Notices by Shonin (shonin@mastodon.world), page 2

#Fungi stores a third of #carbon from #FossilFuel #emissions and could be essential to reaching #NetZero | News | The University of Sheffield

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/fungi-stores-third-carbon-fossil-fuel-emissions-and-could-be-essential-reaching-net-zero

A new use for biochar: Sifting microplastics from farm soils

https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2024/10/researchers-find-a-new-use-for-biochar-filtering-microplastics-from-farm-soils/

Trump’s Comment About Undocumented People’s “Genes” Is One of the Worst Things He’s Ever Said - Esquire

Link leads to big photo of distressing person, so I left it off

@inthehands "Arcimoto FUV has a top speed of 75 mph (121 km/h) and an estimated city range of 102.5 miles (165 km). Arcimoto claims it achieves an efficiency of 173.7 MPGe. Also comes with a number of creature comforts including heated seats, heated grips (did we mention it has handlebars instead of steering wheel?), Bluetooth speakers, removable half doors and lockable rear storage." My friend took me for a spin in cool weather. I thought it might be like flying in an open-cockpit biplane. ☃️

@inthehands I pedaled 8 miles to work and 8 miles back for years. But I was in my 30s. Eventually I shifted to the bus, then retired. Did drive the farm truck for awhile after that, but finally gave it away. I seldom get off the premises now. But the garden keeps me moving. For travel, there's Mastodon. 😉

A friend who is in his 80s has one of these and loves it, but the company is always on the brink of going belly up.

Mike Johnson refuses to say #Trump lost #2020election

https://neuters.de/world/us/republican-house-speaker-mike-johnson-refuses-say-trump-lost-2020-election-2024-10-06/

“They Stole an Election”: Former Florida Senator Found Guilty in “Ghost Candidates” Scandal – Mother Jones

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/09/frank-artiles-ghost-candidates-scandal-trial-verdict-florida-power-light/

The Guy Behind Project 2025 Says the Climate Agenda Is Worse Than Global Warming – Mother Jones

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2024/09/project-2025-kevin-roberts-climate-ira/

Pep Rally for Coach Walz · The Democratic National Committee

https://events.democrats.org/event/709704/

Media Wrong Again as Kamala Harris' Economic Policies are More Popular with Voters

https://www.politicususa.com/2024/09/30/kamala-harris-economic-policies-are-more-popular-with-voters.html

@aral Once Zuck figures out a way to get his hands on us I'mma, and people like me will, bail, which may be the point. I began with Usenet. This is my last social refuge. I don't see another arriving.

@inthehands @xankarn @cammerman What I found most satisfactory was to organize a livelihood. It focuses people.

In the coop we had farmers who wanted piecework so they could make hundred dollar days and pay mortgages. But we also had city-bred idealists who wanted hourly because they could not keep up with the farmers. Saving grace was, you had to have a minimum crew headcount to work on the contract. So the low-rollers were needed. We devised a 1/2 & 1/2 pay scheme and it passed vote.

@inthehands @xankarn @cammerman

I missed a lot of what happened. Was male at the time and there was a demand that someone not female run childcare, so I stood up, to thunderous applause. Also there were big pots to scrape. I'm hearing impaired, so wanted to feel useful during the noisy sessions.

IIRC there were 3, or 3 types, of caucuses: Black, Feminist and Gay. People who went to these reported feeling immensely empowered, and voiced a determination not to go back to a movement
1/x

@inthehands @xankarn @cammerman

centered on, and run by, white males. I don't remember any kind of vocal pushback to this, but the sessions seemed to grind to a halt. Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy was the keynote speaker, and his speech was punctuated throughout, and sometimes drowned out by, competing billows of applause and boos, with the boos in the ascendant.

AFAIK the boos were from the caucuses, and were grounded in a notion that Dr. King's movement was not revolutionary enough.
2/x

@inthehands @xankarn @cammerman

My take, after a day of child care (great kids, a little wild) half listening on a PA system (IIRC), was that the caucuses were both in the right as to what needed to be addressed in order for there to be a human rights revolution, but that demands as the day wore on seemed to move the goal posts -- experienced (white male) movement leadership was effectively silenced --

3/x

@inthehands @xankarn @cammerman

-- with no equivalent leadership coming forward to bring unity. All the available "pure enough" people were cantankerous, so far as I could hear.

I was left with the impression that the conservative element in the nation -- which had jailed me and many others repeatedly in order to carry out its agenda in the world -- had won. This was about the time that "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" appeared. 4/x

@inthehands @xankarn @cammerman

After that, I joined a Quaker commune for awhile, then headed across the country to take part in a Syndicalist forestry cooperative, then, about 1986, reluctantly re-assimilated into society.

The cooperative had the same policy fights, internally, as Mayday. How we were able to muddle through them, with 300+ people, was one person one vote, Roberts Rules of Order. If our enterprise was valued above purity, some of us had to stand aside sometimes.

5/5

@xankarn @inthehands @cammerman I was present when the Mayday people held their meeting in Atlanta after the April/May demonstrations in DC in 1971. There were breakout sessions for identity politics groups, something I hadn't seen before. These groups returned to the plenary with verbal hammers they found on the moral high ground, and I'm not sure I have seen a unified Left since that day, let alone one that can coalition with liberals or even LABOR. Just my take.

2024's unusually persistent warmth

https://skepticalscience.com/2024-unusually-persistent-warmth.html

Teixeira: Dems must build a broad, durable coalition that can do more than squeak through the next election – The Democratic Strategist

https://thedemocraticstrategist.org/2024/09/teixeira-dems-must-build-a-broad-durable-coalition-that-can-do-more-than-squeak-through-the-next-election/