It’s December! How did that happen? As the days get shorter and we head full-speed into the busiest holiday season of the year—yet again in the middle of a still-raging pandemic (weeeee!)—we could all use some glimmers of hope and snippets of joy to perk us up. From laughing babies to dancing grandpas to creative…
It’s December! How did that happen? As the days get shorter and we head full-speed into the busiest holiday season of the year—yet again in the middle of a still-raging pandemic (weeeee!)—we could all use some glimmers of hope and snippets of joy to perk us up.
From laughing babies to dancing grandpas to creative Christmas carol commas (you’ll see), here are 10 things that made us smile this week. We hope they’ll do the same for you.
Watch a bunch of good doggos plunging in to play in the pool.
Seriously, that little one can move, andin her little puffer jacket no less! That is called feelin’ it.
Guy creates the most hilariously creative rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” ever.
I couldn't figure out where the comma(s) in "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" should go, so I hit myself in the face. pic.twitter.com/BNaglwpzYt— Ramses the Pigeon (@RamsesThePigeon) December 1, 2021
Absolutely incredible. It makes nerdy wordsmith hearts everywhere so happy. (I’d put the comma after “ye,” but I’m not in charge.)
Watch a cat trying to catch snowflakes with its bare paws.
They’re not that old, but seeing them skipping and jumping like little kids is just adorable. Simple love, simple joy—it’s really all we want.
Broadway actors sing a gorgeously moving tribute to Stephen Sondheim.
Broadway musical composer extraordinaire Stephen Sondheim passed away at age 91 this week, leaving a wealth of creative beauty behind. A group of Broadway actors and singers gathered in New York to sing a tribute to him with the opening song of his musical “Sunday in the Park with George.” So beautiful. Read the full story here.
Baby gets the giggles because apparently coughing is downright hilarious.
He may use a cane to get around, but he certainly doesn’t need it to get down. How joyful.
We get to watch the birth of iconic Beatles songs right before our eyes
The Peter Jackson documentary series “Get Back,” consisting of candid footage of the Beatles that had been locked in a vault for five decades, came out last weekend on Disney+. Holy moly, does it contain some gems. If you ever wanted to see Paul McCartney literally pull a song out of thin air, here you go. Read the full story here.
A son heading back to college had the sweetest exchange with his baby brother.
If this doesn’t warm your heart, are you sure you even have one? “I LUB YOU!!!!” And that “Mmmmm” at the end. Too dang cute. (Go ahead and watch this one a dozen more times for good measure. Indulge in that delight.)
Hope that brought some joy to your heart and a smile to your face! Come back again next week for another round-up of happiness.
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project.
Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia.
Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.
Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:
Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
Uytae Lee is the founder of About Here, an adjunct journalism professor at UBC, and a BC Housing Board commissioner. As an urban planner and videographer, he is passionate about sharing stories about our cities.
In the video below, he explains why regulations in North America have made these quaint walk-up apartments, known by architects as point access blocks, nearly impossible to build.
It all comes down to staircases
“Quaint walk-up apartments … are a beloved feature in cities around the world,” Lee says in his video entitled “Why North Americans Can’t Have Nice Apartments.” “They’re inviting and full of character. But, here in North America, they are not allowed to be built today. Instead, our apartments are big and imposing, often stretching across the entire block and the reason why it really comes down to one reason: staircases.”
The problem is that one stairway in a point access block allows access to all apartments. This became a problem in the late 1800s when fires were commonplace in urban areas worldwide and people were more likely to die in a fire with only one exit route. So, in the U.S. and Canada, they created new regulations that made it so all buildings over two to three stories had to have two staircases to allow them to exit during a fire.
“Staircases take up a lot of space and fitting two of them in a small building means that there is much less usable floor space on every floor,” Lee says in the video. “As a result, developers here construct much larger buildings so that the staircases and hallways take up a much smaller proportion of the overall building. It’s why apartments in North America, in general, are much bigger and wider than their European counterparts.”
So why didn’t Europe make the same call?
But there are fires in Europe, too. Why did they stop short of requiring multiple staircases in apartment buildings on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? Instead of changing the floorplans on new buildings, Europeans opted to require fireproof materials in new building construction. A big reason why the U.S. and Canada opted for larger buildings over fireproofing was because they had better access to materials and the new direction aligned with the move towards suburban sprawl.
