Two Podcasts Make a Pair

I've mentioned the War on Cars podcast just a few times since I started listening to it in 2024 (here and here).

Two of its recent episodes are excellent.

One is called Changing Lanes. That's the title of a documentary that tells the story of what it has taken to win the electoral and policy fight to rebuild a dangerous car-oriented boulevard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There are many lessons in their experience, and it sounds like even more can be learned from the documentary – so I hope to be able to see it soon.

The most recent episode is with Ian Loader, Oxford University professor of criminology. It's called Rethinking Criminal Consequences for Drivers Who Kill. 

Contrary to what one might expect of a biking advocate, Loader does not want drivers to take more criminal responsibility within the current system. These are his concluding words in the podcast, but to understand what he means, you really have to listen to the whole thing:

The standard chain of logic with how we deal with road safety at the moment goes something like this: that driving is basically safe. It only becomes unsafe if individuals do it dangerously. And then therefore the chain of intervention goes something like: individual responsibility [to] enforcement [to] punishment. 

My alternative goes something like: the starting point is that mass motoring is a system of harm production even when people are driving carefully and considerately. And that the chain of intervention should be: start with systems, think about structure, and then bad driving has consequences — not necessarily punishment.

How we get any of the types of changes Loader describes to happen is the main problem. The work described in the Changing Lanes is part of the solution.

The People on a Bridge Say No!

For the past year and more, there have been dozens and dozens of highway bridges and street corners in the Twin Cities where people show up weekly to protest the Trump regime and what it’s doing to this country. I’ve been participating in one of them since last summer.

We stand during rush hour on a noisy bit of concrete that arches over an urban freeway. We hold long banners with messages in large letters, readable from a distance, created by the person who started the bridge brigade, plus a variety of other signs and flags that people bring with them.

We wave at the drivers going past below us, many of whom honk or flash their lights in return. We celebrate when semi drivers blare their air horns. 

There are about 20 regulars on the bridge, almost all retired, and several over 80 years old. It’s hard for any of us to talk to more than one other person at a time as we line up in a row facing traffic because the vehicles are so loud. The traffic also creates a wind-tunnel effect, which always makes it at least 10°F colder than elsewhere. Yes, we were out there all winter, too. 

We don’t come out to the bridge because it’s comfortable. Why do we do it? Who are we?

I began to think about documenting this place and these people, to record one piece of the resistance to the fascist Trump regime: who we are, and why we’re doing what we’re doing. 

It makes me angry that I have to anonymize this and don’t even feel comfortable saying which bridge it is, because a violent right-winger stabbed a person at a different local bridge brigade last fall. 

But know this: the full record exists, and if it’s ever safe to keep it in a Minnesota state archive, it will be available. One small example of the resistance that exists in this country. 

Who we are

Of the 20 people I interviewed, there are 13 women and seven men (my assumption about genders). Six are from Minnesota originally and grew up in the state. Four are from states close by. There are two immigrants, both who experienced repressive governments in their countries of origin. The other eight are originally from many different parts of the U.S., though all have been in the Twin Cities for at least 15 years except maybe one.

The University of Minnesota was by far the main reason people came to the Twin Cities from out of state, either for education or a job, followed by coming here for a job or school elsewhere — whether for self, a parent, or a spouse. 

I did the interviews on the first anniversary of the bridge brigade. It began in early June 2025, when the founder of the brigade saw two women on the bridge, one wearing an Uncle Sam costume. They had a boom box and were dancing. They told her they would be out there the same day the next week at 7:30 a.m. for an hour, so she went to the bridge to meet them then, carrying her grandfather’s World War II veteran’s flag and a sign that said ENOUGH in large letters:



But they weren’t there — she was alone! Her husband came by after a half hour and stayed for the rest of the hour. This was the week before the Hortmans and Hoffmans were shot at their homes by the right-wing murderer Vance Boelter. 

