Katie Porter: You’ve got about 15 thousand contractors watching murders, stabbings, suicides, other gruesome disgusting videos for content moderation, correct?
Mark Zuckerberg: Congresswoman, yes, I believe that that’s correct.
Katie Porter: You pay many of those workers under $30 thousand a year, and you’ve cut them off from mental health care when they leave the company, even if they have PTSD because of their work for your company. Is that correct?
Mark Zuckerberg: Congresswoman, my understanding is we pay everyone, including the contractors associated with the company, at least a $15 minimum wage, in markets, in cities where there’s a high cost of living, that’s a $20 minimum wage. We go out of our way–
Katie Porter: Thank you, I’ll take your word at the wage. Reclaiming my time. According to one report I have, and this is straight out of an episode of Black Mirror, these workers get nine (*nine*) minutes of supervised wellness time per day. That means nine minutes to cry in the stairwell while somebody watches them. Would you be willing to commit to spending one hour a day, for the next year, watching these videos and acting as a content moderator, and only accessing the same benefits available to your workers?
Mark Zuckerberg: Congresswoman, we work hard to make sure we give good benefits to all the folks who are doing this–
Katie Porter: Mr. Zuckerberg, reclaiming my time, I would appreciate a yes or a no. Would you be willing to act as a content moderator? To have that life experience?
Mark Zuckerberg: I’m not sure it would best serve our community for me to spend that much time–
Katie Porter: Reclaiming my time. Mr. Zuckerberg, are you saying you’re not qualified to be a content monitor?
Mark Zuckerberg: No, Congresswoman, that’s not what I’m saying.
Katie Porter: Okay, then you’re saying you’re not willing to do it.
Video of the transcript above is here and it’s fantastic.
Where’s my vine compilation of women in congress kicking Mark Zuckerberg’s rhetorical ass
Tag Archives: OddBox
bitter-badfem-harpy: shutyourmoustache: LADY GAGA FUCKING SNAPPED. I was just thinking of this…
LADY GAGA FUCKING SNAPPED.
I was just thinking of this deposition earlier today actually. Honestly seeing Lady Gaga tell off a man publicly and on official court record????????
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me.” I think of how scared she must have been every time I refuse to break eye contact with a man and tell him what I really think. I think of how angry she must have been and how fiercely protective she was in that moment.
حل أزمة مستشفى المطلع ليست لدى وزارة الصحة ولكن لدى وزارة المالية ورئيس الحكومة
حل أزمة مستشفى المطلع ليست لدى وزارة الصحة ولكن لدى وزارة المالية ورئيس الحكومة
لا تحتاج وزيرة الصحة بأن تضيف عبئا على أحمال وزارتها التي يتحول يوميا وضعها إلى الأسوأ. المشكلة طبعا ليست بالوزارة الحالية ولا بمن يترأسها، فالمشكلة متفاقمة تعيد تكرار نفسها على مدار العقود، بين غياب للكفاءات والاستثمارات البناءة، ومبدأ وضع الانسان المناسب في المكان غير المناسب في كل مرافق السلطة وتفشيه، ولكن تتجلى مأساويته عندما يتعلق الامر بالصحة، لأن الاستهتار واحتقار حياة الانسان الفلسطيني تصبح على المحك.
أزمة مستشفى المطلع تتعلق بعدم التزام وزارة المالية وبالتالي رئاسة الوزراء بدفع ديونهم المتراكمة لصالح مستشفى المطلع على مدار سنوات، وصلت الى مئات الملايين.
تراكم الديون هنا، هو تنصل السلطة من دفع ديونها لمستحقيها وهو مستشفى المطلع. هذا طبعا بالإضافة الى تنصل السلطة بما عليها الالتزام به بشأن المستشفيات في القدس في هذا الصدد.
قامت وزارة الصحة بنشر بيان توضيحي بشأن مستشفى المطلع تقترح من خلاله ان ” أي مريض لا يستقبله مستشفى المطلع في القدس، بسبب الازمة الحالية، عليه مراجعة دائرة التحويلات للحصول على تحويلة الى مكان آخر في مشافينا الحكومية او الخاصة.”
هناك استكمال للبيان يمكن الرد عليه بصفحات، ولكن لهول المصاب اكتفي بالفقرة الأولى من البيان.
