R Elizabeth Jones | Blog

thoughts, interests, & inspirations.

[threadatl]

Atlanta's deadly streets are an infrastructure crisis in need of quick action

William Alexander died last Wednesday doing what the city told him to do: get off the sidewalks and ride your e-scooter in the street.

He was crushed to death by a bus as he navigated around construction barricades in the roadway on West Peachtree.

He was crushed where a bike lane -- or a Lite Individual Transportation (LIT) lane as many are calling them now -- has been planned for years. Never built. In the shadow of a MARTA Station where walking, cycling, and micro-mobility should be safe, easy choices.

In response, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has put a moratorium on adding new scooters to city street. As if the scooter killed William Alexander. As if a scooter killed Eric Amis, who died two months ago while also being hit by a vehicle next to a rail station.

In both cases, the streets are waiting on planned safety improvements that have not been built.

A scooter no more killed them than feet kill pedestrians or bikes kill cyclists.

Lip service has to stop. It's time to prioritize pedestrian, cycling, and yes, scooter traffic as alternatives to cars.

It's time to protect LIT lanes and install crosswalks and HAWK signals.

It's time to address the fact that Atlanta's streets are among the deadliest for pedestrians in the entire U.S. According to a study of congressional districts by Smart Growth America, Georgia's 5th District, which encompasses most of the City of Atlanta, ranks 13th in this list of the 100 most dangerous districts in the nation, due to its high pedestrian fatality rate.

When the Mayor speaks before City Council on August 5th regarding the "scooter crisis"... what we really need is a discussion of our infrastructure crisis that puts anyone not in a car at risk.

You can read the Executive Order from Bottoms prohibiting new scooter permits here.

Please contact your elected officials and let them know that scooters may need some regulation, but what we really need is safe lanes for them, for cyclists... we need safe sidewalks and crosswalks for pedestrians.

On August 5th, Council will hear the mayor's legislation regarding the scooter "problem". Please be there to let council know... this isn't a scooter problem. It's an infrastructure problem. It's a car problem.

[relizabethjones]

[relizabethjones]

[relizabethjones]

[gardensgrey]

You won’t see Hillary Clinton in the same light ever again. Read Meryl Streep’s introduction of Hillary Clinton during the recent 2012 Women in the World conference:

Two years ago when Tina Brown and Diane von Furstenberg first envisioned this conference, they asked me to do a play, a reading, called – the name of the play was called Seven. It was taken from transcripts, real testimony from real women activists around the world. I was the Irish one, and I had no idea that the real women would be sitting in the audience while we portrayed them. So I was doing a pretty ghastly Belfast accent. I was just – I was imitating my friend Liam Neeson, really, and I sounded like a fellow. (Laughter). It was really bad.

So I was so mortified when Tina, at the end of the play, invited the real women to come up on stage and I found myself standing next to the great Inez McCormack. (Applause.) And I felt slight next to her, because I’m an actress and she is the real deal. She has put her life on the line. Six of those seven women were with us in the theater that night. The seventh, Mukhtaran Bibi, couldn’t come because she couldn’t get out of Pakistan. You probably remember who she is. She’s the young woman who went to court because she was gang-raped by men in her village as punishment for a perceived slight to their honor by her little brother. All but one of the 14 men accused were acquitted, but Mukhtaran won the small settlement. She won $8,200, which she then used to start schools in her village. More money poured in from international donations when the men were set free. And as a result of her trial, the then president of Pakistan, General Musharraf, went on TV and said, “If you want to be a millionaire, just get yourself raped.”

But that night in the theater two years ago, the other six brave women came up on the stage. Anabella De Leon of Guatemala pointed to Hillary Clinton, who was sitting right in the front row, and said, “I met her and my life changed.” And all weekend long, women from all over the world said the same thing:

“I’m alive because she came to my village, put her arm around me, and had a photograph taken together.”

“I’m alive because she went on our local TV and talked about my work, and now they’re afraid to kill me.”

“I’m alive because she came to my country and she talked to our leaders, because I heard her speak, because I read about her.”

I’m here today because of that, because of those stories.

I didn’t know about this. I never knew any of it. And I think everybody should know. This hidden history Hillary has, the story of her parallel agenda, the shadow diplomacy unheralded, uncelebrated – careful, constant work on behalf of women and girls that she has always conducted alongside everything else a First Lady, a Senator, and now Secretary of State is obliged to do.

