In the news
It's been a tough few days here, news-wise.
You may have heard about the mass murders which occurred here on Thursday.
A quick summary: A man shot his wife, his daughter, and his wife's parents at one house, his ex-girlfriend, her sister, and the sister's daughter at another. After police were called in, there was a car chase through downtown with shots fired, although thankfully no others injured. He then crashed his car, took three hostages, and holed up in a small apartment until finally shooting himself.
Thankfully, I was nowhere near any of it, physically. Really, though, we're not that big of a city. My uncle works with his mother (who the shooter was on the phone with when he shot his wife; his mother was the one who called the police). One of my is a regular at the same store as the shooter.
This has reminded me that I should never read comments on new articles. The majority of comments range from unthinkingly callous (Eight people died, not seven; despite his crime, the shooter was a person, and his mother just lost her granddaughter, her daughter-in-law, and her son), to ableist (Bi-polar? Sociopath? Psychopath? Let's play armchair diagnosis! Because he must have been mentally ill, right?), classist (Social safety net? If he needed help, his family and friends should have gotten it for him), and various shades of racist (from talking about the shootings as a result of his being raised by a single mother; to "pointing out" the trend of "black on white crime"; to vehemently proclaiming that almost all murders are committed by young black men).
I understand that knee-jerk reactions in the middle of a senseless tragedy aren't always at the level we'd like them to be, but please, people, if you have to comment publicly, think before you hit enter!
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We'll also be hosting another state funeral. First Lady Betty Ford, as much or more than her husband, was a home-town girl. She was raised in Grand Rapids, and spend most of her early adult life here. She was an inspiration, a cultural icon, and her passing leaves a hole in our hearts.
Funeral and memorial arrangements haven't been announced yet, but it's expected she'll be laid to rest next to her husband, on the Gerald R. Ford Museum grounds downtown.
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Meanwhile, in a small suburb of Detroit, a woman is being criminally charged for having a vegetable garden in her front yard.
No, you're not hallucinating.
A woman in Oak Park, Michigan, wanted to grow her own vegetables, and she figured it would be fun for the neighborhood kids to see how vegetables grow, so she converted her front yard into a beautiful garden of food.
The city planner, though, doesn't think it's so beautiful. Because it's not the grass, trees, bushes, and flowers that everyone else has, it violates the city code that says front yards must contain "suitable" live plant material.
So, because she doesn't have the decency to shield the public from having to see her pre-harvested produce, and put the garden in the front yard instead of the back, she was ticketed, fined, and now charged with a misdemeanor.
This isn't a garden of junked cars. It isn't even rampant weeds. It's a well-maintained vegetable garden. And the city is spending precious resources to charge her with a crime, potentially even having a jury trial and sending her to jail, because it's not "common" to have produce in the front yard.
The good news is, she's fighting for her garden, and blogging about all of it.
This entry was originally posted at http://archane.dreamwidth.org/601644.html. You can view
comments there, or add your own using an Open ID login.
You may have heard about the mass murders which occurred here on Thursday.
A quick summary: A man shot his wife, his daughter, and his wife's parents at one house, his ex-girlfriend, her sister, and the sister's daughter at another. After police were called in, there was a car chase through downtown with shots fired, although thankfully no others injured. He then crashed his car, took three hostages, and holed up in a small apartment until finally shooting himself.
Thankfully, I was nowhere near any of it, physically. Really, though, we're not that big of a city. My uncle works with his mother (who the shooter was on the phone with when he shot his wife; his mother was the one who called the police). One of my is a regular at the same store as the shooter.
This has reminded me that I should never read comments on new articles. The majority of comments range from unthinkingly callous (Eight people died, not seven; despite his crime, the shooter was a person, and his mother just lost her granddaughter, her daughter-in-law, and her son), to ableist (Bi-polar? Sociopath? Psychopath? Let's play armchair diagnosis! Because he must have been mentally ill, right?), classist (Social safety net? If he needed help, his family and friends should have gotten it for him), and various shades of racist (from talking about the shootings as a result of his being raised by a single mother; to "pointing out" the trend of "black on white crime"; to vehemently proclaiming that almost all murders are committed by young black men).
I understand that knee-jerk reactions in the middle of a senseless tragedy aren't always at the level we'd like them to be, but please, people, if you have to comment publicly, think before you hit enter!
----------
We'll also be hosting another state funeral. First Lady Betty Ford, as much or more than her husband, was a home-town girl. She was raised in Grand Rapids, and spend most of her early adult life here. She was an inspiration, a cultural icon, and her passing leaves a hole in our hearts.
Funeral and memorial arrangements haven't been announced yet, but it's expected she'll be laid to rest next to her husband, on the Gerald R. Ford Museum grounds downtown.
----------
Meanwhile, in a small suburb of Detroit, a woman is being criminally charged for having a vegetable garden in her front yard.
No, you're not hallucinating.
A woman in Oak Park, Michigan, wanted to grow her own vegetables, and she figured it would be fun for the neighborhood kids to see how vegetables grow, so she converted her front yard into a beautiful garden of food.
The city planner, though, doesn't think it's so beautiful. Because it's not the grass, trees, bushes, and flowers that everyone else has, it violates the city code that says front yards must contain "suitable" live plant material.
So, because she doesn't have the decency to shield the public from having to see her pre-harvested produce, and put the garden in the front yard instead of the back, she was ticketed, fined, and now charged with a misdemeanor.
This isn't a garden of junked cars. It isn't even rampant weeds. It's a well-maintained vegetable garden. And the city is spending precious resources to charge her with a crime, potentially even having a jury trial and sending her to jail, because it's not "common" to have produce in the front yard.
The good news is, she's fighting for her garden, and blogging about all of it.
This entry was originally posted at http://archane.dreamwidth.org/601644.html. You can view
comments there, or add your own using an Open ID login.