After that, she let her neighbors know what she was doing, and the gathering has grown from there. She began making banners a month or so later. Some of her closest neighbors were the first to join and still are part of it, and many of the people come from the surrounding neighborhood, but not all. 



Why we do it

There are common threads in the reasons the regulars give for coming to the bridge:

• “I have to do something: your nervous system gets so wired.”
• “This is something I can do.” “There’s so little we can do at our age.” (The bridge is close by and physically accessible.) “I can’t run if I protest in the streets – my hips and knees, I can’t get away.”
• Don’t obey in advance. Make your voice heard. “Heather Cox Richardson says visibility has real power.”
• To spread awareness: “Give the people who go past something to think about, have conversations at work.”
• It gives permission to other people.
• “To be in community with like-minded people.” “It’s selfish, but it helps me deal with it to be with like-minded people.” “To be part of a community resisting Trump, a critical mass.”

More specific reasons:

• “My husband’s aunt was in a prison camp during World War II, and was sent home in winter, wearing only a summer dress. The least I can do is put on a frog costume and stand on an overpass once a week. Another friend was born in a Chinese prison camp in 1941 and lived there until 1943.”
• One person was visiting his adult son in Europe from Christmas through January, including when Renee Good was killed, and seeing it happen from there was shocking. Another of his sons is a nurse at the VA hospital and knew Alex Pretti.
• “I hate authoritarian regimes. I experienced one and suffered from it as a child.”
• “Being here is a tribute to the people of Minneapolis.”

In addition to opposing ICE and Metro Surge, specific issues that were mentioned:

• “Every day this administration does something that should cause people to be out in the streets. My head is going to explode every day.”
• “I am a scientist by trade. The pancreatic cancer breakthrough recently announced is based on 50 years of basic science research [which they are gutting].” He also gave the example of the recent removal of ocean censors and the regime’s graft and corruption.
• “The undermining of democracy, Project 2025.”
• “I’m mad about the corruption.”

What people bring

Signs:

• Long, handmade banners, usually three 6-foot panels wide. Each week they carry a different message, ranging from "Democracy Needs Your Vote" to "Orange Lies Matter" to "Time for the 25th" to "GOP Sold Us Out," and more. For many weeks, there was an Epstein files counter. 
• Peace
• Stop the criminal war regime
• Close the Camps – VOTE (sign made with tape and pins on a flattened popup tent)
• Keep Hope Alive
• No Kings
• ICE Out Now (these signs were given away at a Minnesota Timber Wolves game)
• Stop the Lies

Flags:

• A large hand-painted hand to wave up high, carrying a small American flag
• American flags
• Minnesota state flag: “It’s a symbol of our unified resistance, because Minnesota has been targeted."

Wearables:

• Hand-lettered shirt: “Trump steals from you”
• Inflated frog suit
• A large hand for waving, printed from a photograph of a hand

Intangibles:

• Enthusiasm
• Yourself
• Energy
• Solidarity

Reality:

• A chair to sit in because of a bad knee

We’ll be back out next week, and the next, until this regime is history, when we’ll be working on the reconstruction this country will need. Then we won’t have time for the bridge brigade. 

As one of the banners today said: ONE YEAR – STILL HERE. 

Good News from the Pope

I like this Pope. 

In the encyclical Leo issued today, he finally — finally — did what the church should have done forever ago, and asked for forgiveness for the Vatican's past role in legitimizing the international slave trade. (AP story here.) Quoting that story:

In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, but it never formally rescinded, abrogated or rejected the bulls [that] authorized Portuguese sovereigns to conquer Africa and the Americas and enslave non-Christians.... [One] bull also gave the Portuguese permission “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.” 

Moving forward, unlike some of people we could mention.
 

EcoFair 2026

I continue with doing what I can in the midst of *all this.*

Today I did a lot of gardening and went to the second annual EcoFair, hosted by Interfaith Power and Light at the House of Hope Presbyterian Church in Saint Paul. It was even better than last year's, and the weather was much nicer, too. It was well-attended.