And it deserves to be amplified. This willingness to take it, to lead a revolution – and revelation, beginning in Beijing in 1995, when she first raised her voice to say the words you’ve heard many times throughout this conference: “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights.”

When Hillary Clinton stood up in Beijing to speak that truth, her hosts were not the only ones who didn’t necessarily want to hear it. Some of her husband’s advisors also were nervous about the speech, fearful of upsetting relations with China. But she faced down the opposition at home and abroad, and her words continue to hearten women around the world and have reverberated down the decades.

…

She’s just been busy working, doing it, making those words “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” into something every leader in every country now knows is a linchpin of American policy. It’s just so much more than a rhetorical triumph. We’re talking about what happened in the real world, the institutional change that was a result of that stand she took.

…

Now we know that the higher the education and the involvement of women in a culture and economy, the more secure the nation. It’s a metric we use throughout our foreign policy, and in fact, it’s at the core of our development policy. It is a big, important shift in thinking. Horrifying practices like female genital cutting were not at the top of the agenda because they were part of the culture and we didn’t want to be accused of imposing our own cultural values.

But what Hillary Clinton has said over and over again is, “A crime is a crime, and criminal behavior cannot be tolerated.” Everywhere she goes, she meets with the head of state and she meets with the women leaders of grassroots organizations in each country. This goes automatically on her schedule. As you’ve seen, when she went to Burma – our first government trip there in 40 years. She met with its dictator and then she met with Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman he kept under detention for 15 years, the leader of Burma’s pro-democracy movement.

This isn’t just symbolism. It’s how you change the world. These are the words of Dr. Gao Yaojie of China: “I will never forget our first meeting. She said I reminded her of her mother. And she noticed my small bound feet. I didn’t need to explain too much, and she understood completely. I could tell how much she wanted to understand what I, an 80-something year old lady, went through in China – the Cultural Revolution, uncovering the largest tainted blood scandal in China, house arrest, forced family separation. I talked about it like nothing and I joked about it, but she understood me as a person, a mother, a doctor. She knew what I really went through.”

When Vera Stremkovskaya, a lawyer and human rights activist from Belarus met Hillary Clinton a few years ago, they took a photograph together. And she said to one of the Secretary’s colleagues, “I want that picture.” And the colleague said, “I will get you that picture as soon as possible.” And Stremkovskaya said, “I need that picture.” And the colleague said, “I promise you.” And Stremkovskaya said, “You don’t understand. That picture will be my bullet-proof vest.”

Never give up. Never, never, never, never, never give up. That is what Hillary Clinton embodies.

[odditycollector]

Now that tumblr’s warming to Clinton, I’ve been expecting this post to start making the rounds again.

[stele3]

This is really important. Clinton has many flaws, but ability to amplify the work of women around the world and quite literally save their lives just by being in a picture with them is 100% real.

[throughthick-and-thin-deactivat]

[npr]

In the U.K., the headlines note the passing of a “Dances With Wolves actor.”

But appearing in an Oscar-award-winning film was one of the least interesting things David Bald Eagle ever did.

Bald Eagle died last Friday at 97. In his long, extraordinary life, he was a champion dancer — both ballroom and Lakota styles — a touring musician, a rodeo cowboy, a tribal chief, an actor, a stunt double, a war hero.

He danced with Marilyn Monroe. He drove race cars. He parachuted into the front lines at Normandy. He played professional baseball. He was a leader not just of his tribe, but of the United Native Nations. He was an advocate for Native people.

And he was a bridge between the past and present — a man who, in his childhood, heard stories from survivors of the Battle of Little Bighorn.

David Bald Eagle, Lakota Chief, Musician, Cowboy And Actor, Dies At 97

Photo: Courtesy of Steven Lewis Simpson

[flyingpurplepizzaeater]

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

[do-as-youre-told-deactivated201]

This is so well put I am stunned

[refinery29]

Watch: Leslie Jones gave a touching tribute to Whoopi Goldberg about why representation matters

Gifs: The View

[stillrestlesstymes]

Just beautiful <3 @lemonade-time

[medie]

oh my god. Imagine being Whoopi and hearing that though.

Well, when I was nine years old Star Trek came on,“ Goldberg says. “I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.” - See more at: http://www.startrek.com/database_article/goldberg-whoopi#sthash.gKeuf3XI.dpuf

That’s three generations. Nichelle Nichols to Whoopi Goldberg to Leslie Jones.

