In mid-March, a group of homeless and housing-insecure people calling themselves the Reclaimers took possession of eleven vacant houses in a quiet working-class neighborhood called El Sereno, east of downtown. The houses are among hundreds that Caltrans, the state’s transportation authority, bought last century, with the goal of demolishing them to make way for an expansion of the 710 Freeway. They were vacant—many of them unoccupied for years.
From the New Yorker
Author: reclaimer
Give Back
National Emergency
With our bodies, we insulate others from virus for our common good.
If we do not direct our attention to insulate virus from others, the collective systems we rely on will collapse.
- Workers get sick. How will we continue the bare functions of the country?
- People without jobs get sick. How will they pay for necessities, like medical care?
- Incarcerated people get sick. How will they remain there?
- Homeless people will get sick. Will we let them die in the streets?
- Police get sick and their team will be quarantined. Who will protect us?
- Healthcare workers get sick. Who will serve the sick?
Super Tuesday
With our vote, we selected our representatives for our own betterment
There was great optimism in the air on Tuesday! A military veteran poll worker thanked me for voting at my local polling station. My colleagues wore their “Voted” stickers. People talked about how their early votes for candidates who dropped out were not going to a viable candidate. Campaign stickers were posted to buildings.
And I saw a camel grazing near my polling station!
With games, Indigenous creators contribute to a revitalization
Petersen believes video games are an ideal way to not only teach Lakota, but revitalize it. “In video games, you can put every medium you can think of on a screen in an interactive manner at the same time,” he says. He intends to immerse players in “the experience of being in a culture where that language is alive, and not just history.”
Molly C. Beer from The next chapter of Indigenous representation in videogames
Civic Engagement in Milwaukee
The mission [Angela Lang, the executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities] explained to me, “is to increase the quality of life for black people in Wisconsin by expanding their idea of civic engagement. Civic engagement isn’t just voting—we have folks on staff that can’t vote in 2020. It’s also learning about the difference between city and county government, about how to talk to your alderperson or county executive. We ask people what issues they have—say they want speed bumps—and we identify the process to get that issue resolved. People feel they don’t have the power to make a change, because they don’t understand where they fit. We help them understand their power.”
Joseph O’Neill, “How Milwaukee Could Decide the Next President“
Clearview of the Future
Clearview compiles and collates images of faces online with an associated name. With facial recognition software, Clearview identifies almost everyone with a photo online and trades that match for money.
Currently, Clearview’s target market is law enforcement. As this program is for Clearview’s sole benefit without any regulation or restriction, and the company must survive or die, they will inevitability expand to larger markets including individual consumers and corporations. This makes privacy in public not possible and enables more detailed surveillance.
Plot of Potatoes
There were some couple-week-old Yukon gold potatoes with nub-like light green sprouts along their still smooth skin. With a discarded tool, I sliced the potatoes in half width-wise away from the sprouts. With a short rusted shovel, I dug a hole with a depth about the length of two hands. I then expanded and dug a small trench. I placed each half in the ground with the flat side down and replaced the soil.
I had tossed some old potatoes on a makeshift compost heap about a year ago. In the heavy rain, they went under a blanket of mud and grew rapidly in the slightly alkaline, sandy soil. While the soil lacked nutrients for some other plants–roses and lemons grew inconsistently–potatoes took a short time to grow.
Test for nutrients in the soil
Why nutrients are important
With a soil test kit, I tested for pH and also nutrients in the soil. Plants need three main things to grow: light; air; and nutrients (food).
The test kit helps test for three major nutrients: Nitrogen (N); Phosphorous (P); and Potassium (K) (Potash). Different plants require each nutrient to a different degree for optimal growth.
Testing method and conclusions
I filled one-fifth of a clean jar with a soil sample. Then, added clean water to the brim, put the lid on, shook it, and let it settle. A fine clay soil will take much longer to settle than a coarse sandy soil. It took about 30 minutes to settle (another indication that the garden has sandy soil).
I used a dropper to pull liquid from the soil mixture, put in respective chemicals, shook each tube, and waited for each to turn a color. I compared that color with color gradients in a chart. I concluded the following:
- Nitrogen: Between Low and Very Low: 35%
- Phosphorous: Very Low: 25%
- Potash: Low: 50%
Use: match nutrient level with supplemental food (fertilizer)
The soil test kit provides recommendations for supplemental food (fertilizer) in a table. The rows of the recommendation chart are for the type of plant (lawn, fruit, flower, etc.) while the columns are for Very Low, Low, Medium, or High amounts of each nutrient.
There are different tables for feeding prior to planting and feeding established plants and beds. The table for established plants indicates that a fertilizer (food) with 8-6-8 mix of Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potash works for the plants in the soil area tested. The numerals indicate ounces (weight) /100 sq. feet.
This triad numeral is usually in bold on the back of any fertilizer (food) you purchase. With this information, I can purchase an appropriate fertilizer for the soil area tested. But how to apply this fertilizer is another topic!
Type of soil
Before digging up soil for a pH test, I read the definitions for three different types of soil.
- Sandy soil: A light, coarse soil with crumbling debris
- Loam soil: A medium soil with a blend of sand and fine clay particles
- Clay soil: A heavy, clinging, impermeable soil made of very fine particles
I held a handful and went back and forth between these definitions. Because there were crumbling clods of dark soil, clumps of sand, I settled on sandy soil. The soil did not have fine particles, but did have some clay.