I talked to some of my regulars (people from the Minnesota Bike Alliance, the Saint Paul Bike Coalition, Sustain Saint Paul, Our Streets) and also got information about these topics:

• District geothermal from Cooperative Energy Futures.
• The work of CURE, which is based in Montevideo, Minnesota. I had never heard of them. They had info on hyperscale data centers, energy rates, and other topics.
• The work of Urban Roots, a youth agriculture organization on Saint Paul's East Side.
• Whether it will be okay to finally work with the leaves in my yard after we clear these five days above 50°F... Even though it is going to be in the 40s again overnight later this week. (From the Pollinator Friendly Alliance.) 
• Whether one funeral home here is working on bringing natural organic reduction to Minnesota, now that it has been made legal (as of last summer). They already do water cremation and green burial here. They currently are flying bodies to Washington State (on commercial flights) to undergo the process. The answer is yes... but it is expensive for various reason. I have to email someone.

I didn't take photos of displays or bikes or anything useful. (There were lots of cool ebikes there.) I just captured a few T-shirts and one sticker that caught my eye:

 

 

And also one garage (maybe a barn, given its age) near the church, which is completely covered in Virginia creeper. Very picturesque, except for the Saint Paul array of trash and recycling receptacles:

If you're in the Twin Cities, be on the look out for next year's EcoFair the Saturday after Mothers Day next year!

Bursting

Shared by the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary today:

Though they look like the horns of twin animals, they are instead the "bursting buds of the red elderberry shrub" (Sambucus racemosa).

The gardeners remind us all that it's one week until opening day. Spring is probably the best time to visit, because it's largely a woodland area with many spring ephemerals.

Even more than most, this is a good year to go outside and appreciate the beauty of our world.

Stomp the Cockroach

Earlier today, David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social asked, "Has anyone written any kind of policy paper about how to organize a post-DHS federal government?"

He then went on to post just a couple of things:

Untangle DHS. It’s not a difficult question because unlike say metro policing, which has been around for a long time, DHS hasn’t.

Return immigration law enforcement to DoJ. Travel issues including naturalization and visas to Commerce. Make FEMA independent. Coast guard to transport. TSA to transport. It doesn’t solve everything (INS enforcement could be draconian too) but it starts the process.

To which Sam @very-simple.com replied,

All of this. the entire police-ification and militarization of immigration enforcement is a real problem. Turn it back to being a normal civilian bureaucratic agency and make the explicit mission one of facilitating immigration within the rules rather than criminalizing it. 

A bit later on BlueSky, attorney Ken White, whose handle was originally Pope Hat, but which he changes for current topics so it's currently "Fucking Bitch Hat" (I'm not kidding), wrote:

Let’s talk about abolishing ICE. Very few people who say “abolish ICE” mean “abandon all immigration enforcement.” Rather, they mean “the structure of immigration enforcement is irretrievably broken and needs to be reorganized, just like we did 23 years ago when we created ICE.”

We created ICE in a flurry of post-9/11 enthusiasm for muscular terminology and reorganization, as part of  creating the Department of Homeland Security. Recall being sneered at by conservative and centrist bien-pensants if you thought “Homeland Security” was ominous?

Nobody had patience in 2003 for the concept “maybe we should reform existing entities rather than dramatically eliminating and reorganizing and renaming.” Nobody had patience for the “sensible reform, modest oversight” message some are now pushing over “abolish ICE.”

That’s because, in part, catastrophic events had completely deprived existing structures of credibility, rightly or wrongly.  Of course, that’s because of evil being done to us by outsiders, not because of evil we were doing to each other; perhaps that’s different.

But it’s true that sometimes entities and agencies are irretrievable because their culture is so enmeshed in complacency or infighting or incompetence. Or, I argue, in bigotry and contempt for the rule of law and thuggish entitlement.