Representation fucking matters.

[finn-wilkie]

Adolf Krischanitz, Gnad & Gawisch Museum, Vienna, 2006

www.krischanitz.ch/

[allthingseurope]

Schoenbrunn Palace, Vienna (by maikepiel)

[adore-europe]

Vienna by viennatouristboard

[More Europe here →]

[xshayarsha]

[3/?] Favorite places I have been.

The Belvedere, Vienna, Austria. Prince Eugene of Savoy’s summer residence in the early XVIII c., nowadays it houses the largest collection of Klimt’s paintings.

[fission-mailure]

That “Immigrants don’t steal your jobs, they get jobs while you’re sitting around thinking you’re too good for them!” thing annoys me.

Because that’s - not what’s really going on?

What it actually is is “Immigrants are victims of a system set up to take advantage of them, in which employers and businesses use the fact that immigrants are more often than not in difficult, dangerous positions to strong-arm them into working long hours in often unhygienic or dangerous jobs for less than minimum wage.

“And the organisations that do that are often either the same as or in bed with the organisations that push the ‘Immigrants steal your jobs / immigrants want to push their values on the entire country / immigrants don’t deserve benefits’ narrative, because it allows them to not only socially isolate immigrants and make them more susceptible to being taken advantage of, but also to do things like refuse immigrants benefits that would allow them to viably consider not working for less than minimum wage in sub-par conditions, and to frame any attempt by immigrants to politically organise themselves and push for fair treatment as them being dangerously subversive.

“While the ‘immigrants steal your jobs’ thing is bullshit, it’s calculated bullshit pushed by politicians and businesses at a working class population in conjunction with an equally calculated strategy of enacting laws that endanger that population’s livelihoods and labour rights, at a time when the shenanigans of politicians and businesses have caused an employment crisis and a recession, because it’s easy to turn people who are terrified into bigots, and it’s politically advantageous to do so.”

…

I mean, I realise that that’s less pithy.

But it also doesn’t glorify the horrible conditions and sub-par wages that immigrants are subjected to, so there’s that.

[padehler]

Portland, OR

as seen from the aerial tram shot with a Kodak Pony IV on 35mm film

[tiqalicious-deactivated20211029]

It always embaressed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was “policeman”. If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit; once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers.

Terry Pratchett, Snuff. Re reading this Discworld book at the moment and this sentence feels remarkably poignant these days. (via huskyandtusky)

[swanjolras-blog-archive-deactiv]

Sis I need you to spread some of your wisdom and write another "you have to vote for Hillary/dem nominee" truth post because fuck am I worried. Like before the hate on here for HRC was bad but now it's like too far gone and I can't survive a Trump presidency. George Bush was meant to be the "compassionate conservative" and look what he did.

okay my boss made a pot of coffee for the office and i drank that pot of coffee plus some espresso so i’m in exactly the right place to write this post.

hillary clinton is the democratic party’s nominee for president! donald trump is the republican party’s nominee for president! soon they will choose vice presidents! the general election Has Begun! we have exactly 152 more days of hell to live through and every moment of that hell is gonna be GREAT

your options are:

vote for trump

vote for clinton

vote for a third party candidate (jill stein, gary johnson, etc.)

it’s generally understood that no third party candidate has a legitimate chance of winning. wikipedia has a helpful list of high-profile third party candidates over the past 184 years of american history; they do not win elections unless america is divided enough that, say, half of it secedes. america is very polarized right now, but the level of civil violence we’ve been experiencing recently doesn’t point to a secessionary atmosphere. i wouldn’t be surprised if both stein and johnson got higher vote counts than normal this year, but neither will get actual electoral votes.

so a vote for a third-party candidate only makes sense as an act of protest, and stein and johnson will definitely get plenty of those protest votes.

ithe usual reason for protest votes from leftists is that the democratic party and the gop are too alike; people tend to say that “hillary is just as bad as the gop, so it doesn’t really matter which one of them gets into power, they’re all the same anyway.”

i disagree. here are the reasons why i disagree:

donald trump would like to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the united states and build a wall along the american-mexican border. hillary clinton does not plan to deport these immigrants, and wants to give “dreamers” a path to united states citizenship.

