“Leaning into culture war flashpoints”
Oh is that what we are to call fascist bigotry now? I missed the memo 🙄
Remote
Preston Austin
@gl33p@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06MUSICat architect and founder at Rabble LLC
I work with public librarians who collect and share local music with their communities and visitors.
MUSICat is a turnkey online platform, built with and for public libraries. Each instance is a library-convened locally-governed digital public space to collect, curate, license, and stream local music.
MUSICat is designed to respect artists and support art with its paid artist-friendly licenses for invited album submissions.
700 Followers
1926 Following
45 Posts
Joined October 28, 2022
Location:
Madison, WI USA
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“Preston is one cool guy.” — Preston's Brother, 30 years ago
Pronouns:
he/him
Boosted by @octothorpe@mastodon.online
Republicans don't need to find a backbone. Republicans found a backbone.
Republicans aren't being cowards. Republicans are being bold.
Republicans didn't get captured by a fascist movement. Republicans captured a fascist moment.
Republicans aren't failing to do what their conscience is telling them must be done. Republicans are doing what their conscience is telling them must be done.
Republicans aren't little white children who've been lied to. Republican are lying to little white children.
Replying to
“Police spending is treated like a load-bearing wall”
“Everything else is treated like furniture”
“The Wisconsin Legislature must amend the law. Qualified investments in CARES, violence prevention, housing stabilization, treatment, youth employment and community-based crisis response should count toward a municipality’s public-safety obligation”
This writeup by Alan Robinson of details of what getting it done may actually look like shows a rare and precious pragmatism
https://madison365.com/alan-robinson-the-city-we-owe-him/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Replying to
@phillmv@hachyderm.io Yes, in Wisconsin about 20 years ago - not sure if it's helpful or not but happy to share experiences
Basically what worked was planning the solar first then getting the roofer involved with a plan in place of how the solar array attached to the roof, and where it penetrated the roof system, and getting both services to agree their warranty was not voided by the others' quoted approach
Replying to
“We have also watched an encampment become one of the clearest examples of community care this city has seen in years”
“The community has leaders. They are serving food at the encampment. They are protecting protesters. They are redirecting traffic. They are speaking to the media. They are comforting Corey’s family. They are researching the law. They are trying to move grief toward action”
“No person owns this moment”
“No organization owns this grief”
We need a table:
https://madison365.com/alan-robinson-the-city-we-owe-him/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
» “If the Republican Governors Association wants to spend $2 million introducing Wisconsin voters to our platform of permanent affordability, standing up to the Trump administration and doing the right thing for our immigrant neighbors, all we can say is ‘thank you,’” [Francesca Hong spokesperson Allison Geyer] said «
Republicans think Francesca Hong is not the very strong and highly electable candidate she is, and it's a popular folly to agree, or deniably pretend to 😏
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2026/07/17/gop-spends-big-to-define-hong-but-is-it-helping-her-instead/
Replying to
@maxleibman Metric hail sizing is in terminal velocity impact energy (measured in Joules) so probably a comparison chart of various fireworks would do for that 😁 @futurebird
I fairly clearly remember government cheese that was wrapped in foil inside that sort of shoebox box each ginormous loaf of wrapped cheesestuff came in, and yet I'm not sure that packaging ever actually existed (or at least I can't find a photo of it where it's not some kind of plastic or similar wrapper)
How strange 🧀
Francesca Hong frames her "AI" platform around worker power
“Silicon Valley marketers and data center landlords hype AI as the most significant economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution. Whether that’s true or not, CEOs and corporations are acting like it is — and we’re seeing the consequences in how they treat their workers”
“workers are being surveilled, scheduled, and judged by tools they had no say in”
“Wisconsinites deserve some [tools] of their own”
https://francescahong.com/policy/labor-shift/
Replying to
“A police shooting in Wisconsin’s progressive capital city this week put the spotlight on persistent and deep racial divisions, prompting cancellations and other changes to popular summertime events”
“the grand opening of a new public market...AtwoodFest...And on Saturday, the popular downtown farmers market that attracts about 20,000 people each week around the Capitol building, shut down nearly four hours earlier than usual in solidarity with protesters”
https://apnews.com/article/madison-police-shooting-farmers-market-d7372475c1823a5b10580c6481bbfbe7
Eat Cheese 🧀
Fight Nazis 👊🏻
Replying to
“The grand opening of the Madison Public Market today, after some 20 years of planning, will be postponed due to the death of Corey Durell Ruiz on Williamson Street on Wednesday”
» “our community experienced a tragic loss with the death of Corey Durell Ruiz. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones, and to everyone impacted by this tragedy” «
True, likely heartfelt... yet also denies justified anger and grief another forum, avoiding discomfort 😕
https://madison365.com/todays-madison-public-market-grand-opening-has-been-postponed/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Replying to
» Schenk Atwood Starkweather Yahara Neighborhood Association announced the cancellation [of AtwoodFest this weekend] in a statement saying, “Our community and our Marquette neighbors witnessed another horrific officer-involved shooting just blocks from our festival grounds, leaving us in deep pain and justified anger” «
I don't even know who the organizers are, but my first reaction to this news is not "this is solidarity" but instead "they're closing the public pool" 😕
https://madison365.com/this-weekends-atwoodfest-canceled-after-deadly-police-shooting-on-madisons-east-side/
Replying to
@phillmv@hachyderm.io Indeed!
