Benjamin J. Davis, born on this day in 1903, was American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. Davis was persecuted by the state via the anti-communist Smith and McCarran Acts.
Davis became radicalized through his role as defense attorney in the 1933 trial of Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old black communist who had been charged "attempting to incite insurrection" because he tried to organize a farm workers' union.
In 1949, Davis was among a number of communist leaders prosecuted for violating the Smith Act. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1962 Davis was charged with violating the Internal Security Act (also known as the McCarran Act), but died before the case could come to trial.
"Whether one agrees with the Communist Party or not, one must at least know the truth about it. One must not permit his ideas to be shaped by the hysteria which now passes as a 'crusade against Communism'... For example, the canard that every Communist has his pockets lined with 'Moscow gold.' If that were true, one could be sure that there would scarcely be any room in our party for workers. The capitalists, to whom gold is god of the universe, would crowd them out."
- Benjamin J. Davis
Ben Davis: The Communist Councilman from Harlem
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google maps has carbrain honestly
I looked up directions by bike earlier, and it comes up with 2 routes, one that goes through the forest, just a nice place to be in in general, it's really nice to cycle through, it's in the shade rn and all, and on top of that it's just the faster route
but google maps thinks the "best route" is entirely along busy car roads, major intersections and all, mostly unshaded, just breathing in car exhaust the entire way
literally the only way I can think of it arrives at that conclusion is that like, cars like going along main roads, so surely cyclists must too right??
yeah, i don't think gmaps knows what it's doing with cycle routing, the few times i've tried it it has come up with car-like routes that go out of the way to use major roads. both OSM/Valhalla and my old-ass Garmin are way smarter in prioritizing quieter roads and cyclepaths.
It's mostly just unaware of where pedestrians and bikes can go. I was trying to find my way to a hiking trail once and it wanted me to take a two hour detour because it didn't know that there were pedestrian paths on one side of the park.
Ewwww.
Another issue is I wish I could tell it to combine public transit and cycling.
Google maps will call anything the city considers a bike route a bike route, even if it's just a painted gutter or sharrows.
That's weird, it's pretty good about avoiding crappy streets where I'm at. I wonder if it depends on how complicated the city layout is or how in depth they've mapped everything out
Also Google maps routing is just kind of bad in totality. It's way better to use it to find where you're going and devise your own route, regardless of travel mode.