The thesis work continues... slowly

Hey folks, wanted to post a brief update about working on my "prison abolition is necessary in solarpunk activism and fiction" thesis.

My first reference point and book I'm reading/citing for this paper is "Are Prisons Obsolete" by Angela Davis. This book is prison abolition 101, which is why I thought it would be smart for me to start there.

I wanted to pull a few quotes for ya'll and talk about what I've been thinking.

"Prison abolitionists are dismissed as utopians and idealists where ideas are at best unrealistic and impracticable, and, at worst, mystifying and foolish," (9-10).

This quote struck me initially because it sounds like some of the criticisms and things we're avoiding in the solarpunk movement. I thought it would make an interesting parallel that our line of thinking is along the same path.

"The prison has become a black hole into which the detritus of contemporary capitalism is deposited," (16).

The prison-industrial complex is one of the many unhealthy and oppressive cogwheels of capitalism, which solarpunk is actually trying to deconstruct and work against. To fight against capitalism, you must reject the prison-industrial complex, and, at the base, the prison.

"Other forms of punishment that predated the rise of prisons included banishment, forced labor in galleys, transportation, and appropriation of the accused's property," (42).

I've seen a lot of talk in the solarpunk community about banishment being an adequate replacement for prison. The idea has always bothered me, because sending someone somewhere else without any resources is not going to fix the structural problem that led to whatever happened. It also immediately demoralized them and gives them no incentive to heal. Seeing this quote about banishment being one of the things that predated prisons didn't surprise me one bit. Banishment doesn't work, and it's just about as bad as prisons. 

So, that's my progress at the moment, those are my thoughts. I'd love to hear your feedback in the comments!

Hand-cranked mountain bikes

An interview with Mike Augspurger, inventor of the One-Off Handcycle

The Handcycle has two wheels in front and one in the back, and the rider rests on their knees and on a chest support. Image from the One-Off Handcycles website.

By Faith Gregory and T.X. Watson

Mike Augspurger is the founder of One-Off Handcycles, a business that makes Handcycles for disabled people to ride on rough terrain.

“Up until recently I built and sold custom titanium bikes frames, and then after that I built and sold my own design for an off-road Handcycle, which is for people in wheelchairs,” said Augspurger. 

Augspurger’s Handcycles usually weigh around 50 lbs, weight varying on wheels, seating and various components, and tend to be about 70 inches long. The frame is made of chrome moly steel.

“It’s a generally three-wheeled vehicle that’s arm powered, we like to think of it as the equivalent of a mountain bike for people who are in wheelchairs,” said Augspurger. 

The handcycles are designed for rough terrain, but they also work on roads and bike paths. 

The invention's story

“I was always into off-road motorcycles, and then off-road bicycles," said Augspurger. "Also when they first invented mountain bikes I was really into that. And I was an owner of a titanium bike frame company in the Boston area called Merlin Metalworks, which was one of the first brands of titanium bike frames.” 

Augspurger became fast friends with his neighbor Bob Hall, who was the first person to enter the Boston Marathon in a wheelchair, often thought of as the grandfather of wheelchair racing.

“I learned from Bob about all these various kinds of wheelchair sports, and I always thought if I were in a wheelchair, what I would want is an off-road Handcycle. And I knew that they didn’t exist, so it was kind of compelling to make my own design,” said Augspurger.

The Handcycle Augspurger designed has two wheels in the front and one in the back, using rear-wheel drive, as opposed to having one wheel in the front and two in the back, using front wheel drive. This is to maximize control at high speeds and sharp turns for the rider.

Augspurger had local wheelchair athletes test them out to make sure the models actually work for people with disabilities. He said disabled people think of things to test on the Handcycle that able bodied people wouldn’t even think to try.

The hardest part of designing the Handcycle was how the rider would steer and crank with their hands at the same time.

Augspurger designed a chest support for the Handcycle, because a lot of paralyzed people aren’t just paralyzed from the waist down, but from the stomach or mid chest down, so they couldn’t be sitting up while riding. 

Augspurger had one of the wheelchair athletes come over to test out the chest support while riding the Handcycle. He had attached the support with hose clamps.

“(To steer the Handcycle) you had to keep cranking, reach up with one hand and adjust the steering. I knew it was a big problem, and I didn’t have the answer, but when he’s riding around, the hose clamps weren’t tight enough, and the chest support thing swung over to the side. and I thought ‘oh, I wonder if I could use that to steer with.’ When it moved to the side I thought I could have cables on there, and that’s how it works, is you steer it with your chest with this pivoting chest pad. That’s actually probably the biggest innovation, to steer with your chest because your hands are busy.”

Augspurger's design is the only kind of Handcycle that’s not a recumbent, a wheeled vehicle where the rider lays on their back and pedals. 

In 2006, Augspurger sponsored the first ever off-road Handcycle race in Colorado. Eleven athletes competed, all on his Handcycles.

There were 10 years in between when Mike made his first design sketches for his Handcycle -- which has been structurally almost the same since the beginning -- and when he actually had the resources to start working on it.

"I subscribed the the wheelchair magazine and every month I would sort of panic, get it out of the mailbox and look through, because I expected somebody else was going to beat me to it. And then, twenty years later, I think, 'God, I wish somebody else would make these.' For ten years I'd think, 'how many of these do I have to make?' I'd rather make them better, or make a slightly different version, instead of just taking orders and making the same thing again."

The problem with athletic equipment for people with disabilities

Ausburger is no longer in business, but a few other business sell models based on his designs. He said all of those organizations has offered to pay him licensing fees, but currently he isn't asking any of them to pay for their permission to use the patent. When he gets requests now, he sends people to Jake O'Connor, and his company Reactive Adaptations. 

