Count Jonathan Capehart, the openly gay Pulitzer Prizewinning columnist for the Washington Post, as one of those in her corner. Until 2012 they were merely casual acquaintances. Then came the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Each night they would meet at a local Hooters for dinner. Over wingsHooters has great wingsthey spoke for hours while tank-topped, short-shorted waitresses moved around them. Though they shared a similar worldview, Capehart, a regular MSNBC contributor, found Reid more liberal. Since then, the two have been intellectual sparring partners and close friends.

The person who wrote those columns is not the person I got to know sitting across from her at a table in Tampa at Hooters, Capehart says of Reids previous LGBTQ remarks. I dont know that person. I dont know that person who wrote those pieces.

Look, he continues, do you know how many people would be out of my life if I did not, one, learn to forgive and, two, give them the room to evolve?

Over the past few months, Reid has witnessed an entire nations belief system on race radically evolve. Following the killing of George Floyd in May and the worldwide protests that followed, America seems ready, finally ready, to take in the very things shes spoken on for years. Before the hoodie became a menacing totem for the alt-right in Florida, Reid fretted over her childrens clothes. She wasnt worried about other kids. She feared something else.

I think its important to have somebody who looks like you, who can empathize with what you feel, Reid says. For the most part, white Americans have traditionally been very trusting of the police. The police are Barney Fife. Theyre your friend. They get your cat out of a tree.

Im a law-abiding citizen, she continues. Ive never been arrested or committed a crime. But when I see those blue lights, I feel sick. I feel my heart racing. Even though I know I havent done anything wrong, Im afraid of the police. Im successful. I work at a great company. I have health benefits. And Im afraid of the police.

Matthewss swift retirement proved a shock to the network. It also offered a reset. It allowed room for something, someone different in different times. In the months that followed, Reid was one of a series of people who held down the 7 p.m. hour as MSNBC sought out a replacement. But there remained no clear choice.

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MSNBCs Joy Reid Makes Cable-Network History With the Debut of The ReidOut - Vogue

In 1962, Bertrand Russell finally responded to Sir Oswald Mosleys letters, which were badgering him into a debate about the merits of fascism. He replied: It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to ones own.

Russells words can be reflected in a more recent political tennis match, indirectly concerning Greta Thunberg. There should be nobody who does not know this teenagers name.

She already has proven herself to be articulate, precise and powerful beyond her years, as her 2019 address to the World Economic Forum proves: I dont want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire because it is.

Throughout the past year, she has broken through the political fishing nets designed to keep us immobile and now excels in the fact that, to quote her own book title, No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference.

Like any great thinker or shaker of established norms, there is kickback from the normally politically ambivalent. The vitriolic responses to Greta range between mild-mannered questioning to vicious ableist attacks due to her autism, her being a child and, while not as explicitly, a woman speaking more than is socially acceptable (as any woman ever will confirm).

Like most insults, those that are used most searingly tend to be that which the insulter fears the most; a female child who is deemed lesser due to her medical disability, and who has embarrassed the norms of the right wing establishment. Having no good argument in response, the manner adopted by those who conform to established norms becomes that of Harry Wormwood, the father in Matilda. Matilda has realised he has been mechanically lowering the mileage clock on cars he is about to sell.

Matilda: Daddy, youre a crook. [] This is illegal.

Harry: Do you make money? Do you have a job?

Matilda: No, but dont people need good cars? Cant you sell good cars, dad?

Harry: Listen, you little wiseacre. Im smart, youre dumb. Im big, youre little. Im right, youre wrong. And theres nothing you can do about it.

Greta is doing something about it, and well.

Naturally, there must be a response. Naomi Seibt, a 19-year-old German teenager, spoke on Friday 28 February at a smaller side event of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a prominent right-wing convention in the United States. She is described as the anti-Greta of climate change, and describes herself as a climate realist. Her views have already had to be defended due to being allegedly anti-Semitic. She has described Stefan Molyneaux, an alt-right spokesperson, as an inspiration for his views outside the mainstream. If this isnt enough, Seibt has been hired by the Heartland Institute, and the less said about them, the better.

