Last week was National Library Week

 I usually put together an omnibus piece about various items I've come across over the past year, from new libraries to interesting programs.

-- "National Library Week, 4/7 - 4/13," 2024.  Note that it is in the comments section where I try to include mentions/links to the stuff I include the next year.

-- "Neighborhood libraries as nodes in a neighborhood and city-wide network of cultural assets," 2019

I didn't get around to it this year.

The Trump Administration intends to shutter the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  It's sad that the way the Trump Administration, in another anti-education and learning move, around the time of NLW announced it wants to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and halted all its grants ("Federal museum and library grants abruptly terminated," USA Today).

IMLS was effectively shuttered in early April when nearly all employees were placed on administrative leave, and all work on approving federal grants for state, local and academic libraries and museums was immediately halted.

This reflects MAGA "thinking more generally."  See "In the Land of Self-Defeat, New York Times.

It's a joke that this is about budget savings, IMLS's budget is $304 million, much of which goes to grants to state-based organizations.

This is about destroying three different things, which I intend to write more about, (1) destruction of civil society, especially one that is focused on knowledge and critical thinking (S," New York Times); (2) federal government generally; and (3) education/higher education.

2.  Book banning still marches apace (:US public schools banned over 10K books during 2023-2024 academic year, report says," USA Today, "Rightwing groups across US push new bans to limit ‘obscene’ books in libraries," Guardian).  Book Riot reports that US-based right wing groups are taking book banning overseas ("Book Banning Attempts Rise in UK as US Groups Reach Overseas").

Also reinforcing Trump anti-education efforts has led to book banning at the US Naval Academy ("Book ban at military service academies draws flak from Congress,").

I realize that the Trump Administration is basically following the playbook of the hard right political parties in Hungary, Fidesz, currently, and the Law and Justice Party in Poland before they were turned out of office {"Enacting the “Illiberal Playbook” in Hungary and Poland," Perspective on Politics).

3.  Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch ("Young people won’t, or can’t, read a book. Now democracy is dying. Coincidence?") writes about a significant drop off in book reading overall, but especially amongst college aged youth.

A viral essay with an anodyne headline — “The Average College Student Today” — from a self-proclaimed professor at a U.S. regional public university, under the pseudonym Hilarius Bookbinder, has rocked online academia with its claim that the typical modern undergraduate student is functionally illiterate. They essentially argue that smartphone-addled young people — echoing their president — might read passages or ideas, but can’t finish an adult book from cover to cover.

“I’m not saying our students just prefer genre books or graphic novels or whatever,” Bookbinder, citing 30 years of classroom teaching experience, wrote. “No, our average graduate literally could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read. They just couldn’t do it. They don’t have the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read, and most certainly not the attention span to finish.”

I'll admit that with 30 years of the Internet including 10+ of smartphone, consumption of information moves to the article rather than the book.  My attention span has certainly diminished, and I don't necessarily read a book a week.... although journal articles should count for more than regular articles. 

February is African-American History Month: Art History and Prominent Black Artists

Typically, African American or Black History Month is about "regular" history and how Black Americans have experienced the US.  I take it a little further in my piece on transportation history ("African American History Month and Transportation: February 4th | Transit Equity Day," 2025), and have written about creating "history trails" in systematic ways ("Four points about presentation of African American History in the context of Black History Month | reprint with an addition about the US Civil Rights Trail (versus the Dixieland Trail)," 2024).

I'm the last person to be able to write about art history generally, or in terms of African-Americans specifically, but that seems like a great topic area to celebrate during the month as well.  I don't recall a lot of art presentation in the context of Black History Month.  

Although yes, we see exhibitions all the time of Jacob Lawrence, Sam Gilliam, and contemporary artists Kehinde Wiley and Kara Walker.

For example, the Boston Globe has an article, "Art Review: Has John Wilson’s time arrived? He’s been here all along," on a retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts on the sculptor John Wilson.  Who I hadn't heard of, but hell, I can pretty much only identify Rodin and Wiley as sculptors generally, given my lack of knowledge

“Eternal Presence” (1987), sculpture by SMFA alumnus John Wilson at the Museum of the National Center of Afro American Artists in Roxbury. Photo: Alonso Nichols

“Father and Child Reading” by John Wilson. PHOTO: COURTESY OF ROXBURY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Also see, "Sculpting a Legacy: The Art and Impact of John Wilson," Tufts Now.