والرد على الفقرة الثانية المتعلقة بالديون:” أن ديون مستشفى المطلع متراكمة منذ السنوات الماضية، وتعمل الحكومة على جدولتها وفق الموارد المالية المتاحة، مشيرة إلى أنه ورغم الأزمة المالية الصعبة التي نمر بها، إلا أن الحكومة تعطي الأولوية الأولى لمشافي القدس فتقوم بتحويل مبلغ مقطوع بشكل شهري من فاتورة التحويلات الطبية للمستشفيات المقدسية ومن بينها مستشفى المطلع، لنحافظ على هذه المؤسسات الوطنية” بعبارة واحدة: جدولة الديون وفق الموارد المتاحة لا يجب ان تكون لغة وزارة صحة، ربما ما يجب عمله هو جدولة ماهية عمل ودور وزارة الصحة. .
في سياق سابق عن تدهور الوضع في مرافق الصحة الفلسطينية، ردت وزيرة الصحة دفاعا عن المستشفيات والنظام الصحي ( اثر المطالبة بإغلاق المستشفى الذي تورط بجريمة قتل الشابة اسراء غريب) أوردت في حينها ما يلي : ” تطالب الكاتبة بإغلاق المستشفى بدل مثلا أصلاح المستشفى وهي لا تعلم بان فلسطين ينقصها ٥٠٪ من أسره مستشفيات بما يتطابق مع المواصفات العالمية نسبه الى عدد السكان واكيد انها لا تعلم بان نسبه اشغال الأسرة بالمستشفى ١٥٠٪ واكيد لا تعلم بان قوائم الانتظار للمرضى تبلغ الى عام ٢٠٢١ ونحن بصدد تقييم ذلك واكيد لا تعلم بانه المشفى الحكومي الوحيد في منطقه بيت لحم وان من يرتاد المشافي الحكومية هم الطبقة الفقيرة والمحتاجة من ابناء شعبنا.”
قبل يومين انتشر فيديو بصوت وصورة والدة الشابة حنين هاني ادعيس التي توفيت في رحلة العذاب في المستشفيات الفلسطينية حتى حصولها على تحويله لمستشفى بالأردن. رحلة الشابة حنين ادعيس الى الموت بوصف أمها الدامي للقلوب والحارق للعروق إذا ما بتقى في هذه العروق دم جاري، يشبه وصف عذاب القبر وما يتبعه من عذاب جهنم لما نقرأه من تصورات بهذا الخصوص. حنين ادعيس عاشت عذاب ما بعد الموت إذا ما كان للعذاب وصف يمكن رؤيته وتشخيصه ولكن بينما كانت تنبض بالحياة. وصف الام المكلومة لما جرى بالمستشفيات الفلسطينية هو أكبر شاهد على ما يجري من انتهاك واستهتار لحياة الانسان تجعل موته وحياته سيان. لا بل تجعل من حياته طريق للموت المفجع من خلال المرافق الصحية الفلسطينية. حنين ادعيس لم يتم وضعها بالمستشفى بسبب عدم وجود الاسرة، وتم تعيين عملية لها بلا معرفة لما تعاني منه، استكشاف بفتح البطن، عودة الى البيت بانتظار عملية برابيج وإبر ملتصقة بجسمها. حمامات قذرة بل أدنى احترام لإنسان. جراثيم يمكن رؤيتها بالعين المجردة. ارجاع الشابة الى البيت بعد العملية وبرابيج في بطنها يسحب ماء او يرجعها!!! التهابات تتفاقم في جسد الشابة. رحلة الام الشاقة في استجداء طبيب الى اخر، من تشخيص الى اخر، من استهتار الى اخر، من استخفاف واحتقار للحياة الى اخر. أسابيع من المعاناة التي يمكن وصفها بانها رحلة بداخل جهنم. وكأن النظام الصحي الفلسطيني متعاقد مع ملائكة العذاب في الاخرة. وكأن الرحمة هي نقيض ما يقوم عليه عمل موظفي الصحة.