Her views on climate change are as follows: Today climate change science really is not science at all. [] The goal is to shame humanity. Climate change alarmism at its very core is a despicably anti-human ideology and we are told to look down at our achievements with guilt, with shame and disgust, and not even to take into account the many major benefits we have achieved by using fossil fuels as our main energy source.

It is moments like this I wonder of the nerve of those who use snowflakes as an insult. Much like the phrase victim mentality, the goal is to simply be so obtuse as not to listen or care for anyone else other than oneself, that calling the other side weak is seen as a strength.

The denial of our climate crisis and the fact there is even a climate belief system shows how, for some, engaged debate is simply as useless as Mussolinis hairbrush. The question soon becomes one of overwhelming political fighting. It is another battle of left-wing versus right-wing, progressive versus traditionalist, new versus old. It is hard to ignore how commonplace this is nowadays. You will remember the protests against Greggs vegan sausage rolls last year. At football matches every other week I hear fans frothing with similar rage when the referee gives a free kick to the opposite team. I realise now that its nothing at all about football or pasties.

It is about an attack of the old order by the new. The old order has rejected modern ideas that told them, directly or otherwise, that they and, by extension, their ways of thinking, were wrong.

This fundamental fact must be understood if the progressives are to combat more products of Seibts ilk. To present a new idea that shakes grounded beliefs, one must expect a response that will reach higher levels of depravity depending on the gravity of topic.

The only way to defeat this is to stick to truth harder than ever. Greta Thunberg is doing the work for those who would not, or cannot, speak for themselves, and she is holding to account those who have long hidden from their crimes by sticking to truth. Naomi Seibt, and those like her, do not provide solutions to the problems they find in thinkers like Thunberg.

The negative effects of not calling out their astounding lack of sense and logic, and lending debate to those who have no intention of changing their own ways has been proven tenfold by the two blonde haired fellows in charge across both sides of the pond. It becomes a shouting match that entirely damages the name of intellectual debate, and soon, to paraphrase a famous saying, you will not be able to argue with them, as they will beat you with experience of inarguable incompetence.

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Anti-Greta and the challenges faced by young activists | Forge - ForgeToday

Sign-carrying anti-mask protestors chat with bystanders on Sunday. Photo: Yvette dEntremont

The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free.

A dozen anti-mask protesters who gathered on the Halifax Waterfront Sunday afternoon were met by an equal number of mask-wearing counter protesters determined to push back on the messaging.

March to Unmask: Halifax was organized by Sandra Saunders and was part of a nationwide campaign against what the unmasking group is calling an unjustified push for mandatory masks. In addition to protesting masks, one brandished an anti-vaccine and anti-5G technology sign and another noted that Bill Gates wont save you.

Shortly before the 3 p.m. event started, a group of mask-wearing counter protesters showed up on-site with signs of their own. As Saunders spoke to reporters, they began raising their own signs and shaking homemade noisemakers.

Veda Wynters (centre) was one of a dozen mask wearers who showed up to counter Sundays unmask Halifax event. Photo: Yvette dEntremont

Halifax resident Veda Wynters was one of those who showed up to counter the anti-mask group. Sporting a Wonder Woman mask, she said she felt compelled to show up.

I decided to come here after reading all the comments on their (Unmask Halifax) Facebook page that has outdated numbers, incorrect information, conspiracy theories up the wazoo, and we just wanted to represent the saner side of Halifax, Wynters said.

Im immunocompromised. I have severe asthma, I have chronic issues, so if anyone shouldnt need to wear a mask, Im asthmatic. I shouldnt need to wear a mask and yet Im wearing a mask.

One of the other women who joined her added that mask wearing was about compassion for other people and she too felt they needed to push back.

Its not really for your protection, its for other people and it just infuriates me that there are people that wouldnt have that same compassion that all of these lovely people have, she said, gesturing broadly to the people wearing masks around her.