National Library Week, 4/7 - 4/13

Normally it's at the end of the month, this year, the middle.  Personally I think it should be the entire month.

-- "Libraries are rooted in the community and here your story can grow," Wilmington News-Journal.  From the article:

Libraries and librarians play such a crucial role in the well-being of our communities, and the Delaware public libraries are no exception. We are not a disparate collection of books,: Today’s libraries function as vibrant community centers that contribute to the social, cultural, and educational fabric of our neighborhoods, enriching the lives of young and old. 

Libraries help our communities face the rising challenges of the modern world, such as isolation, disparity and misinformation. The services they provide and the programs they deliver are aimed at connection, compassion, truth, and equity because our mission is rooted in the needs of our community. 

Despite the misguided perception that libraries are unnecessary, evidence continues to support what those of us in the library community have known for a long time: libraries benefit us all.

The four biggest issues these days are:

1.  Campaigns all across the US, in conservative areas, to ban books. It's mostly in the schools, but also in public libraries ("Why Americans must unite against the organized effort to ban library books," Nashville Tennessean, "History of Book Bans in the U.S.," National Geographic, "The Fight for the American Public Library: Library boards, school boards and legislatures are becoming battlegrounds in a push to censor books. Communities are fighting back.," Bloomberg, "Public libraries are the latest front in culture war battle over books," Washington Post, "Book ban attempts spiked in 2023, new research shows," Politico), "Book bans in US public schools increase by 28% in six months, Pen report finds," Guardian).

The Utah State Legislature proposes a statewide banning policy.  If a book is banned by three school systems, all have to pull it ("Bill that requires statewide removal of school library books deemed pornographic by 3 districts close to passage," Salt Lake Deseret News).

And state library agencies in conservative states are dropping their membership in the American Library Association ("Florida joins conservative states severing ties with national library group," Politico).

There has been some defunding and or attempts of libraries in Michigan and Missouri ("Missouri libraries dodge GOP funding strike — for now," Kansas City Beacon). And probably elsewhere.

Toronto Public Library has a display of books increasingly banned in the US.  

The Brooklyn Public Library will provide a library card to anyone in the US, to evade censorship bans.

In response to book banning efforts, the director of the Hoboken New Jersey Library made the entire city a "book sanctuary" ("Haters attacked an inclusive public library. So its director made the whole city a book sanctuary," LGBTQ Nation).

Obviously, it affects authors ("For John Green, the Battle Over Access to Books Has Gotten Personal," New York Times).

2.  Funding.  Besides punitive funding cuts in support of book banning, libraries always have to worry about funding.

For example, New York City, which has just opened up a bunch of new library facilities ("A Love Letter to Libraries, Long Overdue," New York Times) proposed budget cuts that could lead to weekend closures ("NYC Budget Would Close Libraries On Weekends While Police Get Huge Bonuses," Vice).   Though later the proposal was rescinded.

Polarization doesn't help ("In the land of self-defeat" and "I Am Being Pushed Out of One of the Last Public Squares, the Library," New York Times).

3.  Libraries as community hubs.  Both book bans and funding cuts (it is proposed that the Huntington Beach Library system outsource, "Huntington Beach considering privatizing library operations," Orange County Register) are tragic considering how libraries (and parks) are the primary civic assets in a community that are public facing (schools too, but only for those people who have families), and key "social infrastructure" elements ("Neighborhood libraries as nodes in a neighborhood and city-wide network of cultural assets").

For example, "Residents offered free health checks in libraries," BBC and "Creative library project underway in Wilmington to spur community and economic development," Wilmington News-Journal.

Library staff in SF hold a press conference and protest about understaffing.  Photo: Martin do Nascimento, KQED.