The two-staircase regulations in the U.S also made it harder to build units greater than one bedroom because the buildings needed long hallways which reduced the number of layout options.
Now cities are rethinking the rules
The current housing crisis has many rethinking the regulations that require apartment buildings to have two stairways in North America. Many urban planners believe that modern-day demands mean we should return to building more point access block buildings, but this time with modern fire-retardant materials.
Cities like Seattle, Washington, were early adopters, but the movement has since gone national. As of 2025, seven states have passed bipartisan legislation allowing single-stairway apartment buildings, including Colorado, Montana, New Hampshire, and Texas, with 19 states and Washington D.C. having introduced bills since 2022.
Until recently, Seattle, New York, and Honolulu were the only U.S. cities that allowed apartment buildings up to 6 stories to have just 1 stairway.
More cities and towns should follow suit—it'd provide much-needed housing without risking anyone's safety. https://t.co/LWQhATtmCl
“Now, if all this makes you a bit nervous, I get it. After all, these codes are about our safety. But I do want to mention that these codes do change over time as our technology and our understanding of safety evolves,” Lee finishes the video. “It’s important that we discuss and update these rules as our world changes.”
Pew Charitable Trust reports that small, single-stairway apartments actually have a strong safety record, sharing that those kinds of buildings as tall as six stories are “at least as safe as other types of housing.” As we gather data and learn more, we should be able to adjust our regulations. So maybe, hopefully, there are more quaint apartment buildings in our future.
This article originally appeared three years ago. It has been updated.
“I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband, and it’s often as glamorous as it sounds,” she told Insider. “After all, I don’t cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry or pay for food.“
The one thing that makes it hard
Living an all-inclusive lifestyle seems like paradise, but it has some drawbacks. Having access to all-you-can-eat food all day long can really have an effect on one’s waistline. Kesteloo admits that living on a cruise ship takes a lot of self-discipline because the temptation is always right under her nose.
“One of the hardest things about living on a cruise ship is that I know right now, if I just leave my cabin, I can go and have cookies, pizza, a shake, I could have anything I wanted, and I want it, I absolutely want it,” she said in a TikTok video that received over 400,000 views.
“I am laying here. It is 2 pm. I had a salad for lunch, I had some fresh fruit, but that didn’t fill me up,” she continued. “Right now, all I can think about is eating a burger with some French fries and some mayonnaise.”
She added, “The hardest part is telling myself not to eat.”
She is not alone in this struggle
Kesteloo’s trouble is a common problem among people on cruise ships. A study by Admiral Travel Insurance found that over 60% of people who go on a week-long cruise anticipate gaining weight. Seventeen percent of people say they gain 2 to 3 pounds on a cruise, while 14% say they gain 4 to 5 pounds.
Other estimates show that the average cruiser will put on 5 to 10 pounds on a weeklong cruise. Imagine living on a cruise ship for half the year, like Kesteloo. She could quickly put on 100 pounds a year if she’s not careful.
The internet completely related
“I’d be huge if I lived there. I would feel like I’m on a constant vacation, and who diets on vacation?” Theresa Gramelsapcker-Wilson wrote in the comments.
“This is my main reason why I couldn’t do this HHAHAHAHAHAA,” Cara Mia added.
“I never thought about those who actually live on a cruise ship. I would be 500 pounds,” Lucky Penny2468 said.
A woman eats and drinks while enjoying the view on a cruise ship. Photo credit: Canva
Kesteloo’s battle with temptation shows that in every life, a little rain must fall. Nobody ever truly has it perfect. Kesteloo seems to be living the perfect life on board a cruise ship, but she still has to fight temptation every moment of the day or make good use of the ship’s gym facilities. But, obviously, having access to too much food is far better than having too little.
This article originally appeared four years ago. It has been updated.
Like it or not, kids will tell you what they really think. Their naive honesty is refreshing, hilarious, and at times, a little bit rough on the self-esteem of the adults around them. Regardless, they don’t shy away from telling it like it is, or at least how they see it.
That’s why 7th grade teacher Shane Frakes loves to frequently poll his students for their opinions on, well, almost anything.