Both groups were generally respectful and calm, with the exception of one man aligned with the anti-mask group. He angrily yelled at a CTV cameraman for not interviewing him and got into a heated yelling match with two mask-wearing teenagers.

In an interview, Saunders said she became involved with organizing the March to Unmask Halifax event because her daughter is asthmatic and works in an industry that recently made them mandatory. She said she wanted to create awareness about what the group claims are the harms caused by masks.

She added that people shouldnt be listening to what mainstream media or the government has to say about wearing them during this pandemic.

We should never, ever be mandated anything, especially a medical device that poses harmEspecially cloth masks. Cloth masks, when you have the moisture from your breath coming out, your C02 is actually your waste product, Saunders said in an interview, pointing to this reporters cloth mask.

Seriously. So its kind of like eating your own poop, man, you know, because seriously the CO2 has virus and bacterial particles that your body is trying to expel and get rid of.

This is not accurate, and contrary to the scientific consensus on masks.

The fact that so few people showed up for a protest against masks was no surprise to Howard Ramos. The former Dalhousie University sociology professor recently took up a new post as chair of sociology at Western University.

Hes worked with the Association of Canadian Studies and their polling with national market research and analytics company Leger. Last week, Leger released a survey that showed 67% of Canadians believe wearing a mask in all indoor public spaces should be made mandatory.

When asked if requiring people to wear a mask in public places is an infringement on their personal freedoms, 70% surveyed disagreed.

The super majority of Canadians believe in the public health practices that have been happening and recognize that weve sacrificed a little bit of our freedom in order to have more freedom, Ramos said in an interview.

Wearing a mask gives us the opportunity to be able to go shopping, to be able to make sure that our friends and relatives and neighbours arent getting sick.

He said there will always be a minority who arent supportive, adding that those who are unsupportive often hold extreme alt-right views.

I think that were importing some of the narrative from the US, and within political views theres always a chunk of the population who prides liberty and libertarian values over other values, he noted.

So to me as I hear about this kind of event its to recognize that yes theres going to be this kind of group of people. Its not new, its something that always exists within society, but its important for us to put it into context that this is a minority of people.

Ramos said public health officials have done a great job, particularly in Atlantic Canada, with informing the public about why theyre implementing various measures in order to protect the health of the community at large.

I think that what ends up happening with a lot of the anti-vaxxers and the alt-right and why they often pair together is because of this prizing of individuality, he said.

If you look at Atlantic Canada, weve done very well because weve embraced the messaging from public health, and its important to remember that this is going to be a long term marathon that were running and that its not over.

On Friday, Nova Scotias chief medical officer of health announced that non-medical masks will become mandatory on public transportation as of July 24.

In a media briefing he stated that evidence around wearing non-medical masks has evolved throughout the pandemic. That evidence now clearly shows that non-medical masks are an effective tool in helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19. He added that before a second wave or resurgence of the virus, we need to normalize mask wearing and make it much more of a habit for Nova Scotians.

Strang also stressed that the vast majority of Nova Scotians are able to wear masks. He said although there are exemptions for medical reasons, there are very few valid medical reasons to not wear non-medical masks and they are primarily related to anxiety.

The Canadian Thoracic Society clearly states that there is no evidence that wearing a non medical mask worsens a chronic lung condition such as asthma or chronic obstructive lung disease, he said.

But I do recognize that for some people with chronic breathing conditions wearing a mask can create anxiety.

He urged people to try and overcome that anxiety by getting used to wearing masks for short periods in a safe environment, such as in the confines of their own homes. He also noted that while people with cognitive or developmental disabilities may also be unable to wear masks, there are very few medical reasons not to.

So if you think about it we have medical professionals that wear masks all day long every day. So what Im asking is that Nova Scotians wear non-medical masks for much shorter periods of time, he said.

Strang described masks are part of a package of personal protective measures that include frequent handwashing, good cough hygiene, physical distancing, cleaning common surfaces and objects, and staying home when youre feeling unwell.

He also encouraged Nova Scotians to seriously think about the role masks play in helping us protect each other, adding that wearing masks in public spaces where physical distancing isnt possible shows that you care about others and are taking a relatively simple step to keep them safe.