مرفق الفيديو: https://www.facebook.com/malkurd2/videos/10218662115641772/UzpfSTQ5NDg2ODU3NzI4MDQ4MToyMDc5MjU5NDkyMTc0NzA3/
قضية الشابة مرح العيساوي واصابتها بفيروس انتهت من بعده حياتها بعد التبرع بالدم. لم ترفق الوزارة حتى اللحظة حتى بيان توضيح بشأن بيانها السابق المتضارب المعلومات مقابل بينا عائلة المرحومة مرح العيساوي. قضية مرح العيساوي ليست قضية عائلة مرح فقط. هذه قضية رأي عام. التبرع بالدم موضوع عام. ما الذي جرى مع مرح؟ ما هي ظروف التبرع بالدم؟ اين الخلل وكيف يمكن علاجه؟ نحن نتكلم عن موضوع قومي. الشعب كله يمكن ان يتبرع بالدم، كما الشعب كله يمكن ان يأخذ الدم المتبرع به. ما هي الإجراءات المتبعة؟ كيف تصاب شابة في عمر الورود وفي مستهل عطاء حياتها بينما تتبرع بدمها؟
عشرات القضايا ان لم يكن المئات، تتراوح كما الأرواح المعذبة والمظلومة في سمائنا متوسلة إرساء الحق وتحقيق عدالة تحترم بها الانسان.
عن أي تحويل لمستشفيات فلسطينية في ربوع السلطة تتحدث وزيرة الصحة؟
عودة الى تصريح وزيرة الصحة. كيف تعرف الوزيرة مستشفى المطلع؟
نبرة اللغة المستخدمة تفيد بأن مستشفى المطلع ومستشفى هداسا في نفس الميزان من التبعية. وكأن المطلع تابع لمنظومة أخرى تقع في عالم اخر. علواااااه صار لسان الحال، لو تضم وزارة الصحة الإسرائيلية المستشفيات بالقدس الى مرافقها الصحية. ام هو بالأصل ما يتم التعامل من قبل السلطة الفلسطينية بشأن المرافق الصحية وغيرها في القدس.
بينما يحارب ويصارع وينازع ارباب هذه المرافق من اجل الهوية الوطنية، وهنا المرافق الصحية كمستشفى المطلع هو مثال ضمن عشرات الأمثلة. فما يجري بالمدارس والمعاهد، الجمعيات والدكاكين حتى، من استصراخ من اجل عدم ” اسرلة وصهاينة” المرافق المختلفة بالقدس، بينما تترك السلطة القدس ومرافقها وأهلها لتداس وتمضغ بين فكي السلطات الإسرائيلية، لتكون هي جزء من عملية صهر المرافق الفلسطينية ضمن إسرائيل.
“علواااااه” تبدو سلطوية وليست أهلية التمني. فلو ارادت مستشفى المطلع التبعية للمرافق الإسرائيلية لكان الوضع ممكنا وجيدا منذ سنوات. ان تأتي الوزيرة وتصرح بهكذا تصريح يؤكد ان السلطة الفلسطينية لا تريد ان يكون لها علاقة أصلا بالقدس. وكل ما نراه ونسمعه ليس الا إعلانات تعبويه فارغة، وهدر للأموال في توزيع المناصب. فوجود محافظ ووزير وما يتبعه من دوائر ومدراء وغيرهم بالقدس لا يختلف عن وجود شرطة جوية في السلطة.
ازمة مستشفى المطلع ليست كأزمة شركة الكهرباء ولا كأزمة الرواتب ولا غيرها من أزمات. آزمة مستشفى المطلع أقرب بأن تشبه بأزمة اموال المقاصة المستحقة للسلطة التي رفضت إسرائيل دفعها. أزمة مستشفى المطلع تتعلق بعدم دفع السلطة لديونها المستحقة للمستشفى مقابل التحويلات الطبية.
لا يمكن الوقوف عند مستشفى المطلع بدون الإشارة الى أهمية ما تقوم به المستشفى من اعمال وخدمات يمكن وصفها بالإنسانية أكثر من مجرد كونها طبية لمرضى الضفة الغربية وغزة. استطاعت مستشفى المطلع ان ترقى بخدماتها الطبية بما يحترم الانسان ويقدر حياته على مدار السنوات الأخيرة، بتجربة تستحق التقدير والدراسة من اجل التعميم.
انقطاع الدواء الخاص بمرضى السرطان بمستشفى المطلع ، سيؤدي الى ما يجب ان نسميه “مذبحة” بحق اكثر من ٣٠٠ مريض سرطان يخضعون للعلاج بالمستشفى.
أزمة مستشفى المطلع هي ازمة وطنية وإنسانية تحارب من خلالها المستشفى بطريقة غير مقصودة فساد منظومة السلطة وانحيازها الواضح ضد القدس من اجل تسليمها التدريجي والطوعي، بمرافقها لسلطات الاحتلال.