4.  Libraries as community hubs also can be a drawback.  Since they are really the only public -civic asset that is open for set hours, has staff, and restrooms, libraries can be inundated with dealing with civic problems like homelessness, violence ("'Not What I Signed Up For': SF Librarians Demand More Security Guards," KQED/PBS), drug use, and mental health ("Texas libraries work to bridge state’s mental health services gap," Texas Tribune) and mental illness.

Other developments.

1.  Nonprofit opens free bookstore.  Why not put such facilities in libraries ("Nonprofit Reading Ready Pittsburgh opens free bookstore in Homestead ," WESA/NPR).

2.  Daycare at the Park City, Utah Library.  Probably in rented space ("PC Tots invites all to ribbon cutting at Park City Library," Park Record).  The Drumbrae Library in Scotland includes a day care facility ("Work begins on Drumbrae's new library, day care centre and youth cafe," Guardian, 2011).

Libros Book Club.  Photo: Nate Martinez, Express-News.

3.  Independent readers lounge in San Antonio.  Indicates demand for longer hours, or special ways to meet the needs of other audiences, not unlike how university libraries stay open late ("Late-night readers lounge opens in San Antonio. Here's what we know," San Antonio Express-News).  Note that the central library in Montreal stays open til 10pm.

Also see "24-7 Library Spaces Drive Commuter Student Success," Inside Higher Education.

4.  World Book Day, March 7th.  I had no idea there is a World Book Day.  Studies in the UK find that few children read for pleasure ("World Book Day finds children are put off reading for pleasure: Annual event to encourage young readers has revealed research finding that significant numbers feel discouraged from following their own tastes," and "Almost a million children in the UK do not own a book," Guardian).

5.  Lots of libraries are under threat of closure in the UK because of the defunding of local government by the national Conservative government ("Battle to save Britain's libraries as budget cuts, closures and austerity leaves future uncertain," Big Issue, "Review finds libraries in England suffer ‘lack of recognition’ from government," Guardian).

I was reading an article about Reagan, transit and cities, and it was the first article that put the funding cuts under the title of "austerity" which has been the British Conservative Government's policy since 2010 of defunding local government and local services ("How austerity (and ideology) broke Britain," Guardian).

6.  Underfunding school libraries.  There was an article in the Post about Oxon Hill, Maryland ("In a Maryland school library, empty shelves are about to get emptier") although a letter to the editor ("A community can build Oxon Hill Elementary's library") suggested parents organize themselves.  That happened a number of years ago in DC ("The fight for school libraries in D.C.," Washington Examiner).  Also see "Cressida Cowell renews call for £100m investment in primary school libraries," Guardian and "D.C. Council Bill Seeks to Close Gap in Librarians and Literacy," City Paper.

In a political move the conservative state government in Texas took over the Houston Public Schools, and the hard ass new superintendent got rid of the libraries and remade them into discipline centers.

7.  US Literacy Crisis ("30 million adults are unable to read a simple story to their children, according to the National Literacy Institute," WEAR TV)).  From the article:

Addressing the U.S. literacy crisis: Study shows children, adults lack reading skills 30 million adults are unable to read a simple story to their children, according to the National Literacy Institute. This is a generational issue that can lead to other problems like high unemployment rates and even poor health. 

This is a generational issue that can lead to other problems like high unemployment rates and even poor health. In fact, statistics show one in three children entering kindergarten lack the basic skills they need to learn to read. And two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders do not read at grade level. 

"For a child who is struggling to read, to have an adult sit with them one-on-one and not just listen to them and make some corrections as they're reading but mainly to be their cheerleader while they're practicing -- that's huge," Pierce said. But learning how to read is only half the battle. Children have to continue to practice reading as they grow.

8.  Literary programs.  The LA Library system received a publishing outfit as a donation and will continue to publish books ("The L.A. Public Library is getting into book publishing. Why it makes total sense," Los Angeles Times) and Hugo House, a nonprofit in Seattle focused on literary arts is in financial distress ("Seattle’s Hugo House faces uncertain future," Seattle Times).

9.  Private library: Prelinger Library devoted to ephemera ("This San Francisco Library Collects Print Materials You Were Never Meant to See," KQED/PBS).  I figure that's where most of my ephemera will be donated too when I die, plus either Washingtonia Library or the Historical Sociey in DC and the Utah Historical Society.