They look younger, seem younger, and even feel younger than a lot of their predecessors. It’s a well-documented phenomenon, in fact. Part of it has to do with cultural and societal factors that have delayed major life milestones. Millennials came of age in a time where earning high-pay in their careers, getting married, and buying a house were more difficult than they ever were for their parents. Many people in the “Peter Pan generation” are just beginning to really get on their feet in their 30s.
Millennials also hold a deep fear of aging, more so than Gen X does. That may drive them to cling to styles, cultural references, and other preferences from their younger days. But it’s not weird, no. This blurring of the lines that define what a generation is has actually been pretty seamless.
“A millennial parent can post a TikTok dance with their kids, binge Stranger Things, or geek out over a Marvel premiere without feeling like they’re stepping out of their lane,” says Stacy Jones, a pop culture expert and founder and CEO of Hollywood Branded. “Earlier generations were pigeonholed into what their generation was supposed to be. Millennials are defining that instead. That cross-generational cultural participation blurs what ‘age’ looks and feels like. And it doesn’t stop there. Today’s 50-year-old doesn’t look or act like the 50-year-old of yesterday. Wellness, skincare, acceptance of Botox, fitness, and social media have redefined what ‘middle age’ even means, pushing the whole curve of youthfulness upward.”
Jones definitely has a point about how people look; there must be something in the water. This is what a 40 year old looked like just a few decades ago. No offense to the great Kelsey Grammer, but by today’s standard, the style and hair would have most people peg him to be in his (late) 50s.
All the more reason that Mr. Frakes’ students’ list is absolutely hysterical. If there’s anyone bound to be playfully offended by being prematurely aged, it’s us millennials. But the fact of the matter is, whether we like it or not, we are getting older and settling down. Many of us truly do enjoy shopping for home decor and playing a round of low-impact pickleball.
What the kids don’t understand is that we’re still rocking the hottest music of 2001 and wearing our baseball cap backwards while we do it.
This article originally appeared one year ago. It has been updated.
In March 2020, an 18-year-old waitress in Utah named Kaitlyn Brande pointed her phone at two tables in her section and said exactly what she was thinking. The video was 20 seconds long. It hit 9.3 million views, got her reprimanded by her employer, and launched a generational argument that apparently has no expiration date.
The setup is simple. Brande pans to the first table, still scattered with plates, napkins, and leftover food. “This is a table of five boomers that I took some plates out of the way of already,” she says. Then she swings the camera to the table next to it, where every plate has been stacked neatly at one end, cups grouped together, trash consolidated. “This is a table of six Gen Zs. They did that. Just saying.”
Her caption did the rest: “‘They get paid to do that’ VS ‘We know restaurant life is hard, here, let us help you out.’”
Brande eventually deleted the video at 9.3 million views because, as she explained in the comments, corporate got mad. She quit shortly after and got a new job. The video lived on anyway, resurfacing every year or two and reliably restarting the same argument.
The comments split in every direction. Some people praised the Gen Z table for the gesture. Others pushed back on the framing entirely, pointing out that stacking plates isn’t automatically helpful and can actually make a server’s job harder depending on how it’s done. “Half of your server squad would prefer the plates not stacked,” wrote one commenter who works in the industry. “You all need a handbook to get it together.”
A more measured version of that argument: “I was taught by the main dishwashers to always be cautious about how you stack, and leave it if you don’t know how. There is a difference between cleaning up your area and just leaving it.”
Others bypassed the plate-stacking question entirely and went straight to the generational read. “It doesn’t matter even if they do get paid for it,” one commenter wrote. “It helps the staff out, especially if it’s hella busy and they don’t get as much money as you think.” A self-identified Gen Xer chimed in: “I have been cleaning up tables for waitstaff for decades. Not only is it helpful, it’s also the right thing to do.”
Research on how the two generations actually experience restaurants backs up the idea that something real is going on beyond just table manners. A qualitative study on Gen Z dining behavior found that younger customers are more attuned to the behind-the-scenes reality of service work, more likely to engage with restaurants through a lens of efficiency and mutual respect, and more likely to treat servers as people doing a hard job rather than as part of the restaurant’s background.
What keeps this video resurfacing every year or two isn’t really about plates. It’s about what those plates represent: who sees service workers as people doing a hard job under pressure, and who doesn’t register them much at all. That’s a question without a clean generational answer, which is probably exactly why nobody can stop arguing about it.