ازمة مستشفى المطلع هي أزمة القدس في مواجهتها للأسرلة والصهينة الممنهجة على مدار سنوات أوسلو.
أزمة مستشفى المطلع هي ازمة الكينونة الفلسطينية التي تحاول لملمة نفسها في نسيج واحد تبدده السلطة الفلسطينية كما يبدد بها الاحتلال.
Tripoli, Light of the Revolution

Translation by Elias Abou Jaoudeh of a Facebook status written by Elias Khoury. Original Arabic below.
طرابلس النور
اسمها الفيحاء لأن رائحة زهر النارنج والليمون، تغمرك حين تصل إليها.
واسمها أيضا طرابلس الشام، لأنها رئة بلاد الشام وبحرها.
اغرقها النظام الطائفي الاستبداي بالظلام اربعة عقود، وحوّلها الزعماء الى المدينة الأكثر فقرا.
لكنها وابتداء من 17 تشرين عادت إلى شعبها، وصارت نجمة لبنان التي يشعّ ضؤوها.
ووجدت نفسها تلبس نور الثورة.
فصار اسمها طرابلس النور.
تذكروا ولا تنسوا اسمها الجديد، فنورها يغمر انتفاضة الشعب اللبناني، ويضيء الساحل كله.
طرابلس النور.
لنورها التحية، ولشعبها الذي أضاء مدينته بالثورة والموسيقى والفرح حبنا.
Multitasker Jane Fonda Can Accept Awards and Get Arrested at the Same Time

Jane Fonda is good at many things, including but not limited to: acting, aerobics, protesting, making a subset of Boomers apoplectic at the mention of her name for nearly 50 years, looking fucking great, and getting arrested. But did you know that she can do many of these things simultaneously?
PrEP Deemed ‘Too Political’ for Instagram
Zuck is a jerk about everything these days. 
This week, Mark Zuckerberg spent the day sweating beneath his baby bangs as he defended his right to let political advertisers lie to voters on Facebook. However, there does seem to be a topic that Zuckerberg and company have declared too controversial for social media, and that topic is preventing HIV and AIDS.
Disturbing Video Shows San Bernardino Police Officer Fatally Shooting Unarmed Man
A still from a video released by the San Bernardino Police Department shows the moments before a now-former officer fatally shot Richard Sanchez in September 2018. (Courtesy of the San Bernardino Police Dept.)
Body camera video released Friday by the San Bernardino Police Department shows one of its officers fatally shooting an unarmed man holding his hands in the air.
The shooting of Richard John Sanchez on September 28, 2018, occurred after a member of his family called 911 to report Sanchez had threatened family members with a gun.
An undated photo of Sanchez was included in the video released about his fatal shooting (Courtest of the San Bernardino Police Dept.)
According to police, the caller, identified as his sister-in-law, also told the 911 operator that Sanchez was intoxicated and making irrational statements such as he had everyone under his control because he was God.
Authorities also said Sanchez, who was 27, had a felony arrest warrant that responding officers knew about at the time of the incident.
Members of Sanchez’s family released a statement expressing grief and anguish over his death, but also praise for the police department’s handling of the investigation.
“While Richard’s sudden passing has left a void that
cannot be filled in the lives of his family members,” the statement said, “the family is honored and encouraged by the swift acceptance of responsibility by the leadership of the San Bernardino Police Department — whose investigation into this tragic incident was aimed at uncovering the truth, even when this meant acknowledging the mistakes of a fellow officer.”
HANDS RAISED
The video, released late on a Friday more than a year after the fatal shooting, shows officers outside the front door repeatedly ordering Sanchez to drop the gun as he stands just inside the home. Sanchez places the gun on a couch and walks out the door, according to the police account of the incident.
Police officers then repeatedly order Sanchez to raise his hands. He raises his hands and keeps walking toward them. Sanchez appears to be just a few feet away from the officers when one officer fires five times.
The officer no longer works for the department, according to police. It’s unclear whether he resigned or was fired.
“Upon completion of our internal investigation and review process, we’ve concluded that one of our officer’s decision-making did not meet the standards held by our department or the community we serve,” said Acting Chief Eric McBride. “As a result, he no longer works for the San Bernardino Police Department.”