10.  Oodi Library, the central library in Helsinki.  I've been meaning to write about this in a separate entry.  The ground floor is a cultural center.  At the cost of fewer books.

11.  Co-location.  I mentioned how the main library in Pocatello now has a pedestrianized street in front of it, and a park, including a playground, across the street.  The park has an amphitheater and is used for the Saturday Farmers Market.  

The Nottingham UK library has added a playground to its front "Children's play area opens outside Nottingham Central Library," BBC).

I've mentioned how the South Park Library in Seattle captured the street in front of it.

12.  The Boston Public Library has started a nutrition program headed by a chef, headquartered in the Roxbury branch ("'Boston Public Library’s new chef to lead cooking program in Roxbury'," CBS News).

Four points about presentation of African American History in the context of Black History Month | reprint with an addition about the US Civil Rights Trail (versus the Dixieland Trail)

February is Black History Month

-- "Transit equity day, Sunday 2/4/24, in honor of Black History Month, Rosa Parks, and the significance of transportation history to African-American History," 2024
-- "Three ideas about presentation of African American History in the context of Black History Month | reprint with an addition about the US Civil Rights Trail (versus the Dixieland Trail)," 2024

The first two sections were published last year and are reprinted.

1.  Creating state-wide and regional history networks for African-American cultural interpretation.  One of the problems with creating African-American history museums is that while it is supported politically, once a museum is created they tend to not be well patronized.  Many have had serious budget problems.

When I was doing work with some people in Cambridge, Maryland--where Harriet Tubman lived, and there is a small museum in Cambridge and more recently, the National Park Service created the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park--I came to the conclusion that rather being satisfied with creating one off museums; local history trails; and the like, why not, using the example of the multi-state Civil War history trail, create regional and multi-state African-American history trails, incorporating existing assets.

The Civil War multi-state trail program includes more than 1000 sites in Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia--six states.  (In fact, DC should participate too.)

But states could create statewide African-American trails of sites, museums, places, etc. too.



I wrote about this in more depth in "6Ps and cultural planning and the failure to create a network of African American historic sites across the DMV" (2016) in response to articles spurred by the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Many local culture professionals argued it would be a boon to other African American history sites and facilities in the area, whereas I thought that it wouldn't happen on a trickle down basis, that an overt network of such assets, facilities, and sites needed to be created.

Local DC does have a history trail, Baltimore has a variety of relevant sites, Richmond has a Slave Trail, there is the Alexandria Black History Museum, among many such resources across the region.  Just think how much stronger and more powerful these trails could be linked up as part of a broader system.


2.  How about a month long "Doors Open" event during Black History Month.  "Doors Open" events were pioneered in Europe, and are when a community's culture organizations band together to provide a coordinated schedule of events, usually over a weekend, where people get free access to various cultural sites and events, many of which are not normally open to the public.

In North America, Doors Open Toronto is probably the biggest.  The Toronto Star even publishes an event guide. (2011 Doors Open Toronto Guide)

But Open House New York Weekend  is increasingly a big deal.  Pittsburgh created Doors Open Pittsburgh.

In DC the Dupont-Kalorama Museums Consortium has had a district-specific Doors Open event for many years, as do the art galleries on Upper Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, but including the participation of AU's Katzen Center for the Arts and the Kreeger Museum.  It's not exactly the same, but Georgetown Glow, an outdoor sculpture walk in December and January is growing into a great event.

My latest idea is that during February, Black History Month, community cultural organizations should organize a common calendar of events, along the lines of "Doors Open" events, where a community's cultural organization organize a weekend, week, or month of related activities.

In the DC context, ideally federal assets like the NMAAHC, the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, and the Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site would also participate as well as the area PBS stations, etc.

A regional example from Southern California, Pacific Standard Time, a cross-museum program promoting California arts, spearheaded by the Getty Museum, shows how this can be done across jurisdictions.

3.  US Civil Rights Trail and historiography/critical race theory.  I didn't realize that such a multi-state history trail had been created along the lines, until I was doing some ephemera research ("Travel the U.S. Civil Rights Trail," AAA World).

