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From the GNR Newsroom its the Monday Good News Roundup [1]

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Date: 2023-03-27  

Welcome back friends to the Monday Good News roundup, where your dedicated GNR News room (Myself, Bhu and Killer300) scour the world wide web for good news stories to improve your day.

Before we begin this weeks roundup, I feel like we have to address the elephant in the room: The fact that a lot of people came into Saturday’s Good News Roundup with the intent of being really negative and pessimistic, in general defiance of the attitude of the GNR and its philosophy in general.

Of course people can post whatever they like, that’s fine. But I feel like the real question is “Who is that helping?” Why does one come into a space trying to help lift people up and trample all over that? What good does that do?

On that note, allow me to share a little quote.

“In every age everybody knows that up to his own time, progressive improvement has been taking place; nobody seems to reckon on any improvement in the next generation. We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who say society has reached a turning point – that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason. ... On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?”

The source of this quote was one Thomas Babington Macaulay. From a book he wrote in 1860.

Even back then in the 1800’s we had people saying “the world is doomed and things can only get worse from here.” And look how far we’ve come since then.

Granted, the progress towards a better future is not a given. Sometimes we stumble, sometimes we get jerked back. We’re still trying to recover from the BS Reagan inflicted on us. But history has, generally speaking, shown an improvement in the world on all fronts, so rather that sit around and talk about how the world is doomed and try and drag down the people trying to make it better, how about we actually try and help make things better?

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Onto the good News.

Harris lists the demands of Collegiate — help tenants with moving costs and the likely increased rents for nearby living, and stop demolition plans until all are safely relocated. These demands will be met, Harris insists. (Collegiate responded to a request for comment for this article by saying it has pushed back the tenant relocation date and is offering to help residents with their moves, including some costs. On March 8, at a meeting attended by Yorktown residents and other Louisville Tenant Union members, a local architectural review committee voted 3-2 to deny Collegiate’s request to demolish the Yorktown buildings.) “We are poor, we are working class, we are old, young, Black, brown, white and everything in between. We are organizing across lines others use to divide us,” Harris said. “We know the people who run Collegiate are the descendants of wealthy plantation owners and they are used to pushing people like us out of the way.” ‘Tenants will no longer be silent’

Housing should be a basic right. Its time make that a thing.

Like many American cities, Asheville faces skyrocketing housing costs, which is why local activists began supporting the encampments of those pushed out of indoor housing by rising rents. Like many such encampments, the city does not support the one in Aston Park, and the camp is instead built autonomously by those who need shelter each night. “Mutual aid is showing up for each other from a stance that we all deserve care, that we all have the same inherent dignity, that there is space for all of us,” says Norris, who explains that her collective provides weekly deliveries of food and camping gear to the people in the park. The encampments faced daily sweeps, where police clear the people out of the park, after which the houseless community would usually return to rebuild.

Its always heartwarming to see people helping their fellow man. Always look for the helpers.

f Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defeats former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he may have a harder time winning the general election than his supporters expect, according to the latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll. The new survey shows that more Americans oppose than favor seven out of eight signature policies put forward by DeSantis in Florida, with support ranging from 36% (for requiring public school books to be reviewed for content “the government deems inappropriate”) to a low of 21% (for “granting political appointees the power to fire tenured faculty members at public colleges and universities at any time and for any reason”). On foreign policy, meanwhile, DeSantis doesn’t fare much better.

Yeah it turns out people aren’t in favor of DeSantis’ disgusting cruelty and overreaching censorship.

In September, The Walt Disney World Resort will host a summit promoting LGBTQ+ rights in the workplace in partnership with Out & Equal, an organization that The Walt Disney Company is currently listed as being a "titanium" level supporter of. As highlighted by The Miami Herald, "Disney's decision to host the conference this fall comes amid a yearlong dispute between the company and [Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis], who signed a law that ended decades of autonomy at the Disney resort."

Yep, the moment you have been waiting for. Disney has basically declared war on DeSantis by showing they aren’t afraid of his bullshit homophobic bullying. I can only imagine what Disney has cooking behind the scenes to eff with DeSantis.

Former Florida state Rep. Joseph Harding, who sponsored the so-called "Don't Say Gay" law banning the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the state's primary school classrooms, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to fraudulently obtaining tens of thousands of dollars from a federal COVID relief program. Harding at his hearing in the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida submitted a guilty plea for a single count each of wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements stemming from a six-count indictment in December, NBC News reported. Harding, who resigned from his state House seat after his indictment, admitted to the crimes, reversing his earlier "not guilty" plea. A new court filing obtained by NBC found that the former lawmaker acknowledged that he made false statements when submitting an application for an economic injury disaster loan in December 2020. The company he listed had no business activity and was dormant at the time.

Yep, and once you peel away the veneer of smug self righteousness, it turns out these guys are just a bunch of crooks.