McBride gives the officer’s last name in the video, but his department did not immediately provide a first name or a spelling. He emphasized that the internal review did not determine whether the now former officer’s actions were criminal.
The San Bernardino District Attorney is investigating the incident and will decide whether to file criminal charges against the officer.
WARNING: The following video includes disturbing footage
WHAT THE VIDEO INCLUDES
The department’s video includes the acting chief’s statement and narration from a sergeant. It shows a aerial photo of the home of where Sanchez was shot, a previous photo of Sanchez and audio of the 911 call – as well as segments from the camera worn by the officer who opened fire.
The production mirrors those from the LAPD, which was the first department in the nation to release videos of shootings on a regular basis.
Under a state law that took effect July 1, all police departments are now required to release body-worn camera video of officer-involved shootings within 45 days of the incident, unless the department can “clear and convincing evidence that disclosure would substantially interfere with the investigation.”
This video was not subject to the law because it was taken before the law was enacted. It’s unclear why the department decided to release it at this time.
FULL STATEMENT RELEASED BY THE FAMILY OF RICHARD SANCHEZ
The family of Richard Sanchez remains overcome with grief over the sudden and unexpected loss of their beloved husband, brother, father, and son and continue to feel the anguish on a daily basis from the loss of a life that cannot be replaced.
While Richard’s sudden passing has left a void that cannot be filled in the lives of his family members, the family is honored and encouraged by the swift acceptance of responsibility by the leadership of the San Bernardino Police Department–whose investigation into this tragic incident was aimed at uncovering the truth, even when this meant acknowledging the mistakes of a fellow officer.
By pursuing the truth and by adopting a transparent approach to the investigation of this officer-involved-shooting, the San Bernardino Police Department has demonstrated a model of transparency in which the Sanchez family hopes is emulated by police departments facing similar incidents nationwide.
— The statement was released by the family’s attorney Brian Dunn of the Cochran Firm
UPDATES:
8:15 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Sanchez’s family.
8 p.m.: This article was updated with a description of how the video was produced and additional background about state law related to the release of body cam and other police video.
7:50 p.m.: This article was updated with the information that the 911 caller was identified as Sanchez’s sister-in-law.
This article was originally published at 7:25 p.m.
MORE COVERAGE FROM FRANK STOLTZE
LA Sheriff Villanueva Has Run Up A $63M Deficit; Supervisors Consider Hiring Freeze
East LA Sheriff’s Deputies File Suit Claiming Harassment, Violence By ‘Banditos’ Clique
LA Sheriff’s Oversight Panel Calls For Removal Of ‘Culturally Insensitive’ Fort Apache Logo
Lebanon Protests: It’s Too Late To Believe Any of These Politicians’ Promises

(Picture via Anis Tabet).
Nata2 badri, as my mom would say.
72 hours have come and gone. Aoun, Berri and Hariri have finally come out of their weekend long slumber to unveil their country saving plan… and they think we’re actually going to believe them this time.
The plan that Hariri unveiled today is offensive to every single Lebanese who had to suffer through their corruption for years. This so-called plan is an insult to the intelligence of the millions who have been starved over the years, and who were protesting in the streets over the last 4 days.
It’s ridiculous that it took millions of us protesting across the world for them to *finally* succumb and cut down on their salaries, on their benefits, on long standing black holes that siphoned public funds into their pockets.
What Hariri and the rest of Lebanon’s ruling class believe is that they can continue to fool people with the same empty promises they’ve given for years. If it was *this* easy for them to enact these changes, why hadn’t they enacted them months ago when they were scrambling to come up with a budget for a country that functioned without one for decades?
It’s because they’ve taken our silence for granted. It’s because they assumed they can do whatever they wanted to this people and get away with it. But that stops now.
No Mr. Hariri, your empty promises don’t fly here. Just look at workers at Future TV and Saudi Ogeh were promised for years, none of which was ever fulfilled.
No, these empty reforms don’t address the root of the problem which is that these same politicians who have failed to reform anything for decades cannot suddenly see the light and decide to enact much needed change.
No, switching one way for these politicians to steal money to programs called Elinor and Elissar is not reform. This is just another name for theft.
It’s too little too late for empty statements masquerading under the guise of change to be effective. We should be better than to believe such empty words.
I really hope that years of lies are enough to have us believe that more lies can never be truths.
Stay tuned, Lebanon. The revolution continues.