donald trump plans to create specific legal hurdles to muslim people immigrating to the united states. hillary clinton does not plan to do this.

donald trump wants to expand concealed-carry permits. hillary clinton wants to increase background checks, ban assault weapons, and have the cdc study gun violence more.

donald trump does not support same-sex marriage, and thinks transgender bathroom laws should be left to individual states. hillary clinton supports same-sex marriage, and wants all transgender people to be able to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender.

donald trump thinks abortion laws should be left to individual states, and plans to put anti-abortion justices on the supreme court. hillary clinton supports abortion’s legality.

donald trump denies the existence of climate change, and plans to exit the paris agreement. hillary clinton acknowledges the existence of climate change, and plans to stay in the paris agreement.

donald trump supports offshore drilling and the keystone xl pipeline. hillary clinton does not support offshore drilling, and thinks keystone xl construction should not continue.

donald trump does not think the minimum wage should be raised. hillary clinton wants to raise the minimum wage.

donald trump wants to end obamacare. hillary clinton wants to continue obamacare and expand medicaid.

donald trump wants to privatize prisons. hillary clinton wants to limit use of the death penalty and allow felons to vote.

donald trump does not think police should wear body cameras. hillary clinton thinks they should.

were this any other election, this post would end here. unfortunately, donald trump’s disqualifications go above and beyond his conservative views.

he has threatened reporters, protesters, and others who disagree with him with legal reprisals only because they disagree with him.

he has encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies.

his candidacy has resulted in demonstrable and proved rises in anti-mexican and anti-muslim sentiment and violence, especially bullying of schoolchildren.

his platform operates on the basic assumption that legal discrimination against certain minority groups– specifically mexicans and muslims– would improve america’s economy and society.

he would need far more power than the presidential office currently has in order to implement his racist, islamophobic policies. it is unlikely that he would hesitate in doing his best to seize this power.

it’s understandable to me that far-leftists dislike voting for a candidate with more moderate views than theirs. and, again, were this any other election, i would sympathize to some extent with a protest vote against clinton.

however, donald trump is a fascist.

i do not say “fascist” as a more exaggerated way of saying “bad person”. it is a specific term with a specific definition. ted cruz is not a fascist. marco rubio is not a fascist. ronald reagan was not a fascist.

donald trump is an authoritarian, rising to power on a wave of racism, bigotry, fear, and hate. he has deliberately created a cult of personality around himself and his name. he encourages his followers to use violence against his enemies, and intends to level police violence against his political enemies and certain minority groups.

i am a jew.

i want to make it clear: i am not personally afraid of donald trump. while many of his followers, like david duke, are virulently antisemitic, his platforms do not focus on my people as america’s enemies. i will be affected by his homophobia and his sexism, but not by his anti-mexican or anti-muslim sentiment.

but while i am not personally threatened, i am personally involved. there is a fascist running for president of my country; i am a jew. this fight is my fight. this man is my responsibility. no fascist will ever come to power again.

historically speaking, the far left’s choices in these fights are crucial. whether they choose to focus their attentions on moderate leftist democrats or on far-right fascists determines which of these groups will be defeated and which will be able to rise to power.

i genuinely like hillary clinton; her policies aren’t radical or revolutionary, but many of them are steps in positive directions for america. she’s practical, experienced, and intelligent. she isn’t a charismatic preacher; i’m fine with that. eight years of government by someone who ran as a charismatic preacher have made me a little more jaded, a little more aware of the importance of effectiveness over inspiration. i encourage people to like her as a candidate for her own sake.

if you don’t like her as a candidate, that’s all right. i don’t need you to.

i do need you to be aware of the consequences of allowing trump to come to power. i do need you to be aware of the promise the entire western world made my people seventy years ago. i do need you to understand your personal responsibility in fulfilling that promise.

that’s why i think you should vote for hillary clinton in november.

[rnn-draws]

I don’t like reblogging this kind of content here, but I’ll make a special exception this once. Please read it and please vote (and register if you haven’t already) in November.

[trollseamstress]

You don’t have to love Hilary, you really don’t. I know a lot of people here are not enthused with her and I understand that but for the love of everything please consider how you vote. Bernie wouldn’t want you to not vote Hilary if she is the nominee, he has said this in the past. And our system is not built to handle more than two parties because of how votes break down.

[girlbossjodiarias]

Good policy based commentary here, folks.