[Plura-list] Ohio spends tax dollars to destroy Ohio; Diving bell drawings; Distanced stage plays

[Cory Doctorow]

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I'm speaking today in a mass Teach-In Against Surveillance that's
raising funds for Ian Linkletter, a UBC ed-tech specialist who's being
sued by Proctorio (a remote proctoring corporation) in a bid to silence
his criticism of their awful, immoral products.

https://eventbrite.ca/e/teach-in-against-surveillance-tickets-128926228821

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Today's links

* Ohio spends tax dollars to destroy Ohio: Kroger's state subsidies
funnelled to "ghost kitchens."

* Diving bell drawings: Pictures of the deep, drawn in a mid-19th C
submersible.

* Distanced stage plays: The first online arts centre in the
English-speaking world.

* Double your EFF donation: Up to $319,000 in donations matching.

* Emotional deck: Crowdfunding the Becoming Dragon deck.

* This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing
projects, current reading

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🍳 Ohio spends tax dollars to destroy Ohio

Kroger is one of America's largest, most profitable grocery chains, with
$2b in profits in 2019. Ohio just gave it a 15-year, 75% tax subsidy in
exchange for locating some data centers in the state. Pat Garofalo
offers some sharp comments on the deal.

https://publicseminar.org/2020/11/how-taxpayers-are-picking-up-the-bill-for-the-destruction-of-local-restaurants/

Data center subsidies are the ultimate sucker-bet. States and cities
that subsidize data-centers to get local jobs end up spending $2 million
(up to $6m!) PER JOB. Data centers are expensive but they also employ
very few people, after all.

https://boondoggle.substack.com/p/facebook-and-the-data-center-scam

Now, you may be asking yourself, wait, why does a grocery chain - even
one with $2B/year in profits - need a pair of data centers? Groceries
are a data-intensive business, but they're not *that* data-intensive.

The answer: Kroger's starting a "ghost kitchen" sideline. That's when
giant corporations set up predatory sweatshops in shipping containers
where employees (misclassified as contractors) earn sub-minimum-wage
pennies to produce delivery meals.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle

These are often owned or partnered with delivery apps, and, like
delivery apps, they use investor cash to subsidize both the food and the
delivery, losing money on each transaction, in a bid to drive out local,
productive restaurant businesses.

Ghost kitchens *are* data-intensive, because their corporate masters do
deep analysis from their predatory delivery business to find vulnerable
local restaurants to clone and drive out of business, replacing searches
for the local eatery with their ghost-kitchen knock-off.

And Kroger doesn't even need to tap its investors to subsidize the
destruction of Ohio's beloved local restaurants - already weakened by
the pandemic and weak stimulus for small businesses, especially bars and
restaurants.

The Ohio taxpayers - including restaurants that will be driven out of
business by this subsidy - are footing the bill for it.

The sadists of China's Cultural Revolution would execute your dad and
send you a bill for the bullet. In America, we're much more genteel.

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🍳 Diving bell drawings

Eugen Ransonnet-Villez was a 19th century Viennese aristo,  polymath and
prodigy. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts (at age 11!) he went
into law, but he is best known for his amateur zoology.

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/underwater-landscapes-of-eugen-von-ransonnet-villez

His 1867 "Sketches of the Inhabitants, Animal Life and Vegetation in the
Lowlands and High Mountains of Ceylon" is remarkable not merely for his
beautiful lithos, but for how he drew them: inside of a homebrew
diving-bell.

The bell was made from sheet iron and inch-thick glass, and his legs
stuck out of gaskets on the underside so that he could shuffle along the
ocean bottom to get better angles. The bell held about three hours'
worth of air and was weighted with cannonballs.

As he finished each drawing, he put it in a watertight tin box and sent
it up to the surface for safekeeping (the soft pencil drawings were
painted over later, on the surface).