Possibly still good to get someone who does solar to look at the roof structure and see if it needs to be made stronger* or otherwise changed to accommodate an array - because that might be easier and/or cheaper as part of the roofing repair than after. Solar is possible on most roofs, but some are easier, for example some solar systems for standing seam metal roofs are really nice
- We had to add "sister" boards to 90y old trusses, via the attic, to be strong enough for array
Replying to
So when someone talks about "gouging" it's often an observation of sellers finding that price — what's called the market clearing price. And many glossy eyed reasonable man men will tell you that it works out great overall, because that sandwich profitmaxxing attracts some combination of a surge in Big Sandwich* plus Competing Sandwich† investing in providing more sandwiches
- to protect their "Big"ness † to take some of that "Big"ness
But that is often bullshit, thus reality since about 1972
“Wear full safety gear and an N95 or better respirator when cutting or grinding the leaked source code. If your exposed skin comes in contact with the leaked source code, immediately wash thoroughly with soap and water. If leaked source code gets in the eyes, irrigate thoroughly with water for no less than five minutes, and seek medical attention. If the leaked source code was ingested, do not induce vomiting, take activated charcoal if available and contact a poison control center immediately.”
Boosted by @octothorpe@mastodon.online
"HR 7661 isn’t fundamentally about protecting kids. It’s about giving politicians broad authority to restrict whose stories are allowed”
"Rather than targeting librarians and teachers, Congress should invest in them. The Right to Read Act offers a better path, supporting well-staffed and well-resourced school libraries, strengthening evidence-based literacy instruction, and protecting the dedicated professionals who help young people discover books that open doors”
https://www.ala.org/news/2026/02/ala-denounces-HR-7661
Replying to
@emjonaitis@mathstodon.xyz Agreed, and it's hard not to see the Verona and Dane County exits from contracts (and the efforts people made to push on Monona policy) as influencing Monona's decision. Even things like resistance to surveillance in Oshkosh and such probably helped make Monona a domino here
I wonder what it will take to topple Maple Bluff 🤔
Replying to
. @SeanCasten@mastodon.social Training Is Not Even Part Of Any Serious And Sufficient Response To This, PLEASE STOP Implying It Could Be
Replying to
I wish folks didn't use "theft" or "stealing" so much as frames on enclosure through appropriation, monopsony, consent violations, violence, economic and legal privilege, and so forth
A copy left behind doesn't make any of the use abuse of people and their work the AI coterie is so chuffed about good or just. It's not
It's also not theft. Not even imprecisely so. The difference matters. The violations nicer more reasonable than you are AI folks ignore? They're deeper cuts than mere theft makes
Replying to
“[Renée Graef's] first two drafts of her Isthmus cover showed a Minneapolis-centric vigil, and a scene depicting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pepper spraying the classic Statue of Liberty scene on Lake Mendota”
“she pivoted to a surveillance-themed idea, inspired by the growing prevalence of AI, facial recognition software, and data tracking”
» “The fear isn’t just being watched, but being unfairly influenced or harmed” «
https://isthmus.com/news/front-page/behind-the-isthmus-cover-march-2026/
Replying to
@dsilverman@mastodon.social I've seen and reported several of these pod-person clone accounts, for one particular account four of them so far
FWIW, I decided not to block them because (in theory) that could signal to whoever is doing this that their cloned accounts should stop following me to evade getting reported
They seem to be after relatively credentialed credible sorts of people too
Replying to
Oops!