He said it's common for athletic equipment for people with disabilities to just disappear as soon as the first company to make them stops producing them. 

"There was a water ski for a while that you kneel on, it built up into a whole sport ... but the people who were making the water ski stopped and nobody else would do it so the sport just died."

---

More information on One Off Handcycles can be found at oneoffhandcycle.com including photos and videos.

Editorial: Appropriating Poverty

I recently completed the class phase of “Writing the Other,” a writing workshop about how to write about people different from you (which is most everyone) but specifically people who are from different cultures and ethnicities, sexualities and gender orientations, religions, and abilities, which they shorten to be ROAARS. It was taught by K Tempest Bradford and Nisi Shawl, and the original book that the class is named after was written by Nisi and Cynthia Ward. 

One of the things we talked about was the appropriations of actions, styles and activities that came from a need to survive.

For example, historically (and in the present), people have been shamed for having to grow their own foods and create their own clothing because they cannot afford to survive in a classic capitalistic model. But an idea like Solarpunk can take activities and make them seem cool because it’s better for the environment and actively spits in the face of capitalism.

And these activities are cool, and more people should do them if they can. However, it’s important to realize the context in which these actions are framed. 

People with privilege (archetypally but not limited to the white middle class) are much more likely to be praised for their small family gardens and homemade clothes than a poor black kid going to a public school whose clothes and food look different than everyone else’s. While one person will get praise for taking the time to grow their own vegetables and create clothes, the other can experience bullying and alienation for doing the same things out of the need to survive. 

As stated above, I’m not saying this means solarpunks who have privilege can’t do these things, but we need to be aware that not everyone can do these things safely in the places they live, and also to not underplay the cultural references implicit in low-cost styles. We need to make these spaces and activities safe for everyone and not just do them ourselves.

It’s also important to not shame people for wanting to aspire to capitalistic modes of consumption in a capitalist society. Using things like washing machines and cars do not necessarily fit the idea of “perfect solarpunk,” but most people want and use these things because it’s harder to not have them when you have to work non-stop for your living, and you don’t have the time to hand wash your clothes or the energy or ability to bike or walk to work (or the proximity, for that matter). And often it’s desirable to retain some of those functions: Overall we may need to come up with less environmentally expensive ways to do laundry, but the answer isn’t “Everyone washes stuff by hand again now.”

[Other editor’s note: The washing machine is an amazing example for this, and Faith isn’t the only one who’s thought of it. Check out this 10-minute talk by economist Hans Rosling, “The Magic Washing Machine,” for an excellent breakdown of one aspect of this point.  -- Watson]

A similar issue is had with the idea that people with low income can afford to be vegan, or that solarpunks have to be vegan. Veganism is not an easy thing to accomplish when you struggle to pay for and find time to feed yourself -- it’s not accessible to everyone. I’m a vegan, and I’m in poverty, and maintaining that diet is one of the higher energy endeavors in my life -- and I live in an extremely vegan-friendly area. Also, not everyone can survive on a vegan diet, depending on their allergies and ability, with the substitutes available to them. Is factory farming evil? Absolutely. Do we need to treat animals better? Of course! But shaming people for things they cannot do is not a good way to make change. Pushing better policies and protections for agribusiness is the way to make change.

The issue of taking on practices deliberately that other people are forced into, that other people may be struggling to escape, is difficult terrain. On one hand, these practices can be meaningful symbolic gestures, part of the cultural steps towards sustainability, liberation, and empowerment. On the other hand, thoughtless efforts to use the markers of an oppressive system to unmake themselves often mostly just harm the people who are scraping by on extremely fragile edges of the status quo. (The example of the changing market price of Quinoa comes to mind.)

My point is not “It’s wrong for solarpunks to reject brand name fashion” or “home gardens are a bad idea.” My point is that it would be wrong for solarpunk to aim down, criticizing the life choices of the 99 percent, when that energy and passion can be spent infinitely more usefully targeting the institutions that sustain toxic practices and fight against systemic reform. (Reform and/or revolution to be discussed in a future editorial.)

How to do a short fiction podcast for the first time

Step one: Turn on the recorder

Step two: Look at the page

Step three: Scream internally

(Our narrator for the first podcast, Nicole, would like to add that as an alternative to step three you could say half of the first line, incorrectly, and then swear.)

Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad. Recording a short fiction podcast, and reading the first story, was a very cool experience. It was nerve wracking because I felt responsible for the proper portrayal of these characters -- I wanted them to be perfectly real and whole and I never wanted my voice to crack while they were saying a line.

But I realized that, like with a lot of art, you really just have to let go as much as you can and see where your intuition takes you. At times I needed to be coached by Nicole to formulate characters (one of the character's voices was based off of Marcie from Daredevil), but we got through it, giggling and swearing, and created something to be proud of.

I'm really excited for everyone to read this story, or to listen to it, if you so choose, because it's a really wonderful piece, and it was a pleasure to record the audio version and learn more about the characters by doing so. 

 (Note from Watson: They did an amazing job on the podcast, and I edited out all the swears.)

New "About Solarpunk" page

The idea of Solarpunk has been briefly covered on the About page of our website, but Watson and I want to provide a resource page for people who may not know as much about the origin or developing ideology behind Solarpunk.

Both of us had been writing about Solarpunk for months before we'd even thought of starting a magazine. We wrote through our tumblr, watsons-solarpunk (well, it's Watson's -- I contribute), so we're pulling and compiling posts from our blog that we find to be informative.

We'll be adding to the About Solarpunk page as we continue to pull together our past resources, as well as other sources that contain valuable information about Solarpunk.

In the meantime, we've launched the page here.