You can follow Kate (@katebrande) on TikTok for entertainment-related content.
Since the 1970s, people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), have not been able to purchase hot, prepared foods—only those they can cook at home. So, if you stopped by your local grocery store’s deli counter, you could have the cold mashed potatoes in the refrigerated section, not the warm ones next to the chicken.
The idea behind the ban is that lawmakers want to provide grocery assistance and not restaurant assistance. It’s believed that when you buy hot food, the government wastes money on preparation fees. While a strict cost-saving measure on the surface, it overlooks that 79% of SNAP households include someone who is elderly, has children, or is disabled, which can make meal preparation challenging.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate recently warmed to the idea of allowing people receiving SNAP benefits to purchase the grocery-store staple: hot, prepared rotisserie chicken. These typically retail for $5 to $9, making them a great deal and a healthy, lean protein source. So, in this case, the hot, prepared chicken is a better deal for everyone involved.
Behold, the Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act
In April, a bipartisan group of Senators including Jim Justice (R-W.V.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced the Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act to amend the 2008 Food and Nutrition Act by allowing a carve-out for the food.
It’s plain common sense: a hot rotisserie chicken is a healthy, easy meal for busy families. Folks on SNAP should be able to grab one on the go.
“America’s best (and delicious) affordability play is Costco’s $4.99 rotisserie chicken,” Fetterman said in the statement. “It’s one of my family’s favorites and I’m proud to join this bill with Senator Justice for all to try. SNAP funds would be well spent to feed our nation’s families who need it.”
On April 30, a similar amendment to the act was added to the broader Farm Bill with dramatic bipartisan support. The measure cleared the House with a 384 to 35 vote. It seems that with all the partisan bickering in America, we can all agree that everyone deserves hot rotisserie chicken.
SNAP to include HOT ROTISSERIE CHICKEN.
384-35!
Doesn’t only include my crew’s favorite + affordable $4.99 Costco rotisserie 😜 — but ANY hot rotisserie.
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) April 30, 2026
However, the $390 Farm Bill package wasn’t greeted with such bipartisan enthusiasm. It passed on a partisan vote in the House of Representatives, 224-200, with only 14 Democrats in support, as it locked in a $187 billion cut to SNAP benefits through 2034.
After the passing of the Big Beautiful Bill last year, four million people lost some or all of their SNAP benefits, including: able-bodied adults without dependents who don’t work or volunteer at least 80 hours a month, refugees, those on political asylum, veterans, unhoused people, and former foster youth.
Rotisserie chicken at a warehouse store. Credit: Canva
Why are rotisserie chickens so cheap?
Usually, prepared food is more expensive than buying it uncooked. However, there are multiple reasons why buying a whole rotisserie chicken at your local grocery store or Costco is more affordable.
At Costco, the chickens are a loss-leader, meaning if the $5 chicken gets you in the door, you’ll probably cruise through the store and spend $400 on frozen fish, a 40-lb bag of dog food, 48 rolls of toilet paper, and an oversized holiday lawn decoration. In some grocery stores, rotisserie chickens are offered at a great price because they are butcher leftovers that may soon expire. Instead of throwing out the unsold raw chickens, they roast them and sell them at a discount.
When we think back to what we might deem the best of times, at least in terms of age, the answers are multilayered and, of course, subjective. For some, it’s age five, when even the smallest dandelion seemed whimsical. For others, it’s freshman year of college, when we perhaps felt truly autonomous and ready for reinvention.
At the Carrington Court Assisted Living and Memory Care facility in Utah, elderly residents were asked the simple question: “What was your favorite age of life?” While The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” underscores the video, a handful of people give their unique answers. Many of them are downright surprising.
In one clip shared on Instagram, we see senior citizens tackling the question. The caption reads, “You can still hit milestones at 93!” The first woman in the clip answers quickly. “25,” she says. She’s asked why, and she laughs while explaining, “My dad had bought me a new convertible car for my birthday. And I just drove it and drove it and drove it!”
We cut to the next resident, who answers, “About 63. Not too long ago, because I was looking forward to retiring.”
The next woman has a harder time making a choice. “I have so many,” she shares, “because my children have been very busy in their life and I’ve been busy in mine, and enjoyed what we were doing.”