As to those paintings, the Public Domain Review quotes Stefanie
Jovanovic-Kruspel: "a mixture between romantic-lyric
underwater-landscapes and super realistic observations of the inhabiting
organisms."

The original paintings are mostly divided between the Natural History
Museum Vienna, and in the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, but the Public
Domain Review article has links to high-rez online scans.

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🍳 Distanced stage plays

The Xanadu Online Theatre is an offshoot of Notes From Xanadu, "as far
as can be seen, the first online arts centre in the English-speaking
world." It was founded by Mary Tynan, "a chronically-ill, disabled
creative living in the West of Ireland."

The Theatre has been mounting productions through the lockdown that
stream live on the free/open platform Jitsi. They've just announced two
plays for the holidays: Riders to the Sea by J M Synge and The Proposal
by Anton Chekhov.

https://notesfromxanadu.org/theatre-at-home-for-christmas/online-arts-centre

The production features actors on two continents and in three timezones.
Tickets are free, but limited. Reserve yours here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/theatre-at-home-for-christmas-tickets-129660125927

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🍳 Double your EFF donation

I have worked with EFF, off and on, for nearly 19 years (!) and my
belief in the organization's mission - making the internet safe for
human thriving - and my long-term, inside view into its operations are
why it tops my charitable giving each year.

EFF is a powerhouse, multiplying its funding (mostly small-dollar
donations from individuals) severalfold to do effective, important
activism that defends human rights in the online world.

https://www.eff.org/about/annual-reports-and-financials

The org gets four stars from Charity Navigator:

https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid;=7576

and its IRS 990 form shows why (it pays excellent people a living wage
and then uses the rest for program activities):

https://www.eff.org/files/2020/08/07/eff_fy19_990_tax_return_public_copy.pdf

Today, EFF launched its annual Power Up event, when donations are
matched, 1 to 1, from a pool supplied by some of our generous major
donors. The fund will match up to $319,600.

https://supporters.eff.org/donate/pu20--SBD

What's more EFF's brilliant design team has produced a range of amazing
swag as premiums for your donation, from beanies to stickers to hoodies
and tees, featuring Hugh D'Andrade's amazing 30th Anniversary Sea
Serpent illo.

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🍳 Emotional deck

"Becoming Dragon" is Cris Beasley's latest Kickstarter: it's a kind of
divination deck she calls "a tool for clarity amidst uncertainty."

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crystalbeasley/becoming-dragon-shadow-work-oracle-enneagram-card-deck

I am a firm disbeliever in metaphysics and thus divination. But I have
known and respected enough people who used this kind of oracle as a tool
for self-reflection that I have a lot of time for it (and the
illustrations are great, too).

After all, one of my most treasured possessions is my limited edition
Brian Eno Oblique Strategies deck (home to my favorite riddle: "Be the
First One to Not Do Something that No One Else Has Ever Not Thought of
Doing Before.")

https://web.archive.org/web/20130611142554/http://www.enoshop.co.uk/product/oblique_strategies_limited_numbered_edition?currency=USD

Beasley's decks are $40 (and up); it's her third crowdfunder and by her
account, "I've made a ton of mistakes producing KS campaigns. This is
great news for you. I've learned some hard lessons."

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🍳 This day in history

#15yrsago David Byrne gets RIAA warning
https://web.archive.org/web/20051223160922/http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2005/12/12105_rant_abou.html

#15yrsago Eek-A-Mouse jamming with Irish pub musicians
https://web.archive.org/web/20051211095248/http://www.alphabetset.net/audio/t-woc/eek_trad.mp3

#15yrsago Vacuum-bag dust houses sculpted by former house-cleaner
https://web.archive.org/web/20051223110044/http://laotracasa.tripod.com/id89_houses.htm

#15yrsago Greedy Grateful Dead widow burns down online show-library
https://archive.org/post/47634/grateful-dead-concert-recordings-on-the-internet-archive

