Voices from Port Outreach

• There’s a bit of grumbling around the edges, but they’re still lining up, and no real trouble. - Splash #
• Still lining up for vacine. Mam Lix keeping things calm, the rest of us trying to look like we’re not trying to look threatening. - Splash #
• Things are slowing down, fewer kids, and doctors looking nervous. Maybe we should think about packing it in? -Splash #
• Splash: Sounds good. I think you should finish up anyone left and then close up for the night. -JH #
• @dorfird - Not to most of our people. Sandytowners choose to abstain from much of our society, but we must stop the spread of disease. -JH #
• Am I good or am I good? 278. -Mam Lix #
• You are good. Now let’s be good back in the city. -Splash #
• Ok I’ve heard from the doctors as well. Make an orderly retreat back to the city, nagara. -JH #
• On the way out.-Splash #
• Someone just threw a rock at us. Hit the case. We’re ignoring it. Almost out. -Splash #
• I’m keeping an eye on our rear as we leave, just in case, but no one appears to be following. -Xan #
• Out! - Splash #
• Good work, nagara. -JH #
• JH: We’re back at East Gate. Docs say the rock didn’t hurt anything, thanked us all. I’m going to take another nap on the beach. -Xan #
• Anchorage Pride Day declared. If I have one more person try to sell me on living here, I’ll go cracked. Walking in Wrecks today. -Trixal #
• Anchorage Pride Day declared. If one more person tries to convince me on living here, I’ll go cracked. Walking in Wrecks today. -Trixal #
• On-duty. I got my pill bottle back and I’ve got a smile on my face. -Bunny #
• Bunny: From ingesting pills? -JH #
• No, I’m actually reasonably sober. Did you know the songbirds in Twin Cables sing beautifully at this time of day? -Bunny #
• You aren’t kidding about the songbirds, Bunny–that’s a lot of why I put up with sproutsembly. - Splash #
• Oh, and glad you had a good morning! - Splash #
• Say what you will about Cables kids, their vicinage Mediator house always has the best snacks. Puts me in a forgiving mind. -Bunny #
• Bunny, you know I love you, but someone could blow up both Towers and you’d be in a forgiving mood if na had good snacks and hemp. -Cole #
• Cole: How good snacks and hemp are we talking about? Seriously, TC tastys are a clever move on the part of the junior mob in charge.-Bunny #
• Right, Cole. And you’d be in a forgiving mood if it were a leggy brunette. - Bolo #
• Bolo: What’s your point? -Cole #

Although I have great respect for my esteemed colleague, Dak of the Point, I am afraid that I must respectfully disagree about several of his points here. First off, I will say that Dak’s lectures on history are always illuminating, even if only of the preconceived notions of a certain school of historian. I will certainly agree with our Tellurian visitor, TexAnne, that I hope he continues to share his knowledge with us.
 
The period of which Dak speaks here, the early part of this cycle, is one I happen to have studied quite a bit. In my paper, “The Sewer System and the Sandies,” I go into quite a bit of detail about the competing theories surrounding the septic system designed by Nowes and his pod.
 
At the time, the sewer system was extremely controversial. Many nagara felt then, as they do now, that subsistence is a basic human right and therefore cannot and should not ever be traded for — it can only be freely given. Many nagara were furious about rumors that the City Council had indeed traded subsistence for 500 years to some Sandies for the sewer system. Even worse were the widespread rumors that the trade had actually been for access to city resources that the Council had no business trading — I won’t bore you with the minutiae here, but many felt they’d overstepped their bounds — for details see, City Council History Volume 5, by Liemchek, et al. One group of nagara began calling for a full investigation, another for the City Council’s resignation. Every member of the council resigned at once, and then refused to cooperate with any investigations. As such, the full details of the Nowes’ Septic Deal have never been unearthed.
 
Dak, you do a disservice to the past by conflating the Sandies of the early cycle with their compatriots today. There were significant philosophical differences. I recommend you contact Chalim, who has been conducting a detailed survey of extant paper documents from the first century with a focus on Sandytown. In her unpublished research, you can see several documents from a movement known as the Manakhists. This group departed Port Outreach for Sandytown in protest of the use of the modern calendrical system because they preferred the previous agriculturally-based system that, though more complex than the one we have now, was, in their words, actually more true to the ebb and flow of life on Mother. They were, in fact, ‘back to the land’ types as jeffy puts it. Because their objection was to the calendar and not subsistence, they made arrangements to receive it in Sandytown. Though the original beliefs of the Manakhists are forgotten, their descendants represent the largest percentage of Sandies who receive subsistence.
 
In other words, an obscure and confusing breakaway group of nagara, and a obscure and confusing political maneuver have been blended in the memory of history, and we actually don’t really know what it took to get our septic system.
 
Yours in Teacher Town,
Enkin Binderstape of Bookwahj Alliance