Theres a lot of misinformation and downright mistruth being circulated about masks. Wearing a non-medical mask is safe and effective, he said. Our response to COVID-19 has highlighted that in many ways we need to think more about putting others first ahead of ourselves.

Strang also noted that face shields or other types of eye protection are not a replacement for masks as they dont protect others.

Ive seen too many circumstances where people are making choices or organizations are making choices thinking that a face shield, that eye protection, is a replacement for masks, he said. Its not. Where we need to have masks on we need to wear masks. Theres no replacement for them.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US called on Americans to wear masks to prevent COVID-19 spread.

CDC reviewed the latest science and affirms that cloth face coverings are a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19 that could reduce the spread of the disease, particularly when used universally within communities, the CDC states in its press release. There is increasing evidence that cloth face coverings help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others.

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Anti-maskers bring their misinformation to Halifax - Halifax Examiner

By Peter Galuszka

Early this past Wednesday morning, Mark Pettibone and Connor OShead were walking on their way home after a peaceful protest in Portland, Ore.

Suddenly an unmarked van pulled in front of them. Men wearing green uniforms, tactical gear and generic signs reading POLICE hustled them into the vehicle. They were not told why they were being detained. After 90 minutes, the badly shaken men were released without being charged.

The episode might sound like the activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his little green men who have shown up in places like Crimea and Eastern Ukraine to intimidate and detain people.

But this was Portland, a progressive city that has seen protests for weeks. President Donald Trump has urged federal authorities to move in on cities to restore his sense of order even though city officials in Portland do not want his help and are investigating what is going on.

And, guess who is playing a role in what could be a growing national trend of federal law enforcement performing snatch and grabs of innocent protestors?

That would be Kenneth Cuccinelli, the former hard right, state attorney general and failed gubernatorial candidate. He is now acting deputy secretary of the Trumps Department of Homeland Security.

Cuccinelli may be remembered for angering Virginia women by pushing for mandatory womb ultra-sounds before abortions. He pushed covering up the exposed breast of a woman on the state flag. Worst of all, he harassed former University of Virginia climate professor Michael Mann and demanded hundreds of his emails and other documents because Cuccinelli didnt agree with his research.

After the Portland episode, Cuccinelli told National Public Radio that federal agents had used unmarked vehicles to pick up people in Portland but said it was done to keep officers safe and away from crowds and to move detainees to a safe location for questioning.

The one instance Im familiar with, they were, believed they had identified someone who had assaulted officers or the federal building there, the courthouse. Upon questioning, they determined they did not have the right person and that person was released, Cuccinelli said.

I fully expect that as long as people continue to be violent and to destroy property that we will attempt to identify those folks, he added. We will pick them up in front of the courthouse. If we spot them elsewhere, we will pick them up elsewhere. And if we have a question about somebodys identity, like the first example I noted to you, after questioning determine it isnt someone of interest, then they get released. And thats standard law enforcement procedure, and its going to continue as long as the violence continues.

Some of the federal officers involved in the snatch and grabs are believed to be Customs and Border Protection (CBP), part of Cuccinellis department that are best known for their work in confronting, if not assaulting, suspected undocumented immigrants.

CBP officials acknowledged that at least in one case, they approached a person suspected of damaging federal property, but were turned away by an angry crowd, NPR reported. The customs officials say that the officers uniforms were clearly marked.

There have been calls in Congress for federal officers to wear insignias that clearly designate what their agency is. In some cases, protestors or simply people who happened by have been arrested by individuals dressed in military style clothing and carrying weapons, including assault rifles. But the detainees did not know who they were.

That could be an explosive situation because hard-right, white supremacists tend to head for trouble at demonstrations heavily armed and in combat dress.

There has been a national outcry about what happened in Portland. No wonder.

Personally, it reminds me of my experience reporting from the former Soviet Union. During the Cold War, KGB officials often whisked away protestors drawing attention to the plight of Jewish refuseniks and others.