Long before white supremacists got worked up over "Critical Race Theory" ("What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?," Education Week) I've been interested in the issue of historiography, especially the interpretation of Civil War in terms of "the Lost Cause."  

-- "Monuments as public art, historiography, and change," 2020

-- "National Archives photo "retouching" is another example of the tension between National Ideology and Memory and Inquiry in the funding of national museums, archives," 2020

-- "You don't gotta have art," 2010

-- "Dancing with the one that brung ya and challenging the dominant narrative," 2008

Often this idea of National Myth/National History is termed "civil religion" ("Can America's 'Civil Religion' Still Unite The Country?," NPR).

I was sad that President Obama didn't avail himself of the opportunity to give a major speech at the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Where this comes up with the US Civil Rights Trail is that I came an earlier form of the trail, but of Dixieland, and the Dixieland Trail and the promotion of "the unique culture of the South."

The Dixieland Trail was an automobile route organized and promoted by the travel divisions and state development boards of Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. This map, featuring artwork by Logan Bleckley dated 1962, was issued by the Tennessee Department of Conservation and shows the manufactured highway meandering about the five participating states. Sixty-five different locations of interest are numbered and labeled and a variety of illustrated vignettes highlight important industries, recreational opportunities, and the natural beauty across the region.

Another version of the brochure, probably dating to the 1970s.

By contrast, the Civil Rights Trail covers 15 states, and should include more, like DC and Maryland.  But talk about different approaches to historiography, and the need to discuss it.

4. Some DC stories.  I lived in the H Street neighborhood starting in the late 1980s.  I followed urban issues but I wasn't involved.  Around 2000 I decided if I didn't get involved the neighborhood would continue to languish.

Sometime in 2000 or 2001 I went on a road trip with a college friend from Ft. Lauderdale to New Jersey and we stopped in cities known for historic preservation like Savannah and Charleston.  I came back thinking my neighborhood was no less beautiful then those, just different.

Eventually I got roped into running "a history study" for the neighborhood, with the idea that would lead to creation of a historic district.  Instead, I got diverted in Main Street historic preservation based commercial district revitalization.  But the study was detailed enough that in some academic treatise I am criticized as a gentrifier.  At the same time, I got more interested in DC's local history.

The Front Page Restaurant, Dupont Circle.  Shut down when WeWork bought the building.  It's decorative claim to fame was a bunch of newspaper pages posted throughout the restaurant, mostly from the now defunct Washington Star.  One of the pages was classified ads from WW2, organized in some categories--housing and jobs--by race.  I was floored, because at the time that was less than 50 years before.

Uline Arena, E.B. Henderson.  One of the buildings I helped save was the old Uline Arena, site for professional hockey, basketball and other events. 

In the process of documenting the building for preservation, we learned that local civil rights activist (and DCPS official) E.B. Henderson coordinated an every event protest for almost two years in the late 1940s, to get the building desegregated ("Civil rights, public accommodations laws, and religious belief exceptions," 2016).

Carter Woodson home.  Woodson taught at Howard University and was the founder of the Association for the Study of African American History and African-American History Month.  

His house was owned by Shiloh Baptist Church which let it rot ("Losing my religion: Shiloh Baptist Church and Neighborhood Destabilization," 2005).  The church otoh wanted plaudits for "saving" the building. Eventually the National Park Service bought and restored it.

I was talking about it at a community meeting in Shaw once, and made the point that it was a shame that the building was in its sorry state, because that building is significant to American History, not only to "black history."  The person was surprised: "I never thought of it that way."

This company had restaurants in DC and other major cities.  It was party to a public accommodations lawsuit that was decided in 1953.

Public accommodations protesting and organizing in DC.  In the early 1950s, activists like Mary Church Terrell led campaigns against department stores and restaurants over segregated spaces.  Howard University students even led a "counter strike" at restaurants in the 1940s, although it's not well known ("How One Woman Helped End Lunch Counter Segregation in the Nation’s Capital," Smithsonian Magazine).