A man is asked, and he doesn’t have to think about it long. “Last year!” This is followed by the obvious question: “Last year? How old were you?” He vulnerably shares, “Oh my goodness. I don’t remember.” But when his memory is prompted, he remembers he’s now 94. He continues, “Last year. Because I had no interest in life until this wonderful woman here brought it back to me.” The camera then pans over to the woman who had answered 63. She chuckles lovingly while absorbing the compliment.
Another man who is asked the same question says, “My favorite year of life would have to be probably when I was 17 or 18, because I was able to win a contest on a project I had made on my own lathe or a project on my dad’s lathe. And it took first place.”
Other videos shared on their social media pages show residents being asked the same question, with various answers: “Hopscotch, true love, babies, childhood farms.” Whatever it was for each, it was tied to moments embedded in their memories that brought them pure bliss.
The comment section seems moved by their answers, with plenty of opinions of their own. Some share how they would have answered: “I’m gonna vote 63, although I’m not there yet.”
This person can’t decide: “Who can pick just one… first true loves, seeing bands and just livin’… then the kids come along, and is anything better? Then they’re gone, but you’ve got money and time, and still can party and have fun… and I’m supposed to pick one, no can do.”
A few offer success stories from people in their lives: “My widowed aunt got remarried at 94. She’s now 99.”
Another had a similar experience with a family member: “My Mom met the love of her life at 80 in her Assisted Living home. They loved life together for the rest of their lives.”
The truth is that well-being researchers have studied the topic of happiness for quite some time. The consensus, at least for a handful of people, seems to be that we’re happiest in our twenties, take a big dip in middle age, and rediscover happiness again in older age.
This is known as the U-shaped happiness curve. While some dispute its accuracy and are quick to point out biases (as is often the case with studies), many take solace in the idea that there is always hope. And instead of thinking of “40” as “over the hill,” as it used to be so popular to claim, the idea that it’s actually uphill after—or at least could be—is promising.
Even just from the tiny sample received from the senior living home, it seems pretty clear: it’s not over till it’s over.
From the outside gate, Far Meadow Farm looks quite standard. A fenced-off riding area with two horses; hens pecking at the ground. Trees gather around the buildings, and in the gaps between them, you can see glimpses of the moors beyond: windy, dramatic landscapes shaped by wild remoteness, rain, and lacerating winds.
Here, on a small farm in Godley, a bucolic suburb in northwest England on the edge of Manchester, you’ll find farmer Alan French, a 76‑year‑old local who refuses to let his little slice of pastoral heaven disappear—not again.
“I just think, piss off, leave me alone, I’m not moving. Every time I move somewhere developers want it,” French told the Manchester Evening News. “This is no longer a rural place. It’s going to get worse if they get their way.”
Before moving to Godley, French had to leave two previous homes to make way for development. Now, he’s been here for 17 years, and the humble farmer is fed up. As a huge new housing project backed by Tameside Council closes in around him, he keeps repeating the same four words to anyone who asks what happens next: “I am not moving.”
A life of being pushed along
French grew up in the days when the strip of land between the Tameside and Stockport boroughs still felt rural, its fields and farmhouses sitting just outside Manchester’s reach. As the city expanded, housing estates descended on places like Romiley, a village just a few miles south of Godley, and local councils turned to a planning tool that lets them seize land for “the greater good.”
In the United Kingdom, it’s a compulsory purchase order, or CPO. In the United States, it’s eminent domain, the power government agencies use to acquire private land for things like highways, schools, pipelines, and housing.
Over the course of his life, French has had to leave two homes: both in Romiley, both because of compulsory purchase orders tied to development projects. That’s a pattern.
Now, with Godley Green Garden Village looming, he’s scared it’s happening again. Yet the 76-year-old farmer remains resolute: he will not sell Far Meadow Farm voluntarily.
What’s coming to Godley
For Tameside Council, Godley Green Garden Village is not just another development. It’s their flagship, a 15-year project that will see 2,150 homes built between Hyde and Hattersley, east of Manchester. The site sits on land that used to have green belt status, a planning zone meant to keep cities from sprawling endlessly outward. Places for Everyone, a region-wide development plan, removed this particular patch’s protected status, clearing the way for housebuilding.