#10yrsago Winner-Take-All Politics: how America’s super-rich got so much
richer
https://memex.craphound.com/2010/11/29/winner-take-all-politics-how-americas-super-rich-got-so-much-richer/

#10yrsago BP sued in Ecuador for violating the “rights of Nature”
https://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/29/headlines/bp_sued_in_ecuadorian_court_for_violating_rights_of_nature

#10yrsago Goodbye, Worldchanging
https://web.archive.org/web/20101201154924/http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011738.html

#10yrsago Walt Disney World employees demand a living wage
https://thedisneyblog.com/2010/12/01/disney-world-union-takes-offensive/

#5yrsago Workaholic Goethe wished he’d been better at carving out time
for quiet reflection
https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2015/11/the-aged-herr-goethe-never-had-enough-time-for-himself/

#5yrsago A Canadian teenager used America’s militarized cops to
terrorize women gamers for years
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial-swatter.html?_r=0

#1yrago Meet the Krazy Klown Kavalcade of racists, homophobes,
islamophobes and transphobes serving as appointed South Carolina
magistrates
https://www.propublica.org/article/he-defended-the-confederate-flag-and-insulted-immigrants-now-hes-a-judge#172036

#1yrago Bloomberg’s $34m presidential campaign ad-buy is 1.1% of the
taxes Bernie, Warren and Steyer want him to pay
https://newrepublic.com/article/155844/michael-bloomberg-big-hedge-wealth-tax-2020

#1yrago Talking with the Left Field podcast about Sidewalk Labs’s plan
to build a surveilling “smart city” in Toronto
https://soundcloud.com/outofleftfieldpodcast/block-sidewalk-feat-cory-doctorow

#1yrago Four union organizers fired from Google
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/firing-of-four-google-employees-is-retaliatory-activists-say/

#1yrago A quick trip through the ghastly, racist, sexist, eugenicist,
authoritarian things that Boris Johnson has said in recent years
https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-said-britain-poorest-chavs-losers-criminals-addicts-burglars-2019-11

#1yrago Writer asks for an exclusive trademark on the use of the word
“dark” in “Series of fiction works, namely, novels and books”
https://tsdr.uspto.gov/?#caseNumber=88699997&caseType;=SERIAL_NO&searchType;=statusSearch

#1yrago Debullshitifying the Right to Repair excuses Apple sent to
Congress
https://www.ifixit.com/News/33977/apple-told-congress-how-repair-should-work-we-respond

#1yrago Apple poses a false dichotomy between “privacy” and
“competition”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/26/apple-emphasizes-user-privacy-lawmakers-see-it-an-effort-edge-out-its-rivals/

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🍳 Colophon

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/).

Currently writing: My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel
about truth and reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 508 words (88911
total).

Currently reading: The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 24)
https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/11/23/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-24/

Upcoming appearances:

* Teach-In Against Surveillance, Dec 1,
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/teach-in-against-surveillance-tickets-128926228821

* After the storm: A post-election analysis of UK-US digital trade, Dec
4,
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/after-the-storm-a-post-election-analysis-of-uk-us-digital-trade/

*  Monopoly, Not Mind Control: What's Really Happening With
"Surveillance Capitalism," Dec 8,
https://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20201208-doctorow/

* Colloquium on Information Security, Dec 14
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-31st-hphpe-virtual-colloquium-on-information-security-tickets-128859336745

* Keynote, NISO Plus, Feb 22-25,
https://niso.plus/cory-doctorow-to-keynote-at-niso-plus-2021/

Recent appearances:

* Big Tech Podcast:
https://www.cigionline.org/big-tech/cory-doctorow-true-dangers-surveillance-capitalism

* Nerdcanon Podcast:
http://nerdcanon.com/episode-25-cory-doctorow-and-attack-surface/

* Plutopia Podcast:
https://plutopia.io/2020/11/23/cory-doctorow-attack-surface/

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially,
provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link
to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are
included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the
basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla* -Joey "Accordion Guy"
DeVilla

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