Later, as unrest swept the country during coups against Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, new divisions of Ministry of Internal Affairs police and military were formed. They were dubbed OMONs or riot cops. Some were clearly marked; others were not. They even can a mechanized, motorized element known as OMSDONGS.

One wonders if thats the next step for Donald Trump and Ken Cuccinelli.

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The Return of the Cooch - Bacon's Rebellion

A battle of letters is under way on the broad and bitterly contested theme of justice and open debate and a truce seems unlikely anytime soon. We have been here before many times in previous years, with warriors for and against political correctness and wokeness facing off in prolonged bouts of written and oral sniping.

What makes this new battle slightly different is the moment in which it comes. Calls for racial and systemic justice are ricocheting around the world in the wake of the May 25 death of George Floyd.

The new battle is also significant for the calibre, strength and sheer firepower of the forces ranged against each other. On one side are 150 or so of the worlds leading writers, thinkers, academics and activists. They include JK Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, Kamel Daoud and Fareed Zakaria. Most are on the left or centre-left of the political spectrum. They fired the opening shot and it took the form of a three-paragraph exhortation to anti-racism and social justice activists to eschew censoriousness, intolerance of opposing views and blinding moral certainty.

While calling out illiberalism, US President Donald Trump and the radical right, the letter also criticised left-liberals right to demand ideological conformity. The letter went up on the site of one of Americas oldest monthly magazines, Harper's Magazine.

Soon enough, platoons of fighters armed with hashtags and memes began to challenge the letters content and intentions. Within 72 hours, another letter was issued, this time by more than 150 other, slightly less well-known names in academia, the liberal arts, media and NGOs. That letter assailed the famous signatories, many of them white, wealthy, and endowed with massive platforms, and suggested their words reflect a stubbornness to let go of the elitism that still pervades an unwillingness to dismantle systems that keep people like them in and the rest of us out.

The second letter said the first was at best obtuse and inappropriate, and at worst actively racist because it was issued at a time of massive protests for justice. The worlds most famous public intellectuals, it said, were trying to detract from the public conversation about who gets to have a platform. The second letter appeared on a volunteer-staffed site whose stated mission is to confront inequities in coverage and to report on historically ignored communities.

The letters war would be laughable if it were not so consequential. It illustrates three dismal realities of our time.

First, illiberal liberalism can be just as hateful as far-right exclusivism. Contemporary culture on both the far left and the far right seems to suffer from the flaw American critic Lionel Trilling once diagnosed only in conservatism: it does not really express itself in ideas, but in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.

Where the far right uses racial slurs or justifies discrimination on the grounds of religion, the far left runs a different grading system. By means of a hyper-conscious regulation of semantics, it ceaselessly looks for evidence of racism, sexism and any other distressing ism in speech. Perceived infractions are dealt with quickly and often very publicly.

Examples abound. When the novelist Margaret Atwood wrote a thoughtful piece for a Canadian paper two years ago, titled Am I a Bad Feminist?, she was accused of being an apologist for rape as a result of her white privilege. British university students tried to no-platform writer Germaine Greer for allegedly transphobic views. In the US, students at a west coast university staged a sit-in when a professor corrected a students spelling of the word "indigenous". Replacing the upper-case I with lower-case was an act of "linguistic micro-aggression", they said.

The best way to defeat iniquitous ideas is to allow them to be scrutinised

Second, the liberal project for meaningful change comes into question every time its supporters make an illiberal attempt to choke off debate. In 2018, Angela Nagle, author of Kill All the Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-right, noted that many people are attracted to progressive politics because they see that the world is unequal and unfair But they quickly find out that this isn't enough. To avoid being purged, she said, they have to learn an ever more elaborate and bizarre set of correct positions on a range of issues.

Indeed, it is deeply divisive to see the whole world only through the prism of power structures. Of course, there is inequality and injustice and, of course, more needs to be done to understand how these structures still stand and what can be done to bring about beneficial change. But a single-focus narrative often does little to build a coalition, or for that matter a fairer system. Instead, it divides and creates space for those who want to sow greater division, using racial and religious difference as tools.