Greater Manchester, like most big U.S. metros, has a housing crisis you can feel in people’s lives. Local reports describe tens of thousands of people on social housing waiting lists. Younger households can’t find anything affordable near work. Older residents struggle to downsize. Tameside Council argues that schemes like Godley Green are how they meet government-set housing targets and give more people decent places to live.
The outline for Godley Green goes like this: two “village” centres on either side of a small waterway called Godley Brook, each with some shops, commercial space, and community facilities. Developers say they’ll reserve more than half the land in the final master plan for open space, parks, and habitat areas. The plan also includes expanded school options, healthcare facilities, sports fields, and walking paths. About 15% of the homes—roughly 323—will count as “affordable” in a mix of rentals and ownership schemes.
Council leaders echo that language. They say the scheme has been “thought through carefully” and describe a “natural, representative community” with homes for young families, single people, and retirees. They also point to the money the project will bring for roads, schools, healthcare, and other infrastructure. Exact dates shift, but the broad picture is this: infrastructure starts soon, then the first homes a couple of years later, with a full build-out carried out over 15 years.
A community speaks out
For people in charge of meeting housing targets, Godley Green looks like a necessary piece of a large puzzle. But for those who already live there, it looks like something else.
Campaigners like Anne Tym, whose family owns land earmarked for development, emphasize that “the green belt is there for a purpose.”
During the planning process, more than 4,000 objectors spoke out against the new housing development. “Save Tameside Greenbelt” groups have sprouted up, warning residents that this new, utopian village will “ruin” an area they’ve walked, ridden, and worked on for decades. Many residents do not need to wait 15 years; their once-rural home already feels like a city, and they cite increased traffic and decreased wildlife.
“All the green space is being turned urban,” French told one reporter. “The wildlife we’ve got here is becoming less. The deer used to come into the ménage with their babies. There was one dead last week on the road because the traffic is ridiculous.”
Life on the edge of “maybe”
French’s farm sat inside early development maps for Godley Green. More recent outlines appear to wrap around him rather than over him; he now believes he’s right on the edge of the red line, while neighbors report compulsory purchase orders have landed in their mailboxes.
Planners claim compulsory purchases will be a “last resort” and that they’re trying to strike private deals with landowners first. But they also make clear they can’t rule it out. For French, that’s not reassuring.
He doesn’t go to the consultation meetings anymore. “I can’t be bothered with it all,” he toldManchester Evening News. “I’m done with it.”
Friends and other farmers come back with updates: another committee meeting, another map, another speech about targets, homes, and growth. At planning hearings, some of them hold up banners with his name; he lets them do the shouting while he stays with the horses.
In the meantime, he feeds Yan and Tommy at the same times every day because the animals don’t care what’s on the council agenda. He points out where he can still see moorland between the trees. On some mornings, if the light is right and he looks in the right direction, it’s still possible to forget that a 15‑year construction project could soon begin on the other side of that horizon.
He knows, intellectually, that he doesn’t “own the view.” A council officer reminded him of that once. But he also knows what it feels like to lose more than bricks and mortar when a place goes. When asked where he’d go if he did have to leave, he tends to shrug. He hasn’t let himself imagine it.
“I love it here. It’s the happiest I’ve ever been,” he said.
This isn’t just a British story
If you live in the U.S., you don’t need a deep understanding of U.K. planning law to understand the shape of this. Swap the moors for a cornfield in Iowa, a ranch outside Austin, or a farming community in rural Georgia, and the outlines look familiar.
In America, the tools have different names—eminent domain instead of compulsory purchase orders, highway expansions instead of garden villages—but the basic tension is the same: a government or corporation says, “We need this land,” and your options are either to obey or to get out of the way.
All over the country, farmers have fought wind farms that cut across their fields, arguing that easements and buyouts do not compensate for a way of life being sliced up. In cities like Denver and Atlanta, long-time landowners watch new subdivisions march across what used to be their neighbors’ pastures and wonder when someone will knock on their own door.
Almost every major U.S. city now carries its own version of the Godley Green argument: We need more housing, but where do we put it without erasing the people and places that already make a place feel like home?
Holding two truths at once
It would be easy, and maybe emotionally satisfying, to file French’s story under “heroic farmer vs. greedy developers” and call it a day. It would also be easy to shrug and say, “Well, people need somewhere to live,” and move on.
The harder, truer version lives in between.
