be as willing to boost (and work for) calls for accessibility as you are to boost disabled people who happen to cycle.
Both abled car-centrists and abled urbanists use disabled people as a cudgel in arguments. Emphasis on "use".
Make your movement accessible, then when disabled ppl are involved - listen. Then get active on problems disabled ppl identify.
We cannot equitably drastically reduce personal motor vehicle use (as we need to) without prioritizing making public transit, train, and cycle infrastructure fully accessible in ways that allow for disabled people to get around independently #Cycling#Urbanism
@AccordionBruce Yup. I love history so it was hard at first for me to see the ire of disabled people who get left out because it's "historical", but history buffs don't insist on admission rates based on even worse historical racism & sexism than we have now, for example. They don't insist on killing some of your kids because in the past we had high infant mortality.
So they have to get off their high horses and stop preserving inequitable infrastructure in the name of it being "historical".
If you are an informed, intelligent, compassionate, in-any-way-science-literate person, how are you coping with living through these times? What's helping?
No snark, please. I'm interested in sincere, practical answers.
@ShaulaEvans It's not easy because I don't have much of a social support network in general - if you do have one, lean on them for moral support because of course it can be depressing.
But what I do is what I've always done: as much as I have $ and other resources to do. Even now I'm not hopeless - we could turn this thing around if we all worked on it. And even if folks don't work on it, I'd rather be part of the solution than the problem.
@ShaulaEvans So being politically active, changing my own lifestyle, helping others as they change theirs. Not just on the defensive, but go on the offensive - work for positive sustainable things that give you joy - carbon is fixed by plants so if you like gardening, look into which native plants provide the most habitat and are suitable for where you can plant things. Tend those. Observe your local biodiversity increasing as a result.
@ShaulaEvans Work on the big picture stuff that goes after corporations and the rich because they're creating the most GHGs, but also tend to your local community and build fun community with your family of choice. Reach out to the most vulnerable members of your community homeless, disabled, BIPOC, LGBTQIA, etc. to work with them on inclusive climate resiliance plans you can implement now.
Burton is an 85-pound, 3-year-old long-haired German Shepherd. Across his furry black and brown back, he wears a harness that reads, “Please pet,” and at his ceremony, many in attendance did just that.
@clive I am very much pro-e-bike and use them myself (cycled "acoustically" for years before I got osteoarthritis in the knees).
My concern is that car-centrists have looked at California's e-bike definitions and created what is essentially an electric Vespa without the regulations & training a Vespa driver would be subject to.
This stokes ire against cyclists & increases crackdowns on all e-cycle riders instead of drivers.
@ai6yr An interesting journalism story would be to do a deep dive on pineapple colonialism and pineapple symbolism in the West. This pineapple and the fact that it's Dole responsible for it, would not stand out in that context. There's a long backstory. Many writings on it, but this is a short read as a start. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-housewarming-pineapple-symbol
Today's top story: “Active Clubs can best be understood as modern-day skinheads, as they often engage in the same networks, activities, and ideologies.”
@msquebanh Yes. This is why I get angry at people who think they're doing disabled people in the US a favor by supporting the law that allows "sheltered workplaces" where disabled people get paid less than US minimum wage.
I've had folks I know online who have disabled relatives get really angry at me over my stance on sheltered workshops. But those corps are like that "lucky I even hire gimps" and taking every advantage.