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Almost time to distribute the syrup!

Almost time to distribute the syrup!

Hey all! We've got lots of new subscribers this week, so I want to take a moment to thank you all for signing up. We're up to 60 total subscribers, which is about double where we started out 10 weeks ago. There's a lot competing for your attention these days, and I'm glad you're willing to spend some of it learning about our various shenanigans around town 😊

This week in the Commons

This was a week of lots of little projects. The biggest and most relevant was getting all the syrup labeled and ready for distribution. Volunteers can pick up their syrup, as well as a Montague Commoners tshirt if they want one, at the closing ceremony on Saturday.

In addition, I made a few tweaks to the way the newsletter is set up behind the scenes, so replying to these emails should actually work now. Apologies to anyone who tried to reach me that way in the past. I didn't have a "reply to" email configured, so any replies you might have sent were getting lost somewhere in the Ghost.io servers. But it should work now, and you can always reach me at wiley@montaguecommoners.org

We did a few rounds of cleanup down at the sugarbush campsite, and I think we're nearly done with that stage of things. Cleanup's never really done until all the buckets are washed, but I like to leave that for warmer weather.

Several dozen copies of the "Dance For Democracy Songbook", a hand-bound zine with an orange cover showing the silhouettes of dancing people

On the Dance For Democracy side, I spent a couple of days putting together a songbook for folks who want to be able to sing along to the playlist. It's got all of the lyrics for the songs in our Dance For Democracy playlist, as well as QR codes linking to this newsletter and the Montague Commoners website. I meant to include a QR link to the playlist itself, but I forgot until just after I finished printing them all out 🤷 Hopefully I'll remember for the next print run. We had about 40 participants this week, and the energy was good. I love seeing how many people in our little town are willing to spend their lunch breaks standing up for democracy, and I think we're building a great little protest community.

Coming Up Next Week

  • Tuesday, 5:30-9pm at the Frauenthal Theater in Muskegon, the West Michigan Disability Rights Network will be showing Crip Camp, a documentary about how a summer camp for disabled teenagers ended up launching the Disability Rights movement. Nate and I are planning to be there, so feel free to come say hi.
  • Friday, Noon at the Weathervane, is our weekly Dance For Democracy protest. Work some of the stress out of your body and show your neighbors that they aren't alone in their concerns about the direction in which the billionaires are dragging our country.
  • Saturday, two events:
    • 10-11:30am at the Viking Athletic Center, join White Lake Area Futures for a conversation with Muskegon County Clerk Karen Buie, as well as coffee and donuts. Tickets are available here and go to support local Democratic organizing for 2026.
    • 1-4pm at the Trailway Campground, Montague Commoners is having our big end-of-season pancake celebration. We'll have acorn pancakes, as well as gluten free options. Volunteers can pick up their syrup and their end of season swag, and there will be activities for kids.

In the Broader Movement

Seven local tribal nations have withdrawn from negotiations over the Line 5 oil tunnel after it became clear that the Trump administration was not negotiating in good faith and planned to bypass environmental review. These include both of our local tribes, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians and the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi. Under direction from the Trump administration, the Army Corps of Engineers has decided that it doesn't need to account for the possibility of a spill when it evaluates the project, despite the fact that Enbridge has been responsible for numerous large oil spills in recent history. The tribes plan to challenge the pipeline in court.

Solidarity Steps

Environmental groups around the Great Lakes have launched the Fish For The Future project to bring attention that Enbridge's Line 5 oil tunnel poses to the Great Lakes ecosystem. Their goal is to break the world record for the largest display of origami fish by encouraging folks around the Great Lakes to get together for some fish-folding. I've never made this particular origami model before, but I've made tens of thousands of origami cranes, so I'll be giving it a go this week, and hopefully we'll have a fish-folding station at the pancake celebration on Saturday.

Recommendation Corner

Contrapoints is one of my favorite YouTubers. She got her start pushing back against anti-feminist talking points in the GamerGate era, and she specializes in detailed analysis of internet political culture. Her latest video focuses on conspiracy culture, what draws people towards conspiratorial thinking, and how they get trapped there. It's a long one, but she makes it entertaining, and it's well worth a watch.

This Week's Nails

You made it to the end of the newsletter! That means you get to see this week's nails. (For newcomers: I generally write up this newsletter while I'm doing my nails each week. It takes about three hours and there's a lot of waiting for coats of nail polish to dry, so it combines well with typing-based activities.)

The dark blue base for this week is a polish I've had since I was a teenager, and it's fun to see it gussied up with a flakey topper and some nail art. After all those weeks of skittle manicures, it's weird to have all of my nails the same color, but it was nice not to have to open and close 10 different bottles of nail polish for each coat.