Third, and most important, greater diversity of culture demands more diversity of expression, not less. Refusal to engage with alternative points of view even if contentious does not enable greater tolerance of opposing ideas; it merely makes everyone wary of discussing them. American civil rights activist Martin Luther King used relentless argument to push for equality of opportunity and equality before the law. Nearly a century ago, Mahatma Gandhi was writing about the need to convert an opponent by opening his ears, which was surely a reference to engaging with different points of view.

The best way to defeat iniquitous ideas is to allow them to be scrutinised. And then to be argued and refuted, point by point. It is interesting to note that a leading American site for professional development and training recently warned against woke-washing the workplace. It might create groupthink, it said.

The context of the warning is something that has been dubbed woke capitalism. It takes a fairly predictable form. Companies try to associate themselves with liberal causes by making lofty claims of a social purpose, indulging in rhetorical repositioning and then using their new activist avatar as a marketing ploy. It could be a T-shirt companys change of its iconic animal logo for different endangered species, a razor firm taking a stand against toxic masculinity, or a sportswear manufacturer picking a controversial black anti-racism footballer as the face of its marketing campaign.

Just days ago, it was the announcement by the Washington Redskins American football team that it was retiring its name, which has long been criticised as racist.

But the teams decision is seen to be more about the power of money with lead sponsors threatening to pull funding than a sudden attack of conscience. The other examples are also seen to be mainly about the business of positioning brands to appeal to millennial consumers. That said, it is at least worth celebrating the fact that social consciousness is now considered a marketable quantity.

The culture wars have raged for years and the core question has always remained the same: who gets to tell the story of a country, a society, a people, an event? It is a grand and worthy struggle for a more egalitarian society. But if the objective of both sides becomes control of the debate, it doesnt change the status quo; just who is up.

Updated: July 16, 2020 06:18 PM

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What is the deal with 'woke' culture and writing letters? - The National

Jul. 19--When the ride-share giant Uber sold its bike unit in May, the company was left with a difficult problem: tens of thousands of unwanted electronic bikes, worth many millions of dollars.

Uber initially planned to scrap the red bikes, which operated under the brand name Jump. But following international condemnation from bike advocates, a portion are instead coming to Western New York via Shared Mobility Inc., a national transportation non-profit based in Buffalo.

The organization has received 3,000 e-bikes from Uber, it plans to announce Sunday, roughly half of which are already awaiting deployment in an East Side warehouse. Shared Mobility plans to use many of those bikes to build out what it calls "transportation libraries": free, community-led hubs that loan out bikes, e-bikes and scooters, essentially expanding the reach of public transit.

Such programs have been proposed in Chicago and other cities, but this would be the "first of its kind at this size," said Michael Galligano, Shared Mobility's chief executive officer.

"We believe that access to affordable, healthy and environmentally-friendly transportation is a human right," Galligano said. "... This is a huge opportunity to help a lot of people."

While details on the proposed program are sparse, there's little question that some residents in the region could use additional transportation. Twenty-eight percent of city of Buffalo households have no car, according to the most recent Census estimates, and regional planners and transit advocates have long indicated an interest in expanding the area's transit options.

In one 2017 report, researchers with the Partnership for the Public Good, a left-leaning think tank affiliated with Cornell University, concluded that infrequent bus routes in parts of the East and West Sides made it more difficult for residents of those areas to access the region's employment centers. Since then, a growing number of city residents have taken jobs in the suburbs, where public transit runs less frequently, economic geographer Russell Weaver wrote last December.

Even when passengers do have a quick route to work, they often face long walks to or from bus and metro stops -- an issue known in the industry as the "first and last mile problem."

Bikeshare programs, like the Reddy Bikeshare program Shared Mobility already operates, provide some potential fixes to those problems. So too, in theory, do ride-sharing services, such as Uber and Lyft.

But as Shared Mobility envisions them, the new libraries will improve on both these models by providing free access to over $1 million worth of pedal-assist e-bikes, which are easier to power up hills and over long distances.