On one hand, Greater Manchester does need more homes. So do San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, and Detroit. Young families in cramped rentals and older folks stuck on waiting lists are not imaginary abstractions; they are as real as French and his horses. On the other hand, someone has to pay the price of that new stability. In French’s case, that bill has come due three times in one lifetime.
As of early 2026, Tameside councillors have granted planning permission for Godley Green again after a brief refusal. Infrastructure work could begin soon. The full build‑out will take about 15 years. No one knows how long French can hold his line. No one knows if a CPO notice will ever arrive with Far Meadow Farm on it.
For now, the story looks like this: a 76‑year‑old farmer gets up in the morning, feeds his animals, and looks out over fields that, on paper, already belong to the future. Beyond his fence, a council talks about “modern placemaking” and “representative communities.” In between those two visions is a question neither side has quite answered yet in England or in the U.S.:
When we say we’re building for the public good, how many times do we expect the same people to move?
Everyone remembers their favorite teachers. What we often can’t remember are the exact moments that left such a fond impression on us.
And while good teachers help us understand their subject, the absolute best of them help us think differently about the world.
Author taught a first-year college course and noticed some strange student behavior
Years ago, Joseph Fasano, a poet, writer, and author, was teaching an introductory college course on composition, writing, and critical thinking. By all appearances, he was crushing it.
“One semester I thought [my students] were just really focused on taking notes,” he wrote in a recent Instagram post, noticing that the students were spending an awful lot of time scrawling in their notebooks.
He wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t the material in his lectures they were paying attention to. They weren’t diligently taking notes just to pass an exam.
“Turns out they were compiling a book of all the slightly unhinged things I’d said. It’s 152 pages long,” he wrote.
As an author and poet, Fasano has more than a way with words. He has a way of capturing essential truths and reflecting them in ways that are incisive and memorable. His students were eager not to let those nuggets escape them. Once the book was completed, they gifted it to him, and he calls it “the best thing my students ever gave me. … I love these kids.”
The first page reads, “You once said in class that you wanted to be sure that what you were saying was being heard and absorbed. Well… here ya go.”
A few of the most memorable quotes from those 2016 lectures, as handwritten by Fasano’s students:
“Who taught you wonder, love, and learning were supposed to be easy?”
“Your assignment is to read a writer someone told you not to.”
“Every day of your life is a rough draft.”
“Another day, another chance to make the mistake that will save you.”
“The only thing more painful than becoming yourself is not becoming yourself.”
Fasano may call the quotes “unhinged,” but the rest of us just see wisdom.
The post went viral, and people are wishing they could have taken Fasano’s course
The post racked up 179,000 likes and 1,300 comments in just two days, and the response has been nothing short of overwhelming. A few standouts:
“This is the best thing I’ve ever seen. You can actually see how you’ve positively influenced your students. What more could we want as teachers?”
“This book needs to be published.”
“Do you teach classes for 23 year old girls preferably for free”
“And evidently they love you. What an accomplishment. I hope this book gives you the peaceful sleep you have earned. Please do not stop.”
“This is the most thoughtful, touching thing ever. What great kids. What a great teacher. Thank you for your passion, for inspiring them and for making the best kind of impression on them. What a gift!”
Calm wisdom like this lands hardest when times are tough
A few sentences scribbled in a notebook. A couple of motivational quotes. Why are Fasano’s words landing and resonating so deeply with hundreds of thousands of social media users?
“I have a feeling it is resonating with people because we’re all looking for a teacher, a guide, an adult in the room,” Fasano told Upworthy. “Especially when those seem to hard to find right now.”
The words are beautiful and memorable, but they wouldn’t have quite the same impact if we didn’t have physical proof that they touched his students. They were compelled to write them down, and it’s easy to imagine that taking that introductory course with him may truly have changed the way some of them viewed the world.
Though Fasano only teaches occasionally, he continues his work as a poet and author. Fellow poet Dorothea Lasky described him as “A poet brave enough to return poetry to its troubled and eternal origins…This is the poet I trust to see the world as it is, quietly writhing around us.”
Fasano was able to pass on some of his gift to his students. But what’s even cooler is what they were able to give back to him—and so did thousands on social media.
“This is clearly the good side of social media,” he wrote on Instagram regarding the flood of appreciative and heartfelt messages. “I can’t (but can) believe people are this beautiful.”