ICE is a monument to totalitarianism, lawlessness, and bigotry. It should be ripped out and woodchippered root and branch and replaced with something focused on the concept that you can’t defend the rule of law by burning it down.

Doing so is not inconceivable because we did it 23 years ago when we perceived the existing entities didn’t work.  Being brutal and lawless to Americans is as much of a problem, if not more, than failing to protect Americans. ICE is infested with lawless bigoted anti-Americanism.

The “monitor and mildly reform” crew remind me of my favorite defense attorney closing argument used to refute prosecution defenses of sleazy cooperating witnesses.

Yes, prosecutors say, our cooperating witness has some flaws, but work around those and look at the corroborating evidence!

The classic response is to say this: imagine you are in your favorite Italian restaurant. The waiter delivers a magnificent dish of delicious pasta. In the middle is a cockroach. Do you send it back, or eat around the cockroach? The government wants to you eat around the cockroach.

The ICE “reformers“ want you to eat around the cockroach.  I want you to send the plate back.  

Stomp the cockroach.

I'm one of the people who said, back when the Department of Homeland Security was formed, that it was a mistake — particularly the Nazi-reference name, because I probably wasn't fully attuned to all of the parts of the punishment bureaucracy that were being brought under one roof. But I knew what it implied about all those frankensteined parts. 

One thing I do clearly remember is belittling George W. Bush's insistence that each American woman would think to herself, "My babies are safe!"whenever she caught a glimpse of his first DHS secretary, Tom Ridge. I used to mimic those words in a high-pitched voice. "My BAY-BIES are safe!" (Sometimes I feel as though I'm crazy for thinking I'm the only one who remembers that.

Now, we here in Minnesota know our babies are not safe with Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, Greg Bovino, the thousands of punisher-wannabes running loose on our streets.
 

Good Climate News

For a change of pace, some good news from Assaad Razzouk, the Angry Clean Energy Guy:

Good climate news this week:

1. UK: 2025 sees forst full year without any coal power since 1882
2. Europe: EU carbon border levy comes into force
3. UK: Renewables made up 47% of electricity supplies in 2025, a record
4. China: Action plan unveiled to promote green consumption
5. China: 2025 CO2 emission factor of electricity down 8 to 9% year-on-year
6. China: ‘Artificial sun’ breaks nuclear fusion limit thought to be impossible
7. Germany: Solar overtakes coal and gas in 2025, delivers 18% of electricity
8. China: First national corporate climate disclosure standard issued
9. Europe: EVs jump 37% year-on-year in November
10. Germany: EVs up 43% year-on-year in 2025
11. UK: EVs up 23.9% year-on-year in 2025
12. Mexico: 20 renewables projects awarded, 3.3GW of contracts
13. Turkey: 4.7GW of solar installed in 2025
14. Australia: 1.2 GWh of behind-the-meter battery storage added in December
15. China: Smart power grid technology developed that cuts blackout recovery time to a 10th of a second
16. Global: $479b invested in power grids globally in 2025, up 18% year-on-year
17. US: Developers of five offshore wind farms, ordered to halt construction, file lawsuits to restart work

Of course, the only one of those in the U.S. is an attempt to stop the Trump regime from doing something bad. But at least it's something.

Two from Volts: Hard Truth, Easier Truth

I haven't been listening to podcasts as much lately, but during and just before my recent trip I took in two from David Roberts' Volts.

I meant to write about the first one, The cure for misinformation is not more information or smarter news consumers. 

The guest is Samuel Bagg, University of South Carolina political scientist. Bagg argues that if you want to change minds, it's not about fact-checking and putting out better messaging: You have to change identities. “More than any particular institutional, technological, or educational reform, promoting a healthier democracy requires reshaping the social identity landscape that ultimately anchors other democratic pathologies.”

Now it's been too long since I listened to it, so I will just recommend it. I'm afraid he's correct.

I heard the other one yesterday on the train back from Chicago, and managed to take a few notes. It featured Saul Griffith, MacArthur fellow, engineer, and inventor. Founder and CEO of OtherLab. Part of Rewiring America. 

