Welcome

cons of eating your lunch outside on a nice spring day:

MY NAPKINS

You see this?

That's not a river. That's the South Canal in Mesa, Arizona (Phoenix metro area).

This is a view of the East and South canals. At least half of all the Phoenix metro canals were originally built by the Hohokam (from roughly 200-1400 CE), and are still in use (restored) today.

Phoenix, Arizona actually has more miles (kilometers) of Canals total than both Venice and Amsterdam. No, really. Phoenix has about 180 miles of canals, many of which are built on ancient canal foundations.

below is an aerial view photo taken in the late 1930's of one branch of Phoenix's canal systems:

Also have the "Montezuma Castle," if you need a castle:

There's a whole scene that gets cut from every production of Tempest because it is clearly supposed to be funny, but the punchline is "widow Dido," and the best guess is that it was essentially a meme that we just don't get anymore. So the scene doesn't work, it isn't funny, it's barely comprehensible. Widow Dido wasn't canceled, society just moved on to different stupid jokes. One of the bits in Merry Wives of Windsor, a genuinely funny play, that is clearly supposed to bring the house down, and probably did in 1598, is that this one guy is French. That's it, that's the joke. Hon Hon Hon baguette du fromage. Get a load of this Frenchman. At best these days it comes off as silly and juvenile. But to an Elizabethan English person, some French guy fumbling a good English girl was hilarious.

And yeah there's also an element of xenophobia and nationalism there and that's not great, but mostly it's just not really funny anymore that French people exist, it's just like... ok? And??

And i think a lot of like. Bits where the punchline is that people are gay, Steven, or like. A woman is doing something, a Trans person exists, this guy wore a dress, isn't it sooooooooo funny that these two dudes are saying romantic words at each other ironically or acting like a couple like...

Yeah the idea that this would be funny is rooted in bigotry. But also,

It's just not funny? Like ok? This guy is wearing a dress? So what? Like ok this character hit on someone thinking they were one gender and was wrong, that's just a random Thursday in a South End bar, we've all been there? Nu?? Sometimes people are from Wales, yeah, that's how geography works?

'“The U.S. Army brought the leading citizens of Ohrdruf to tour the facility, which turned out to be part of the Buchenwald network of concentration camps. A U.S Army colonel told the German civilians who viewed the scenes that they were to blame. One of the Germans replied that what happened in the camp was 'done by a few people,’ and ‘you cannot blame us all.’ And the American, who could have been any one of our grandfathers, said 'This was done by those that the German people chose to lead them, and all are responsible.'" "The morning after the tour, the Mayor of Ohrdruf killed himself. And maybe he did not know the full extent of the outrages that were committed in his community, but he knew enough. And we don't know exactly how ICE will use this warehouse. But we know enough. I ask you to consider what the Mayor of Ordruf might have thought before he died. Maybe he felt like a victim. He might have thought 'How is this my fault? I have no jurisdiction over this.' Maybe he would have said, 'This site was not subject to local zoning, what could I do?' But I think, when he reflected on the suffering that occurred at this camp, just outside of town, that those words would have sounded hollow even to him. Because in his heart he knew, as we do, that we are all responsible for what happens in our community.”

Arizona Right Watch also posted a video of within the warehouse.

I recommend watching it.

This, this is the first time I've seen a concentration camp before it became a concentration camp.

This is the first time I've seen a place and known that people are going to be tortured there, that people are going to die horribly there. If it's not stopped.

We have to stop it. We just don't have any other choice.

You may have seen pictures of concentration camps after they were liberated, but this is the first time you've seen a concentration camp before it became one.

You saw photos of an atrocity you couldn't do anything about.

The council heard testimonies from locals including high schoolers who took them to task. One of the council members said he'd gotten hundreds of calls opposing but zero in support for this idea, no one wants the detention center in Surprise

It's too close to Luke Air Force Base meaning no one can stay overnight in case of a plane crash, the expected water usage is something like 4 times the biggest user in the city, there's chemical storage across the street with no emergency plan for a spill, not to mention this is a WAREHOUSE not a facility fit for human beings to live in

ICE has made a lot of promises about not roving the area picking people up, people not staying long term, etc etc etc but I think it was Judd who said they had nothing in writing and wanted these big promises ICE hasn't held to ANYWHERE ELSE in writing for the obvious reason of we don't believe them.

Surprise and the greater Phoenix area is putting up a big fight, keep making noise, keep flooding them with feedback, we cannot let them build this warehouse. They're making noises about having it start operations in May. The warehouse isn't ready now, it's April 8th. That fact alone makes it really clear that ICE has no intention of keeping a single promise

Extra sauce:

Whole meeting here, the ICE stuff starts around 2:14:45 since it's over five hours: https://www.youtube.com/live/SHRPsDSEL5A

Analise Ortiz, state senator, usually at things like this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW28uQPCcPl/

Northwest Valley Indivisible, the local group that organized the protest: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUWY-MCEkQE/

Arizona Right Watch with the vibe of the function and a thread: https://bsky.app/profile/azrww.bsky.social/post/3mix4pdrb622h

IT’S FUNNY AND ALL, BUT IT’S REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT WE DON’T DETRACT VOTES FROM BERNIE

BY VOTING FOR DEEZ NUTS YOU’RE LITERALLY THROWING YOUR VOTE AWAY