Currently in an era where everything and nothing is possible. I feel like I've heard folks who were my age going through the '08 recession feel the same way. Granted they didn't have to deal with grocery prices like this, but still. Sometimes it feels like there's so little opportunity that you might as well do whatever the hell you want. You're forced to think outside of the box because the box is no longer serving you. When I think about what I want, like what I really want, it's nothing too big. It's a house I can afford where I can invite friends over and also have room to store all the stuff my partner and I refuse to get rid of. It's a job where I don't feel like I'm pretending constantly. It's filled with delicious food that I am not scared is gonna give me super diarrhea. It's the little things I guess lol.

News to Know

Facebook is paying controversial creators to produce rage-bait content (ABC Australia): Not surprising, but good to know.
Will Supreme Court’s order on mail-in ballots impact voting in Illinois? (Capitol News Illinois): Always good to know how the choices of our chaotic federal government are affecting us Illinoisians.
Rideshare unionization, drug-pricing oversight, plastic pellet and light pollution bills become law (Capitol News Illinois): Exciting stuff in the Illinois legislature, I'm especially hyped for rideshare drivers unionizing!
Apartment complex for homeless people on Peoria's South Side advances; community voices objections (WCBU): This article is honestly pretty interesting, and it highlights the struggles of a community that centralizes where their resources for the marginalized are. By putting it all in one place that theoretically makes it easier for those people to acquire resources, but it also isolates them from the rest of the larger community, especially in a place that doesn't have a solid public transit system to allow folks to really move freely despite their income. It makes me think of how redlining would only allow Black folks to live in one area of a community, but then people creating new suburbs and housing would make it as if the people there wouldn't even want to be somewhere else because class-mixing and racial-mixing created tensions and made things complicated. But it was all just a part of the larger idea of keeping one group separated from another as much as possible, and I can't help but also see a little bit of that here. (also can you tell I've been reading The Color of Law lol).
After Cyclospora Outbreak, Local Black Farms See Rise in Support (Capital B News): Here's a least a little good news in-between the chaos! Now let's try to keep this up even after it feels safe to buy lettuce in stores.
The county prosecutors who became ICE informants (Injustice Watch): Another reminder that even in our self-avowed sanctuary state of illinois, there are opps around every corner when it comes to protect our immigrant brethren.
Urbana City Council’s Ward 6 seat open after incumbent member steps down (Illinois Public Media): Grace Wilken was a great progressive voice on the Urbana City Council, she will be missed! If you want to take her place, deadline to apply is Sept. 11 and you can do it here.
Bad weather has kept these Urbana children out of school. A new bus stop shelter is in the works (Illinois Public Media): A great collaborative effort here to help out our local kids! It also reminds us that sometimes to get your property management company to do the right thing, it often takes getting others together to help. Sucks it took this long!
Champaign County officials say they can’t ban data centers. But residents want tighter restrictions (Illinois Public Media): The saga over what to do about data centers in Champaign County continues.

Lavender Vibes

By disparaging 2020 protests as ‘Woke 1’, liberals are following the rightwing’s lead (The Guardian): This has been grinding my gears of late, shout out to Andre Gee who explains it so well. With so many cultural battles of the last century, the right has been allowed to create and control the vernacular of their homemade culture wars. To see someone who was once lauded as the start of a new progressive wave in politics now stoop so low as to use their bastardization of Black language as the cudgel to beat down the actual socialists she used to align herself with.
Lingua Franca (2019), directed by Isabel Sandoval: A beautiful movie that I only found out by watching a random Sundance Institute panel highlighting her as a trans filmmaker! Sandoval's Lingua Franca is a very poignant movie set during the first Trump presidency that highlights the fears of a young filipina careworker named Olivia trying to feel safe as a trans woman and an immigrant as ICE activity heightens in her community.