The podcast's title is not as provoking as the other one: What's the real story with Australian rooftop solar? 

But as with Bill McKibben's recent book Here Comes the Sun, it's full of good news about the future of solar, and in this case, specificaly roof-top solar. 

"In every single possible future of this planet, the cheapest electricity will always be your rooftop solar. I can't say it more clearly than that." Because there's not distribution involved. 

Despite the current partisanship associated with solar energy, "Eventually the economics will catch up with you people" [Americans]. He gave the example of just one family he knows saving $9,000 a year.

Solar as a primary source will just make sense, he said, for any country that's an importer of fossil fuels — which is 80% of countries. It already works at up to 36° latitude, and is getting more efficient and cheaper, the batteries are better, so 1 or 2° more are added to that efficiency line every year. (Sydney is at 36°). 45° south/north is likely the boundary. (Chicago and New York are 40–41°, Minneapolis is 45°.)

Maximize rooftop solar, he says, and back fill with other forms of noncarbon energy. That makes for the lowest cost system, with the highest use of wires.

At some point countries that export fossil fuels will have a problem because FFs are more expensive than solar. Exporters will have to force countries to take them.

Roberts asked about making initial solar installation cheaper for middle-income to poorer people. Isn't it a problem that as more (better-off) people move to rooftop solar, won't that make conventional electricity more expensive for the poorer people who remain to share the cost burden? Griffith's answer is an emphatic No:

The highest component of anyone's electricity bill is the cost of the distribution, which is the local poles and wires that move the electricity around. Those things don't have very high utilization, typically between 25 and 40%. Meaning, they're rated very high, as though every house has every light turned on at all times... If you do a whole lot more solar and a whole lot more batteries under the local substation, under the local distribution grid, you can probably double that utilization. If you double the utilization, the per-kilowatt-hour delivered cost of electricity will go DOWN. 

They ended by talking about what we need to do in our individual states within the U.S. to make this happen:

• Find your local AHJ (authority having jurisdiction). Changing state law to make permitting faster is the quickest method, but it may be a Public Utilities Commission, or something else. 
• Advocate for better permitting and interconnection. Making solar installation fast and connection automatic is the key. Rewiring America found that you only need 12 people at a Public Utilities Commission meeting to make a difference.
• Lower the cost of customer acquisition, so word of mouth takes over. In Australia that cost is $0 because people recommend it to their friends. In the U.S. it's a huge percent of the cost of solar installations. 

 

Harper's Ferry, 166

I never manage to note the anniversary of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry on one of its "round year" anniversaries. This year is its 166th. I last mentioned it in 2021, just after I had read The Good Lord Bird.

This year seems like a good time to remind people about having the courage of your convictions. And to not be afraid to be seen as crazy by some of the people around you, who are going along with what may seem to be the majority.

As a writer named Jessica Ritchey said this evening on BlueSky,

If I had to explain American history in one sentence, I could do worse than "John Brown was hung for treason, but Robert E. Lee was not."

__

Another post that involves John Brown, from 2018.

A List to Keep in Mind

I keep checking kottke.org every day. This post brought me up short today.

It's called What Makes for a Healthy Society?, and it's excerpted from a book about how the indigenous peoples of the Bay Area in what is now California lived before Europeans arrived.

The part Kottke excerpted was this list, describing what the author thought was a healthy society:

• Sustainable relationship with the environment. In a healthy society, the present generation doesn’t strip-mine the soil, water, forest, minerals, etc., leaving the future impoverished and the beauty of the world degraded.
• Few outcasts. A healthy society will have relatively few outcasts — prisoners, homeless, unemployed, insane.
• Relative egalitarianism. The gap between those with the most wealth and power and those with the least should be moderate, and those with the least should feel protected, cared for, or rewarded in some other way.
• Widespread participation in the arts.
• Moderation or control of individual power.
• Economic security attained through networks of family, friendship, and social reciprocity rather than through the individual hoarding of goods.
• Love of place. The feeling that one lives with emotional attachment to an area that is uniquely beautiful, abundant in natural resources, and rich in personal meaning.
• Knowing one’s place in the world. A sense, perhaps embodied in spiritual practice, that the individual is an insignificant part of a larger, more abiding universe.
• Work is done willingly, or at least with a minimum of resentment.
• Lots of laughter. 

