Tootfinder

Local Malls Are Sitting Empty, and Becoming a Headache for Small Towns - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/15/business/malls-empty-small-towns.html

Santa Barbara's turnout was just one example of the historic nationwide mobilization.
The “No Kings” protest brought millions to the streets in over 2,100 cities and towns across the country.
Organizers stated this movement has exceeded expectations,
uniting citizens to reject authoritarian overreach, defend fundamental freedoms,
and protect vulnerable communities.

Thousands Show Up for 'No Kings' Protest in Santa Barbara
Over a thousand demonstrators lined Cabrillo Blvd Saturday to join the nationwide "No Kings" protest opposing the Trump administration and defending democracy.

Via AltNationalParkService on FB:
**Honored to announce: 12.1 million in attendance**, even small towns: Manistee, Oneonta, Pasco County, Stowe, Bennington, Union Gap, Bellingham, Casper, Jackson, Driggs, Petoskey, Traverse City, Big Rapids, Alton, South Bend, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Des Moines, Topeka, Great Bend, Hays, Lenexa, Garden City, Lawrence, Wichita, Pierre, Rapid City, Spearfish, Watertown, Brookings, Sioux Falls.

Just read through "Sanctuary" by Paola Mendez & Abby Sher, which was electrifying as I read news about ICE kidnappings in local towns, including one in Waltham today where they left a kid alone on the sidewalk:
#ICE #kidnappings

Absolutely nobody asked, but I decided to post a quickie personal "review" of each of the towns I was in during my self-guided art/history tour of #Italy25. Mostly as a note to my future self about where I'd like to return. (1/~12) ↵

Small towns are growing fast across Ghana—but environmental planning isn't keeping up #Africa

Small towns are growing fast across Ghana—but environmental planning isn't keeping up
Africa's urban future will be shaped not only by large cities and capitals but also by its many small and medium-sized towns.

For more than a century, putrid fumes emanated from
the “sewer of the Ruhr”,
creating a pungent whiff that assaulted towns throughout Germany’s industrial heartland.
But today, the Emscher bears little resemblance to Europe’s dirtiest river.
Water that used to be fouled by factory waste and human excrement have been free from effluent since 2021.
The river system, the main part of which was once considered biologically dead, is witnessing the return of an abun…

'Evacuate to safer regions!' — Russian attacks kill 5, injure 1 in Donetsk Oblast: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/06/evacuate-to-safer-regions-russian.html

Amazon says it plans to bring same-day and next-day delivery to "tens of millions" of people who live in "more than 4,000" smaller US towns by the end of 2026 (Andrew J. Hawkins/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/691877/amazo

Amazon bringing same-day delivery to ‘millions’ of rural customers
Amazon announced that it was bringing same-day and next-day delivery to 4,000 small towns and rural communities by the end of 2026.

After mass protests in #Rome, municipal administrations of towns and cities across #Italy joined the 50,000 shrouds for #Gaza campaign to memorialize innocent victims of Israel's war on

Naples cuts ties with Israel over Gaza war
Italian city takes a stand against Israeli government. The city council of Naples on Wednesday voted to break off institutional relations with Israel in protest over the Netanyahu government's ongoing military offensive in Gaza. Councillors in the southern Italian city approved a motion that com...

The popular meaning of "luddite" is a straw-man. It's a sloppy word with a sloppy meaning now, and it's one we'd do well to watch out for.
The actual reality of who the Luddites were is far more interesting, the center of the hard-fought struggles against owners of factories disrupting entire towns and cities economies with massively terrible results, centralizing power and money and leaving a great number of people without any control of their work, formerly artisans who'd had a hand in their own work, and many automated out of jobs. Luddites destroyed automated looms not because they hated technology. They destroyed automated looms because they were taking the livelihood they depended on, with no recourse, and it was a disaster for a good while, and then millwork has gone from those places probably forever.
The problem now with LLMs and automated research systems is there's very little way for workers and creators to stick their shoes in the machinery. They've tried (https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.12281) but mostly failed, since unlike a factory full of textile workers, the equipment is remote, the automation virtual, an intangible software object that few can access in any meaningful way.

Long; central Massachusetts colonial history
Today on a whim I visited a site in Massachusetts marked as "Huguenot Fort Ruins" on OpenStreetMaps. I drove out with my 4-year-old through increasingly rural central Massachusetts forests & fields to end up on a narrow street near the top of a hill beside a small field. The neighboring houses had huge lawns, some with tractors.
Appropriately for this day and this moment in history, the history of the site turns out to be a microcosm of America. Across the field beyond a cross-shaped stone memorial stood an info board with a few diagrams and some text. The text of the main sign (including typos/misspellings) read:
"""
Town Is Formed
Early in the 1680's, interest began to generate to develop a town in the area west of Natick in the south central part of the Commonwealth that would be suitable for a settlement. A Mr. Hugh Campbell, a Scotch merchant of Boston petitioned the court for land for a colony. At about the same time, Joseph Dudley and William Stoughton also were desirous of obtaining land for a settlement. A claim was made for all lands west of the Blackstone River to the southern land of Massachusetts to a point northerly of the Springfield Road then running southwesterly until it joined the southern line of Massachusetts.
Associated with Dudley and Stoughton was Robert Thompson of London, England, Dr. Daniel Cox and John Blackwell, both of London and Thomas Freak of Hannington, Wiltshire, as proprietors. A stipulation in the acquisition of this land being that within four years thirty families and an orthodox minister settle in the area. An extension of this stipulation was granted at the end of the four years when no group large enough seemed to be willing to take up the opportunity.
In 1686, Robert Thompson met Gabriel Bernor and learned that he was seeking an area where his countrymen, who had fled their native France because of the Edict of Nantes, were desirous of a place to live. Their main concern was to settle in a place that would allow them freedom of worship. New Oxford, as it was the so-named, at that time included the larger part of Charlton, one-fourth of Auburn, one-fifth of Dudley and several square miles of the northeast portion of Southbridge as well as the easterly ares now known as Webster.
Joseph Dudley's assessment that the area was capable of a good settlement probably was based on the idea of the meadows already established along with the plains, ponds, brooks and rivers. Meadows were a necessity as they provided hay for animal feed and other uses by the settlers. The French River tributary books and streams provided a good source for fishing and hunting. There were open areas on the plains as customarily in November of each year, the Indians burnt over areas to keep them free of underwood and brush. It appeared then that this area was ready for settling.
The first seventy-five years of the settling of the Town of Oxford originally known as Manchaug, embraced three different cultures. The Indians were known to be here about 1656 when the Missionary, John Eliott and his partner Daniel Gookin visited in the praying towns. Thirty years later, in 1686, the Huguenots walked here from Boston under the guidance of their leader Isaac Bertrand DuTuffeau. The Huguenot's that arrived were not peasants, but were acknowledged to be the best Agriculturist, Wine Growers, Merchant's, and Manufacter's in France. There were 30 families consisting of 52 people. At the time of their first departure (10 years), due to Indian insurrection, there were 80 people in the group, and near their Meetinghouse/Church was a Cemetery that held 20 bodies. In 1699, 8 to 10 familie's made a second attempt to re-settle, failing after only four years, with the village being completely abandoned in 1704.
The English colonist made their way here in 1713 and established what has become a permanent settlement.
"""
All that was left of the fort was a crumbling stone wall that would have been the base of a higher wooden wall according to a picture of a model (I didn't think to get a shot of that myself). Only trees and brush remain where the multi-story main wooden building was.
This story has so many echoes in the present:
- The rich colonialists from Boston & London agree to settle the land, buying/taking land "rights" from the colonial British court that claimed jurisdiction without actually having control of the land. Whether the sponsors ever actually visited the land themselves I don't know. They surely profited somehow, whether from selling on the land rights later or collecting taxes/rent or whatever, by they needed poor laborers to actually do the work of developing the land (& driving out the original inhabitants, who had no say in the machinations of the Boston court).
- The land deal was on condition that there capital-holders who stood to profit would find settlers to actually do the work of colonizing. The British crown wanted more territory to be controlled in practice not just in theory, but they weren't going to be the ones to do the hard work.
- The capital-holders actually failed to find enough poor suckers to do their dirty work for 4 years, until the Huguenots, fleeing religious persecution in France, were desperate enough to accept their terms.
- Of course, the land was only so ripe for settlement because of careful tending over centuries by the natives who were eventually driven off, and whose land management practices are abandoned today. Given the mention of praying towns (& dates), this was after King Phillip's war, which resulted in at least some forced resettlement of native tribes around the area, but the descendants of those "Indians" mentioned in this sign are still around. For example, this is the site of one local band of Nipmuck, whose namesake lake is about 5 miles south of the fort site: #LandBack.

Finished streaming #Paradise. A 2nd season has been confirmed and I'm looking forward to it. The characters are intriguing and the VFX are great. Nothing too fancy on the surface, mostly digital landscape stuff and set extensions. But those are actually hard because you need an incredible amount of detail to get the "CG look" out of CG towns and landscapes.
They also went cra…

We're having a hot June, here in the Netherlands. And it'll get hotter in the coming decades. We need more trees in our towns and cities. In the place in the picture, there once was a big tree. A civil servant explained that it had to be cut down, "because it took up two parking places" 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️🤦
#ClimateChange

I feel like there are not enough videos on youtube about how towns in America are run.
here is a video from Hawthorne, #NewJersey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkY4L0gFR0M

'Greatly imperiled': Expert warns Trump policies backfiring on Midwest towns - Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2672840198/

Moooozilla – the browser for cows (especially for the gigantic kind that spits fire and tramples towns).

Good Morning #Canada
It was pointed out to me that I rarely, if ever, post anything about #NewBrunswick. It's not my fault that the eastern province is less exciting than Saskatoon, but today, we fix that omission. Here's an article on the 10 best towns and cities to visit in the land of Purple Violets and Black-capped Chickadees. Just in time for #RoadTrip season. Look for the next New Brunswick post in 26-ish months.
#CanadaIsAwesome
https://www.todocanada.ca/10-small-towns-and-cities-to-add-to-your-new-brunswick-itinerary/

For hundreds of years, the Spanish banned the Incan Festival of the Sun—the Andean New Year.
But since the middle of the 20th century, Inti Raymi has been back. 
Today, communities, cities, towns and even universities hold Inti Raymi celebrations.
They make offerings, light fires and incense. They say prayers to Pachamama and Inti, the sun. They sing and dance. 
And it’s not just a celebration. It is an act of resistance

Inti Raymi returns as an act of resistance
Inti Raymi is the most important Indigenous celebration of the Andean countries of South America. And it is a revival of the people’s cultural history. This is episode 50 of Stories of Resistance.

"UK schools and offices not equipped for impact of global heating, report warns"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #Education #Climate

As unrest and military troops overtake Los Angeles, terrifying scenes are also unfolding in smaller communities around the country.
They, too, are being invaded by what resembles a secret police force, often indistinguishable from random thugs.
https://www.washington…

The secret police descending on Small Town, U.S.A.
Masked immigration officials are storming towns and arresting people.

'Worse than COVID': LA businesses turn into 'ghost towns' due to ICE raids - Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/ice-raids-2672386528/