These were among the battles that pushed nondiscriminatory public accommodations laws forward.

National Library Week, April 23-29

Many years I write an omnibus piece covering a bunch of issues, including library architectural and programmatic design, and what we might call current affairs.

The two biggest issues these days are:

1.  Campaigns all across the US, in conservative areas, to ban books. It's mostly in the schools, but also in public libraries ("Why Americans must unite against the organized effort to ban library books," Nashville Tennessean, "History of Book Bans in the U.S.," National Geographic), "Book bans in US public schools increase by 28% in six months, Pen report finds," Guardian).

This has led to some defunding of libraries in Michigan ("s") and Missouri ("Missouri libraries dodge GOP funding strike — for now," Kansas City Beacon). And probably elsewhere.

Toronto Public Library has a display of books increasingly banned in the US.  

The Brooklyn Public Library will provide a library card to anyone in the US, to evade censorship bans.

2.  Funding.  Besides punitive funding cuts in support of book banning, libraries always have to worry about funding.

For example, New York City, which has just opened up a bunch of new library facilities ("A Love Letter to Libraries, Long Overdue," New York Times) is proposing budget cuts that could lead to weekend closures ("NYC Budget Would Close Libraries On Weekends While Police Get Huge Bonuses," Vice). 

This is tragic considering how libraries (and parks) are the primary civic assets in a community that are public facing (schools too, but only for those people who have families), and key "social infrastructure" elements ("Neighborhood libraries as nodes in a neighborhood and city-wide network of cultural assets").

Last year, I wrote about the new Granite Library in the Salt Lake County system ("New Granite Library, Salt Lake County Public Library System").  

Sadly I had a prior commitment, otherwise I would have gone to the presentation on making naan.

Granite has some "unique" features like outdoor playground and amphitheater, an expanded maker space, and an exhibition teaching kitchen.

But it made me think, along with some other public facilities in Salt Lake City proper, about how even well designed public buildings can fail when it comes to connecting to the spaces around it, whether or no there is an interest in promoting local economic development and commercial district improvement, etc.  I still have to figure all that out for a blog post.

I also wrote about the Friends of the Salt Lake Library, which is a master group covering all branches.  I think they are pretty remarkable ("Outdoor library book sale as an opportunity for "social bridging"/triangulation").

Salt Lake County and City have separate library systems, and they do a lot of great things in terms of innovative programming, both in terms of what libraries offer, and their programs.

Last week, the Salt Lake Performance Art Festival took place at the main library, with many of the performances in the arcade, which they call the "Urban Room."

Salt Lake County doesn't really have a main library the way Salt Lake City does, and I think the SLC main library is one of the best in the US, but sadly covid has affected it.  The library had a lot of co-located cultural functions and cafes, and they seem to be on the decline, as many have closed.

The County's Viridian Events Center isn't a main branch per se, but it is a conference center and outdoor amphitheater, and while it is rentable, it's also well programmed by their own events, like dances.

Even so, careful observation shows that the Salt Lake City and County libraries can still improve.  

One such area is in displaying civic information.  Both systems have public displays for flyers on events and sometimes the happenings of the respective local governments.  But that could be more systematic.  I think that libraries should have "kiosks" on government happenings--minutes, etc.

Is the Growth Machine a casualty of the culture wars?

When business interests told the Tories in the UK that Brexit was likely to have many deleterious effects, Boris Johnson, who went on to become Prime Minister, was quoted as saying "F*** Business" ("Boris Johnson promised to “fuck business”, and that’s exactly what he did," New Statesman).

The Growth Machine thesis from urban sociology is focused on local government, and how political and economic elites, despite seemingly intra-elite competition, are united on a real estate focused pro-growth agenda, since real estate development is the primary source of revenue and economic activity for local governments.

"The City as a Growth Machine: Towards a Political Economy of Place" (American Journal of Sociology, 1976) lays out the concepts, which were expanded in a book, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. 

Political science has its own theory, that of the Urban Regime ("Urban Regime Theory," The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies).  

I argue that GM is better at explaining why, and UR the how.