America’s electricity grid may be only eight years away from hitting a major decarbonization milestone, according to a new federal report. On Wednesday, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory published a new forecast about what the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law could mean for the country’s power grid. They find that the grid could hit a crucial target — generating 80% of its electricity without burning fossil fuels — by the end of the decade. Under some of the lab’s scenarios, the American grid could, by 2030, generate 90% of its electricity without burning carbon. That is more than double today’s share, and it would make America’s power grid one of the cleanest in the world. Climate pollution from the power sector could plunge to 84% below its 2005 levels, when U.S. carbon pollution reached an all-time high.

We’re getting there, we need to go faster but we are getting there.

Now its time to grab a raincoat and stay away from anything metal, its time for a GNR LIGHTNING ROUND.

Latin America poised to become renewable energy giant

Defying Russian assault, Ukraine completes 114 MW Wind Farm

NASA has pollution tracking eye in the sky

South Korea U turns on 69 hour work week after youth protest

Alright, the storm has passed, back to our usual program.

But here, I don’t want to talk about whether pessimism is accurate. I want to focus on whether it’s useful. People might defend doomsday scenarios as the wake-up call that society needs. If they’re exaggerated, so what? They might be the crucial catalyst that gets us to act on climate change. Setting aside the moral problem of stretching the truth, this claim is wrong. Scaring people into action doesn’t work. That’s true not just for climate change, air pollution, and biodiversity loss, but for almost any issue we can think of. We need optimism to make progress — yet that alone isn’t enough. To contend with environmental crises and make life better for everyone, we need the right kind of optimists: those who recognize that the world will only improve if we fight for it.

See, we at the GNR aren’t stupid. We aren’t telling people to just be complacent. But at the same time, scaring people and telling them they're doomed is not a motivator. Like I know my favorite part of any sports movie is in the third act when the underdog team is behind at half time and the coach comes and gives a big speech about how they have no hope of winning and they should all go home. Oh wait no that’s not what happens is it? What happens is they give a big speech about how it may seem rough but they can still win if they come together as a team and do it. That’s how you get stuff done.

On Wednesday, a judge in the deep-red state of Wyoming temporarily blocked a state law that would make performing nearly any abortion in that state a felony. She relied on a 2012 amendment to the state constitution that was intended to spite then-President Barack Obama. Obama’s early years in office were marred by a scorched-earth political campaign Republicans wielded to try to thwart what became the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare’s opponents warned of a “government takeover of health care” that would strip many Americans of their ability to make their own health decisions. Many of these allegations were downright ludicrous, such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R) false claim that Obama’s health bill would require “my baby with Down Syndrome ... to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society’ whether they are worthy of health care.”

So basically, they are using the GOP’s spiteful attempts to undermind the ACA in order to fight the Abortion Bans cropping up. That is just *Chef’s kiss* Poifect.

In a legal victory for Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs, the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that state law does not require her to carry out a scheduled execution. The court had set an April 6 execution date for Aaron Gunches, who was sentenced to death for the 2002 killing of Ted Price, his girlfriend's ex-husband, near Mesa. In a ruling issued on Wednesday, the court noted its role under state law to "issue a warrant of execution that authorizes the director of the state department of corrections to carry out the execution."

Good for her.

The women decided that the best course of action would be to set up a pantry to provide strikers’ families with groceries and other essential items. They reached out to that auxiliary’s president, Evelyn Berryhill, for guidance on how to get things rolling. ​“We asked some questions, like ​‘What did you do? How do you get started? How does it work?’” Wright explains.

When communities come together to fight against big business, they win. Everyone has a part to play, even if its a little one.

With an investment of about $32,250, the school’s solar panels produce four times the power the campus needs, allowing it to give the excess energy away to other schools nearby. It sells the rest to the national grid and uses the profits to upgrade its education programs. Now, in a country where most schools struggle to pay for basic education, Makthar has money for clubs and classes in entrepreneurship, robotics, web design and renewable energy. “I teach them how solar panels can be used for heating and fuel on farms,” one teacher says. “They are also being taught how to do maintenance on such solar systems.”

Man I love living in the future. That article title is seriously out of a Sci Fi story.

In-law apartments, backyard cottages, and other types of “bonus housing” known as accessory dwelling units (ADUs) just became easier to build in Anchorage, with a remarkable package of zoning code reforms that took effect last month. The reforms signal a new willingness by elected officials here to reverse housing-unfriendly land use rules that have led to a shortage of attainably priced homes, record-high prices, and a one-style-must-fit-all housing market. They also better serve the needs of the city’s changing population, where in the last 20 years the market share of small households (one- and two-person) has grown, and larger ones (three-person or more) has shrunk.

More good news from the world of affordable housing. Hopefully one day everyone can live wherever they want cheaply.

And with that, we come to the end of another Monday GNR. Have a good week, stay positive, and stay hopeful for the future.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/27/2160421/-From-the-GNR-Newsroom-its-the-Monday-Good-News-Roundup

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