Luke O. @loppear@social.coop

"We can try to wipe the glass clean, but we are still looking through the window of our experience." - Kate O'Neill

#Reading Jenny Odell's #HowToDoNothing call to reclaim attention from advertising social networks to retain more will and more connection->sensitivity->attentiveness to place and region. Discusses #mastodon briefly towards the end as well as #ssb, I quite like the idea of a home-based pub/instance for when folks visit, in our case almost a Guestbook (and echoes early bbs and web guestbooks). It is a beautiful book of non-traditonal art criticism and contextualism as well.

"I concluded from my reading of classical economics that the creation of poverty is as fully intentional as the creation of wealth"

Reading Woolf's #ARoomOfOnesOwn and thinking about why poverty and inferiority are useful to the powerful. Thinking back to Kendi's #StampedFromTheBeginning and how the U.S. is a racist nation, no diversion required from our historic role to subjugate. Thinking about our southern border. Reading Vollmann's #HarpersMagazine essay on that, ends by quoting #ForWhomTheBellTolls, "There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes."

Marilynne Robinson #HarpersMagazine essay "Is Poverty Necessary"

Just read #ParadiseLot an inspiring account of home-scale #permaculture successes and failures over a decade growing perennial vegetables and fruits in new England. Lots to plan from, although it is largely memoir.

The bipinnate leaves of this pecan fan out from directly underneath in a mesmerizing echo of rippling circles of rain water.

This summer of road trips I intend to visit a number of community/cooperative inspirations from years of reading:

The Nearings / Good Life Center
Greenbelt, MD
Twin Oaks Intentional Community
Truth or Consequences, NM

But I'm also headed through lots of the midwest and west, so what similarly broadly construed inspirations should I read and see (that aren't Pacific Coastal)?

#fec #ic #cooperative #homestead #community

#Reading Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich (1970), and The Weight Of Light: A collection of solar futures (2018)

Anarchy Cat Dumpster

Austin TX

Attended an interesting Solarize regional pitch tonight. They basically do 12mo campaigns targeted at a city or region to RFP a solar installer, recruit residential and commercial installs, and tier pricing based on total kWh for the campaign. Was surprised to learn 25yr equip guarantees (85% output) are norm. Esp here with no other incentives or funding backstops beyond the expiring federal tax, it seems like a smart "market-based crowdsourcing" way to localize interest and installer staffing.

HaymarketBooks.org is doing one of those $1-or-so ebook sales through tonight. Too many good possibilities, I've nearly finished the ones I got a year ago in Verso's sale so let's see..

White #fungus on persimmon logs, orange on elm. Did they live in the trees before they were cut down? Before they started dying?

WH press conferences seem like a fine place for automated robots to replace humans, like bomb disposal bots or your boss leaning over your cubicle wall telepresence or roombas.

Excited to start #Reading Belinda Barnet's "Memory Machines" history of pre-web hypertext.

I'm 6 books behind again on author gender parity for my #Reading this year, every Male author I read from here to NYE likely makes the goal impossible.

Went to a well-attended rally for our hopeful black woman governor candidate afterwards. It'll be a stretch, but one step complete.

Every trip to the grocery store I'm shocked by the overwhelming majority of breakfast cereals that are coated in a extra layers of sugar (and usually neon), as a parent who never had such things at home growing up. And yet I think we can cut ourselves off fossil fuels in my lifetime, what insanities we accept each day. #smallstories