That could help commuters who work nights or weekends, when buses run less frequently, or who commute to more remote locations, said Lisa Kenney, an advisor on the Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council who is familiar with the proposed project. It's timely now, she added, as many workers return to offices, stores and other job sites amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

"People still need to get to work -- essential workers in particular are often reliant on public transit," she said. "And right now, some people might not be comfortable taking it."

Shared Mobility said it aims to place 1,000 free "micromobility units" across Western New York, including 500 to 600 of the 3,000 e-bikes donated by Uber. The remaining 2,500 bikes will go to the organization's programs in other areas.

The organization is seeking funding from local governments, transit agencies and foundations to cover the proposed program's operations, Galligano said. The exact locations and administration of the hubs will also be determined in partnership with local block clubs, social service agencies and other community organizations.

"There are many questions still as to how this will actually work," Galligano said, "but starting from the beginning, our aim is to launch the library as a community-controlled, community-led initiative."

"Our goal is to better serve disadvantaged communities in Western New York," he later added.

The proposal comes at a time of rapid change in public transit and transportation. New York State only just legalized e-bikes and scooters in April, following months of lobbying from companies like Uber. Buffalo is still developing regulations for the new vehicles. Shared Mobility will conduct demonstrations and gather public feedback to help policymakers understand these new transportation options, said Galligano.

In February, the city of Buffalo and the Congress for the New Urbanism, a national planning group, also proposed the pilot of a "micromobility corridor" on Washington Street, which would add protected bike lanes, new bus loading zones and other features designed to diversify downtown's transit options.

Brendan Mehaffy, the executive director of Buffalo's Office of Strategic Planning, said his department is currently finalizing that proposal and plans to release it within the "next couple of weeks." His office was also recently briefed on Shared Mobility's proposed libraries.

"Shared Mobility deserves credit for its pursuit of the e-bike library and in many of its mobility endeavors," said Mehaffy, noting the organization's focus on making cities more equitable.

___

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NY: Hundreds of free Uber e-bikes coming to WNY for proposed 'transportation libraries' - MassTransitMag.com

In recent years, the social photo platform Instagram has become more friendly to blind and visually impaired users through the alt text feature.

Alt text is a short text description of a photo that's read aloud by a screen reading program. This text is an essential way for the visually impaired to get the clearest image of internet photos, which is why you should add alt text to photos you post on Instagram.

Instagram automatically creates alt text for your Instagram posts through object recognition technology. This determines what's in your photo and passes that on to screen readers. But automatic alt text is highly inaccurate. It doesn't understand the most important part of the photo and lacks the context to explain why you posted a particular photo.

If you manually enter your own alt text when you post a photo to Instagram, your post can be understood and appreciated by the largest possible audience.

Here's how to write and include alt text with your Instagram posts.

Remember that your alt text is describing the photo to someone who may not be able to see the photo, or who has trouble seeing its details. Here are some things to keep in mind:

1. Using the Instagram app on your phone, start to create a post in the usual way.

2. After you select a photo and choose your filter, tap "Next."

3. On the screen in which you add the caption, tag people, and add a location, tap "Advanced 4. Settings" at the bottom, below the option to connect to other social networking sites.

You can find alt text in the Advanced Settings. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

4. In the Accessibility section of the Advanced Settings page, tap "Write Alt Text."

After you tap "Write Alt Text," you'll be able to write a description of the photo. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

5. Write a short description of the photo and then tap "Done"

6. Finish posting your photo in the usual way.

You may go back to existing posts and add alt text.

1. Using the Instagram app on your phone, tap an Instagram post.

2. Tap the three-dot menu next to your photo.

3. Choose "Edit" in the pop-up menu.

Tap the three-dot menu to open the drop-down menu for your post. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

4. If the hashtag menu obscures the photo, tap a different part of the caption to make it go away.

5. In the lower right corner of the photo, tap "Edit Alt Text."

You should see the option to edit your alt text in the lower right corner of an existing Instagram post. Dave Johnson/Business Insider

6. Write a short description of the photo.

7. Select "Done" and then tap "Done" again to save your post.

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