"Imagine if you had never been homeless before and you'd just lost your job and you lost your home. What would you do? Would you immediately go begging or knocking on a door? No, you would downsize, move into cheaper accommodations, if that did not work you'd move in with friends or relatives and then you'd move into a cheap motel and then ... where would you want to go before winding up at a shelter door? You would much prefer to live at a park with your family and your dog." ... "In just about every major city, there are tent cities. Unfortunately, we're in a growth industry and the numbers are going to continue." -- Michael Stoop, a community organizer for the
National Coalition for the Homeless, explaining that the
surge in American tent city shantytowns, first highlighted on MeFi in 2008/09:
1,
2,
3, has not slowed.
The Great Recession: Life in Tent City, Lakewood NJ /
Photo Gallery /
Video.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 10, 2011 -
40 comments
"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that a rubbish dump being created would, in the space of a century, become a protected area. Yet that is exactly what happened to what has come to be known as
Glass Beach, just outside Fort Bragg in California."
[more inside]
posted by codacorolla
on Sep 1, 2011 -
20 comments
KaBOOM! This past Friday, the
MythBusters exploded 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate (25% of the same material used in the
Oklahoma City bombing,) at a rock quarry in Yolo County, CA for an upcoming episode. But the explosion was apparently a wee bit bigger than they expected. It
shattered windows in nearby Esparto and was large enough to be picked up as a "small event" ground tremor by National Geographical Survey sensors. Which myth were they busting, you ask?
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Mar 26, 2009 -
73 comments
Santa Ana Speeds the Spread of So Cal Fires
Five separate fires are burning in San Diego County, including several densely populated suburban areas. Dozens of homes have been burned. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar has been affected, including an FAA air traffic control installation. 16,000 people in the South Bay lost electricity when a major distribution line went down. Many San Diego firefighters went up to Camp Pendelton yesterday. (
1,
2)
posted by rschram
on Oct 26, 2003 -
42 comments
Georgy for Governor So I am reading the SF Chronicle on Saturday and there was an
article about unusual candidates running for California's recall election for governor. In addition to big name politicians, millionaries and hollywood actors, there's a 19 year old kid, a software developer in silicon valley (who's selling thongs online to finance her campaign) and more...
So my thought it... should you or I run for governor? Would there be any chance any one of us could win? Could we harness the power of the web and memes to get a campaign some steam? Would a web-saavy person make for good changes in the office?
I just got paid for a freelance project the other day, and so I have $3,500 to spend if I wanted to... wondered what sort of value might be in it even if there was no chance that I could win. Would it just be me telling my grandkids one day that I was on the state's ballot with Arnold Schwarzneggar?
What would you see as a positive, worthwhile result from spending $3,500 to be one of the names on the ballot?
Curious.
posted by matte
on Jul 27, 2003 -
33 comments