This is the inverse of what our government is trying to create in our country now. The rest of us need to keep a list like this in mind as what we are working for, rather than just "not what they are doing" as we go forward. I try.

100 to 1, and for Years

I'm too busy and distressed by [all this] to post much today, after yesterday's marathon of editing.

So here's a piece of good news (?) Or at least food for thought from the EV Curve Futurist on BlueSky:

One shipload of solar panels = the electricity of 100 shiploads of coal. Liquid natural gas? About 30.

Fossil fuels are bulky, burned once and gone. Solar is front-loaded, then delivers clean power for decades. The math is brutal: renewables crush fossils on energy density and durability.

 

Straw and Hemp Walls

Time for a little good news (via Star Tribune business columnist Evan Ramstad, gift link).

Minnesota is likely to be the first U.S. state to allow the use of straw and hemp as building materials, in part because the Lower Sioux Indian Community was experimenting with the materials because they're exempt from state building code rules. They've shown that the materials work.

Both materials are waste from other agricultural production that create environmentally sound insulation, while making stronger walls as well. 

The end of the article particularly got me:

The Lower Sioux crews are building hempcrete-insulated homes for about $170 per square foot.... That’s well below the $230 per square foot that is at the low end of builder-grade homes in Minnesota these days. Desjarlais acknowledged the tribe doesn’t face some permitting costs that builders off the reservation do and isn’t trying to make a profit off construction.

“We win in the long run with better homes that are healthier and longer-lasting,” he said. “These walls should last forever. They’re not going to be mold-ridden. If you have to take it down, you can grind it up and put it in your next [hempcrete] mix. It’s recyclable.” 

The tribe is paying people to do this work (as well as other builders), but it's not trying to extract wealth out of the area. It's in business, but not for capitalist purposes. Instead, it's in the business of building a livable and sustainable place for its people. 

What a concept!

Sarah Taber on "Can Farm Jobs Be Good Jobs?"

It's always great to learn something from Sarah Taber about the reality of farming. Today it's how farming could work (and used to work) in the U.S., and still works in a few areas.

She calls it, "Can farm jobs be good jobs?"

It's such a shame the majority of voters in North Carolina couldn't see past partisanship to elect her to be their commissioner of agriculture. (Also weird to me that it's an elected position, but that's another story.)

Coping

There are times when the fact that a third of people and two-thirds of the supposed best judicial minds in your country have no allegiance to its most obvious principles can really get to you.

Today is one of those days — when it feels as though my innards are churning from the upset at all that is happening, as if they might try to come out of my body.

All I can do on a day like this is weed the vegetable garden, which has been neglected for much too long. Realize that black raspberry season has arrived. And find small gems that don't belong in the vegetable garden path, but that I will leave in place and step over because a bit of not-exactly-belonging is what makes for a better place.


The raspberries — Bristol Black — have to be absolutely black or they're not ripe and they won't come off in your hand.

Borage reseeded where it wanted, nowhere near its original location 20–30 feet across the yard in a non-vegetable bed. But the blue flowers and pollinator action are worth the trouble.

A violet-flowered petunia, Petunia integrifolia, reseeded from some I planted in the vegetable garden several years ago. There were none in the area last year or even the year before, I believe. But suddenly this year, there are several.

A New Co-op in Northern Minnesota

Among all the bad news, there was one small good-news story in the Pioneer Press today. (Here's a longer version from the Grand Rapids Herald Review.)