New Bill Would Make It Mandatory for Florida Public Schools to Offer Bible Classes
Separation of church and state says no, unless they want mandatory classes in Torah, Hindu, Islamic, Sikh, Tao, Shintoism, Buddha, Bahai and Wicca texts too in a universal religions class. 
In case you were under the misguided impression there was still some semblance of the separation of church and state in this quickly deteriorating nation, a new proposed bill in Florida would require public schools to offer Bible classes. Betsy must love it!
America’s Oldest Boat Shop Has Been Making Hunky Dories for 226 Years
As a gentle breeze blows through the open windows and Lyle Lovett croons on an old Sony boombox, workers and volunteers at Lowell’s Boat Shop do what they’ve always done. Saws buzz, sandpaper scrapes, and lumber bangs on floorboards coated with decades of sawdust and paint. Outside, on the Merrimack River, a line of wooden dories are moored near the shop. Cormorants sun themselves, wings outstretched, atop the gunwales.
Lowell’s is the oldest continuously operating boat shop in America. Located in Amesbury, Massachusetts, it’s both a national landmark and a working museum—emphasis on working. Founded by Simeon Lowell in 1793, it was passed on to Benjamin Lowell, then to Hiram Lowell, and kept in the Lowell family for seven generations, until 1976. (After that it was bought by the Odell family, then the Newburyport Maritime Society, and finally, in 2006, Lowell’s Maritime Foundation, an independent nonprofit.)
The shop is famed for its dories—boats with wide flat bottoms and a simple construction that once abounded in these waters. Over the course of two centuries, more than a quarter of a million dories were produced in the U.S.

At Lowell’s, annual production was tracked on a beam inside the shop, where the years and numbers of boats produced were engraved—the way a parent might chronicle a child’s growth, ticking marks onto a door frame. In 1911, at the peak of its production, Lowell’s built an astonishing 2,029 boats—the prime engine of a then-mighty fishing fleet based in nearby Gloucester.
That vast output was possible thanks to the shop’s design and manufacturing innovations. Simeon Lowell made radical changes to traditional dory design, creating boats that were more durable and efficient than those that had come before. Thanks to their design, Lowell’s dories could be stacked neatly on larger ships—a key step when Gloucester fishermen, eager to boost production, began deploying fleets of dories from the decks of their schooners, rather than fishing from the schooners themselves using hand-lines.
The business was also one of the first in the nation to employ a sort of factory-type manufacturing. “Historically, the way it was done, these boats were mass produced,” says Graham McKay, the shop’s master boat-builder and current executive director. Each worker, he says, was responsible for a step in the building process, and the shop became like an assembly line. To improve efficiency, pieces of the boats were prefabricated. (During Lowell’s heyday, from the late 19th century into the early 20th, they could all be purchased from factories in downtown Amesbury.)

As the shop teems with workers on a sunny Monday, McKay explains the process. He points to a trap door in the attic through which stored prefab pieces were dropped to the main floor of the shop. There, the frames, stem, and transom were nailed to what would become the boat’s bottom—“literally bang[ed] … together,” says McKay. The design was so streamlined, “you could almost have every piece made ahead of time.”
Once the base of the boat was built, the next step was to create the sides, through a process called planking. The lowermost plank of the boat’s hull, called the garboard, was fitted against the bottom of the boat. One by one, the next planks were added up from the garboard, against the frame of the boat, until the complete hull was formed—creating the boat’s shape from the ground up.
Lowell’s dories were planked using what’s called a lapstrake method, where the planks of the boat’s hull overlap one another; the bottom of each new plank was laid over the top of the plank below, up to the top. The increased thickness from these overlaps made the boats strong.
Once all the planks, from the garboard to the top, were overlaid and nailed to the frame, rails were fitted at the top. These fully assembled boats were carried to a door in the side of the building. Shop workers lowered them there, first to a deck by the river, then into a paint room in the lower level of the shop.

Workers there mixed the paint’s ingredients—white lead, turpentine, pine tar—together in a barrel. At one point in the early years, brick dust would be mixed in as well. “It made for a [distinctive] salmon-colored paint,” McKay says. “But it also made it kind of chalky. So it would rub off, versus flake off.”
At its peak, Lowell’s made an average of seven boats per day using this technique. Today, the shop builds about that many boats in a year. McKay and the shop’s three other boat-building employees—along with dozens of volunteers—also do repairs and restorations.