Anyway, more recently, Republican culture wars, albeit more at the level of state government interfering in local economic development, but when there is some sort of state nexus, in some places, is triggering anti Growth Machine actions.

Florida and Disney.  The primary example is Florida, where Disney complained too late to make a difference, about Florida's various anti-gay legislative acts after being shamed and prodded by employees ("After protests, Disney CEO speaks out against Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill," NPR, 2022).  But it still enraged Governor DeSantis

Probably everyone in America has heard of Disney World, which is a major attraction in Orlando, which in turn has led to the placement of other attractions there (like Universal Studios Florida and SeaWorld), and is a major driver of Florida's economy--which doesn't have a state income tax.

Governor DeSantis attacked the special district structure Disney uses to operate its property there, which is massive, and spans two counties.  At the time of its creation, local government lacked the capacity to provide services to the level Disney required, so the Reedy Creek Improvement District was formed--like an urban business improvement district, but on a massive scale.

Last year, they changed the structure, not realizing it triggered $1 billion in bond payments by the two counties in which Disney World is located.  So they did a new bill this year.

They changed its organization and appointed political flunkies with no expertise but culture war bona fides to oversee the district.  Usually, in GM/UR politics, the people appointed to such boards work hand in glove with the business interests.  DeSantis appointed people who are oppositional.

But before that took effect, Disney had the board pass contracts making Disney pretty much impervious to DeSantis' political machinations.

He didn't take it well, and has been threatening all sorts of retaliation.

In the interim, Disney created a webpage outlining the economic impact of Disney in Florida ("Disney Shares ‘The Value of Reedy Creek’ Post on Community Outreach Site Outlining District’s History & Benefits for Florida," WDWNT) 

-- The Value of Disney Reedy Creek to Florida, Walt Disney World/Disney Connect

The firm pays more than $1 billion in taxes annually and employs 75,000 people directly and 16,000 indirectly.  Plus there is the multiplier effect of other jobs created as a result of the economic activity around Disney World. 

Today Disney announced it is suing Florida for what they've been doing on Constitutional) grounds of retaliation versus free speech ("Disney sues Gov. Ron DeSantis, alleging political retaliation," Washington Post).

I don't think this bodes well for Florida, because Disney's attorneys and facts are much better.  Plus, wrt DeSantis' political campaign for President, it will keep him in the news in negative ways.  Way more people like Disney than they like the culture wars.

Battery plants and red states.  If you don't believe in climate change, you don't want to encourage alternatives to fossil fuel consumption.  Electric cars are a threat to gasoline consumption.  Republicans, especially oil interests like Koch Industries, don't like that very much.

Electric vehicles need batteries, lots of them, and battery manufacturing plant are seen as a key element of the developing industrial ecosystem for electric vehicles.

Last year, Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, got pushback for providing tax incentives to an EV plant ("Kemp, Perdue spar over planned Georgia electric car plant," AP).  

And in Virginia, Republican Governor Youngkin--with presidential ambitions--said no to a battery plant owned by a Chinese firm ("Youngkin blocked a battery factory from coming to Va. and an entire economic sector’s potential," Virginia Mercury).  Instead that plant and its estimated 2,500 jobs went to Michigan.

OTOH, the redistribution of manufacturing for electric vehicles will lead to more production in red states, which could have an impact on Red State government positions wrt electric vehicle production and climate change more generally ("The unlikely center of America’s EV battery revolution," "Battery factories could make red states a driving force for climate," Washington Post).

Bud Light beer.  Is excoriated because they did a promotion with a transsexual ("Anheuser-Busch InBev Executive Speaks Out About Bud Light Controversy," Newsweek).

M&Ms.  Trolled Tucker Carlson ("Tucker Carlson is once again enraged by "woke M&M's" lack of sex appeal," Salon) good ("M&M’s punked Tucker Carlson with Maya Rudolph Super Bowl fake-out," LGBTQ Nation).

Culture wars and the "natural" conservative alliance with business.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Some donors are backing away from DeSantis on this issue.  

But at the end of the day, most big corporate donors are likely to acquiesce, so long as their particular companies remain on the conservative good side, and their primary issues--low taxes, minimal regulation--are covered.