Northern Minnesota's Blandin Foundation is providing a $1.575 million grant to help launch a new food co-op in downtown Grand Rapids, Minnesota. This will be a full-service, community-owned grocery store.

The co-op has been in the works for 10 years and has 1,200 member, with $1 million already committed from other sources, including memberships. The foundation grant means they should be able to get the store open by 2027.

Go co-op! 

The Free Book Buggie

In the middle of everything bad that's happening, today I learned there's a small nonprofit organization in the Twin Cities called The Free Book Buggie, and it was a spot of brightness.

For a very reasonable price, the staff and volunteers will bring the buggie to community events. It's filled with kids' books, and children can take as many as they want. 

What a cool idea.

Tesla Demonstration Number 2

I couldn't go to this morning's protest at the Saint Paul suburban Tesla dealership, but one of the other people who was there last week reported on BlueSky that last week's attendance of 18 more than doubled to 40.

Here are a couple of creative signs from today's protest in Golden Valley, a suburb just west of Minneapolis, which were posted to BlueSky:

These are clever signs but they're probably only readable by pedestrians, rather than car-drivers. I don't think they would be readable from a distance. 

Like the eastern suburb dealership, the western location is very car-oriented — but it does appear to have a sidewalk on at least one side of the street, unlike the east metro spot:

The hand-painted banner reads "Don't test drive fascism – No swasticar." 

In large spaces like this and the one in the east metro, with most of the audience going past in cars, more large signs or banners  — probably with simpler messages — are needed. 

Though I do love the Hair Hitler and Dogefather.

People's March Saint Paul 2025

As I suspected, it was too #$%#$% cold for me to take decent photos yesterday at the People's March, but I managed to stay out for an hour and a half. 

This time, I went right to the State Capitol and waited there for the march to come over from the Cathedral. I was a little nervous that there wouldn't be very many people. Maybe only an embarrassing trickle, given the temperature.

So I was genuinely moved to tears when the march came into sight down John Ireland Boulevard, filling the street most of the way from the Cathedral to the Capitol. Thousands of people! Of course it wasn't the hundred thousand of eight years ago when it was above freezing and all this was new, but it was a lot for below-zero wind chills.

Here are a couple of photos taken by others who were part of the march. 

This is by Karl Bunday on BlueSky, after people had reached the Capitol:

And this is by a friend of mine from farther back while the march was still in the street approaching the Capitol:

Here's the sign I took with me... an old standby from 2017:

Who knows what tomorrow and the next day will bring.

Trains!

Dodging the election from hell for a day, here's a fantasy thought, courtesy of Phil on BlueSky:

I know this is more a popular internet meme than anything else, but the population density between Minneapolis and Quebec City really does warrant a continuous high speed rail line. If we could get North American building costs and political obstinacy out of the way, it would unite an entire region.

He posted that in response to another person who wrote about the second daily train recently added between Chicago and Saint Paul:

In just 22 weeks, the Amtrak Borealis line connecting Milwaukee to Twin Cities surpassed 100,000 riders. That’s an average of 650 per day.

And the Borealis and Empire Builder trains don't even go through the state capitol, Madison, which would add even more potential riders. Passengers currently have to drive to a small town 40 minutes away to catch the train.

 

One Cancer Cure

This was mentioned in my September Twitter round-up: a Scottish study, which followed women born between 1988 and 1996 who were fully vaccinated against HPV at ages 12 and 13, found not a single case of cervical cancer among them. 

That was 40,000 women, and the findings held even if they received only one or two doses rather than the recommended three. For women who were older (14–22) and received three doses, the HPV rate was still cut by more than half.

I saw this news (again) today in the BlueSky feed of writer Ada Palmer, and one of her respondents added this bit of awesomeness:

My dad's sister-in-law developed the vaccine, she considers it her life's work. Every new article I see with a new longitudinal study I send along, just so she can have one more to brag about!

You never know what you'll see in the comments on BlueSky. It's an entirely different experience from Twitter.