But it’s only partly a commercial shop. These days Lowell’s has multiple revenue streams, including grant money, visitor donations, and the funds it generates from the boat-building classes McKay offers for kids and adults. The shop also hosts events, like rowing races; has an active presence on Instagram; and offers a membership program. It’s become less about building boats, and more about building a community around them.
“Most people preserve things by putting them behind glass,” says McKay. “We preserve … things by continuing to do them and use them.”

Some of the tools still in use at Lowell’s attest to this fact. A band saw, for instance, dates back to the late 1800s. A thickness planer, which takes a piece of wood and makes it thinner and thinner as it’s fed through and cut down to size, is from World War II. “They’ve always worked,” says McKay, “and they still work for what we’re doing.”
McKay grew up down the street and once took a boat-building class at Lowell’s himself, during high school. That’s where he first learned how to build dories the traditional way. After leaving home to work on tall ships and in boatyards, he came back about 10 years ago, when Lowell’s needed someone to run the shop.
“I didn’t realize that I was one of the few people around that knew how to do it—to use those notes and go through the process,” he says.
Now, he’s passing that tradition along, not just teaching students how to build boats but also cataloguing the slew of archival dory plans in the shop’s attic. He does his best to ensure that the plans he and the students use to build their boats are as close to the originals as possible. At Lowell’s Boat Shop, it seems, what’s old is new again.

As they’ve repaired and restored old vessels over the years, the boat-builders at Lowell’s have used a few modern technologies to identify—and prevent—recurring issues. In the 1970s and ’80s, for instance, the shop would slather the insides of its dories with epoxy, which creates a waterproof seal that prevents leaks. Now, the shop incorporates fiberglass into its boats, which makes them more durable.
Jeff Lane, a boat-builder and instructor at Lowell’s, is experimenting with a foam bottom for a 20-foot-long surf dory—a tack some boat-builders take to add stiffness and buoyancy. It’s something Lowell’s has never tried before—“it’s crazy by the standards around here,” Lane says—though it’s not exactly a novel technology.
It’s all a balancing act, says McKay—figuring out how to introduce modern innovations to a time-honored tradition, without changing what worked so well in the first place. That includes the materials. Most of the wood Lowell’s uses is still pine (from a mill just over the New Hampshire border) and locust (which is milled in the shop), just as it’s always been. “We use those because they’re local, they’re historically what was used, and they still work totally fine,” says McKay.

Today the museum drives a large part of Lowell’s traffic, and helps keep the shop afloat. A small exhibit space occupies what was once the paint room, where thousands upon thousands of dories were painted over the years. The remnants still cake the floors here, at some points thicker than the floorboards themselves, forming what McKay calls a “paint glacier.” There are also a few placards in this room, along with display cases and a television, mounted on the wall, that plays a video about the founding and progression of Lowell’s and its dories.
The goal of the museum space, which opened in 1994, is to give thousands of visitors each year—in 2017 there were 4,680—a sense of Lowell’s enduring place in the maritime industry over two centuries. But while they may appreciate the historical context, says McKay, “their primary interest is in what we’re doing now.”
That includes one of the shop’s current projects: restoring a replica of a light sailboat from the 1620s. Called a shallop, it’s a vessel that the Mayflower would’ve brought with it to America. Lowell’s is rebuilding this one to mark the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in the New World. (Visitors will have to see it while they can, before it’s returned to Plymouth next April.)

When McKay first started at Lowell’s, he says, the place was pretty dead. “I was basically here by myself all day long, working on boats.” Now, he says—with the shop’s high-school apprentice program, a bustling events calendar, class offerings, and a healthy supply of volunteers—“you can’t get a day to yourself here unless it’s snowing out.”
Lowell’s is located on Main Street in Amesbury, which runs alongside the river. People drive by all the time, says McKay. He hopes that the shop’s maritime timelessness will continue to be a draw for curious visitors, and their donations.
“We exist now to host people who are interested in this kind of thing, and we just want them to come,” he says. It’s the educational aspect, the human interest, that keeps Lowell’s alive. It relies on people these days, not boats. If they cease to visit, Lowell’s will cease to exist.
But the best reason for visiting Lowell’s ultimately comes back to quality. “Your reputation relies upon making good boats that last,” McKay says. “And if you don’t adapt with the times, then you’ll go out of business. This place has always adapted with the times, which has kept it in business.”





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