POSTPONED: “Since learning that there is a vigil for Corey at 5 p.m. at the corner of Baldwin and Williamson St, I am postponing the listening session”
https://www.cityofmadison.com/council/district17/blog/2026-07-23/community-listening-session-postponed-common-council-president
“Common Council President Sabrina Madison will be hosting a listening session [today, Thursday 23 July] at the Madison Municipal Building. The goal is to connect residents directly with City leaders, including Police Chief Patterson, following [Wednesday's] officer-involved shooting”
https://www.cityofmadison.com/news/2026-07-22/community-listening-session-tomorrow-in-response-to-officer-involved-shooting
Replying to
@ThePolishDispatch
Some context, with a fair lot of spoilers...
https://www.maida.net/sip/characters/freddie.html
@ComicContext
Replying to
“Several speakers in the crowd urged protesters to focus their energy on the Aug. 4 meeting of the Madison city council, where amendments to the ordinance that governs the Police Civilian Oversight Board and the Office of the Independent Monitor will be discussed”
“the measure would restrict the PCOB and OIM at a moment when their independence and access to police information allows them to investigate shootings”
https://isthmus.com/news/news/fatal-officer-involved-shooting-on-willy-evokes-outrage-deja/
https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/common-council/2026-08-04
https://madison.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7988410&GUID=6D618C28-9FCF-4259-8402-00773301AA85&Options=&Search=
“Look at all the roads we have to repair.”
🙄
* sigh *
Replying to
“they want the symbol of independent oversight, but they don’t want the reality of it” —Independent Monitor Aeiramique Glass
☝🏻 Context for that impenetrable wad of an Aug 4 Common Council item
“The Office of the Independent Monitor, the agency responsible for independent oversight of the Madison Police Department, released a 31-page public memorandum lambasting the City attorney and Common Council members for obstructing the OIM’s independence”
https://badgerherald.com/news/madison/2026/05/07/madison-police-department-oversight-office-calls-out-city-of-madison-for-obstructing-its-independence-demands-rejection-of-proposed-revisions-to-its-structure/
https://www.cityofmadison.com/independent-police-monitor/documents/news/OIPM%20Memo%20April-21-2026%20%28with%20exhibits%29.pdf
“What if in a decade or a century people remember this as the point when the world really turned away from this filthy, corrupting, unreliable, destructive resource?”
“What if two petro-states, by demonstrating the unreliable, manipulable nature of the supply, sped the change...”
“Earlier oil crises, notably the two in the 1970s, unfolded when there was no real alternative to fossil fuel to run our machines. Now there is”
https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/truth-consequences-climate-and-demand-destruction/
“The future sucks. The car doesn't fly and there are tornadoes all the time 😕”
Replying to
Like, it's already clear that you don't give a rodent's tuchus about consent, my brothers in nothing I can possibly avoid. You don't have to keep revealing that each time someone decides they are tired of cleaning your poop off their work
Replying to on mastodon.social
Edit to add: I have it this aft via PCOB that OIM now has what they sought (I've no new info about Wed refusal)
I've heard Willy Street Co-op has video that the Office of the Independent Monitor has requested for its investigation into today's killing, and that the co-op refused...saying they were "cooperating with the City"
The OIPM is part of the City, so this implies my co-op is cooperating with police (killers) and not with independent oversight (not killers). Such a stance must be rebuked
Replying to
To clarify, my "sandwiches" up there 🙄 were not only a metaphor for oil and gas prices
One of the earliest, sharpest, and biggest sudden price impacts of white America's public-private venture investments in profitable chaos this spring is not the oil upstream of our godawful cars...it's the nitrogen fertilizer upstream of something like a fifth of food 🥪
https://mstdn.ca/@thetyee/116522466862406759
Replying to
Such a thing could also have a server-level default for accounts hosted on an instance I suppose 🤔
A notice you receive before interacting with anyone for the first time that could impart various policy or cybywy wisdom as a service to all parties - both those on that instance and those seeking to communicate with them
“oh yeah, bugs”
Replying to
“To ensure the safety of the public, the current closure of Williamson Street, from S Dickinson Street to S Few Street, will remain until future determinations can be made”
“We are asking the public to use other routes and remain cautious of pedestrians when traveling through the area”
https://www.cityofmadison.com/news/2026-07-23/williamson-street-closure-to-continue
“It's almost as though linking comforts and necessities to market labor makes all three scarce”
Replying to
» [Blacks for Political and Social Action] maintains that the use of fatal force under these recorded conditions represents a total failure of de-escalation, public trust, and basic humanity” «
“administrative accountability cannot wait, BPSA said...the Police and Fire Commission holds direct responsibility for officer discipline and employment suitability. BPSA’s filing calls on the PFC to act immediately to strip the involved officer of police powers”
This is the way
https://madison365.com/blacks-for-political-and-social-action-files-official-police-and-fire-commission-complaint-against-officer-responsible-for-killing-of-corey-ruiz/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub