Certain decisions must be made with one’s own mental health in mind. And so I am consciously choosing not to even furrow my brow over the fact the president of the United States chose a blue suit over a more diplomatic black to wear to Pope Francis’ funeral. That he’s a boor is not news, so why would anyone expect him to start paying attention to protocol now? Besides, the one he wore to this papal audience…
…may not fit him anymore. And no one would prefer the ridiculous white-tie getup he sported at Buckingham Palace:
Ah, memories. That was the state visit where he told the queen his children were interested in a “next-generations” meeting with William and Harry. For maintaining her composure when confronted with this request, I think we should put Elizabeth’s face on the $20 bill. And Pope Francis? Fast-tracked to sainthood.
I said at the time of the papal audience that Ivanka looked like she got her headpiece from a Goth Bride package at Spirit Halloween. Perhaps, as an observant Jew, she felt she didn’t need to wear a mantilla, but that veil is ridiculous. The point of covering one’s head in a religious setting differs from faith to faith, but in general, it’s about covering it, somehow, not sporting a fun piece of netting on the back of your bean.
Back to the papal funeral: At least he didn’t wear a red tie.
Thanks to all you Hoosiers who offered interesting tidbits on Zion Lutheran. It jogged a memory for me, of going to their school for a story, and I can’t remember anything about the story, but I do remember the school. (I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this here before, but can’t find it in the archives. Apologies if so.) As others noted, it mainly served neighborhood children, and the neighborhood was decidedly lower-income. I was there through lunch, which was a plain hot dog and a scoop of baked beans. Nothing wrong with that, and the kids didn’t seem to mind it, but then the principal said, “We used to have silent lunch, but we recently changed the policy.” “Say what?” I replied. “What is ‘silent lunch?'”
Basically, it’s exactly what it sounds like: Children are forbidden from speaking during lunch. They get a short recess after they’re done, but while they’re seated at lunch tables? SILENCE. That struck me as cruel, and I use that word deliberately; socializing over food is a deeply human experience in every culture on the globe, and combined with the prison-like meal it really rubbed me the wrong way.
“Do you talk to other people when you’re seated together at a meal?” I asked, probably bitchy-like. Yes, but, if they don’t have to be quiet, they might leave food uneaten or get distracted or whatever, and that would be terrible. It never occurred that learning to talk and eat at the same time might be a skill worth, you know, teaching.
Julie’s recollection that a stab at “classical education” flamed out there was interesting. That is, of course, the latest trend in charter-school education. One has been floating around hereabouts, threatening/promising to open “soon,” but I just looked at their website and they haven’t promised anything since 2023, so I’m guessing the flame has gone out.
And yes, it was “cruciform” that Timbo was looking for, not cuneiform. Every day I see evidence that every editor at a newspaper that isn’t the NYT or WP has either been driven from the building or so beaten into submission that they just go to meetings all day and wave all sorts of shit through. It’s depressing.
And a final note: I did my grocery shopping today and noted prices are up sharply. Hmm.
OK, let’s see what horrors await us this week. Will we deport more children with cancer? Tune in and find out.
Sherri said on April 27, 2025 at 8:16 pm
It’s been my observation that many if not most of these classical education schools do a shitty job of teaching math and science, as in, math and science are an afterthought at best.
Somehow my ordinary public high school managed to both provide me with 4 years of Latin instruction and a solid math foundation. My daughter’s public high school didn’t teach her Latin, but she did have five years of Japanese starting in 8th grade, as well as two years of calculus and advanced math topics.
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Brandon said on April 27, 2025 at 11:02 pm
More on the silent lunch phenomenon.
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Deborah said on April 28, 2025 at 8:05 am
One of my earliest school memories was being in first grade at the Lutheran school and getting called out by the teacher for talking during lunch. I was made to sit at a table in the front of the room for that transgression. I cried and cried.
That same teacher scolded me for having wads of crinkled up paper stuffed in my desk, it was there because I was too shy to walk to the front of the classroom to throw my trash in the waste paper basket. I was mortified.
I don’t remember much else about first grade, funny how those things stick with you.
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Julie Robinson said on April 28, 2025 at 8:07 am
Small point of order: that was Suzanne. Carry on!
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alex said on April 28, 2025 at 9:42 am
The pope’s facial expression is priceless. The royals also look like their mettle is being tested beyond normal limits. But, hey, we’ve all had to “make nice” with people who are contemptible because our jobs depended on it.
So Scott Pelley closed “60 Minutes” last night with another rebuke of CBS’ parent company and it’s getting more attention than DuBois and Dickerson did for their efforts last Monday night. It’ll be interesting to see what happens from here.
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Jeff Gill said on April 28, 2025 at 11:08 am
My current form of therapy for my ongoing adventures in caregiving is to read a decade old series of reminiscences by an adult daughter with a 96 & 97 year old set of parents she’s trying to look out for . . . and the daughter lives in England, with her parents in western Massachusetts. Not for everyone, but I’m in for eleven entries so far, and it somehow makes me feel better (not just because of the “here’s how it could have been worse” factor, either). I translate their “Call the Midwife” on maximum volume to “McHale’s Navy” on Antenna TV, and similar points of different familiarity.
https://astridronningking.substack.com/p/waiting-for-god-knows
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Heather said on April 28, 2025 at 11:30 am
I went to Expo Chicago at Navy Pier yesterday, which is a big annual art fair with hundreds of galleries and arts organizations. I’m telling you, if you need something to restore your faith in humanity, or at least its potential, looking at art can be pretty powerful. It’s also encouraging to see how many other people enjoy it. Especially in an age where the tech overlords seem so excited about outsourcing art and writing to AI.
Afterward I rode my bike to the bird sanctuary along the lakefront and spent about an hour there looking for birbs, another good way to relax. I didn’t see the pheasant that’s been spotted around there recently, but I did see some palm warblers–a first for me.
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Jeff Borden said on April 28, 2025 at 11:36 am
My next door neighbor was laid off from her job at a non-profit working to help at risk kids because of the destruction of Head Start. It’s one of the many helpful programs targeted by Project 2025. She’s 63. Her whole life has been working with 501-C-3s. She’s devastated
Just 100 days, folks. Just 100 days.
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Dexter Friend said on April 28, 2025 at 3:10 pm
I went to Aldi’s, $41 for a half-cart-full of basic groceries. Then to Chief Supermarket for stuff Aldi’s doesn’t carry, plus some deli things and 2 12s of diet soda. Just a few things up-top in the cart…$58. Chief is very expensive but the deli is superb.
Trump really stood out in the blue suit. Many of my contacts say it was to draw attention to himself.
And when news flashed that Pope Francis had passed, I immediately thought he would be elevated to sainthood in record time.
I was cared for by Franciscan Order nurses at Sacred Heart Hospital in Garrett, Indiana at birth and when I had an appendectomy at age 9. In recovery since age 43, the prayer of Saint Francis has been a cornerstone . I was pleased that this pope took the name Francis.
I have read that the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi didn’t appear in his writings, but so what…it’s a good one. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/devotions/prayer-of-st-francis-837
Raised and baptized a Methodist, schooled with many Catholic contemporaries, I have that feeling that in another life I was Catholic.
Oh, pay no attention; hell, I was a loud-mouth atheist for 29 years. Pope Francis had an effect on me.
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FDChief said on April 28, 2025 at 4:17 pm
Re: Fatso’s Roman Holiday, “the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral”, right?
Best comment I’ve read so far: “Trump expressed regret that he wasn’t the corpse at the papal funeral, and almost all the others in attendance agreed that they would have preferred that arrangement.”
The Congressional reconciliation hearings begin next week and finally Republicans other than Tubby get to show the U.S. their whole ass by making it clear that every non-plutocrat’s job is to be soylent green for the rich. The Medicaid defenestration is going to make the DOGE Boys look like bleeding hearts. Wonder if any of these bastards blinks or they ride or die with tax cuts. Any bets?
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Deborah said on April 28, 2025 at 4:35 pm
We met up with some friends yesterday evening to watch The Last Waltz about the end of The Band, for about the millionth time, my husband cries through the whole thing every time. These friends were very active in the 60s highly educated but working in places like midwestern steel mills in Gary, IN trying to organize the proletariats for revolution. They are the first to admit it was a failed experiment but it was fascinating listening to their stories.
Heather, I need to keep up more with Chicago art stuff, I remember going to that expo in the past and being blown away. Plus a trip to the bird sanctuary not that far up the lake from here sounds like a great idea.
Did I mention that the Saturday Tesla protest was once again out numbered by police. Some of them positioned themselves further away down the block so it didn’t look as obvious that they were working for Musk.
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Sherri said on April 28, 2025 at 4:36 pm
What do Trump’s poll numbers have to drop to before Congressional Republicans are willing to stand up to him? Or does it not matter, as long as his approval ratings with Republicans don’t crater?
I did have an exchange with a Republican who, when I pointed out Trump’s obvious and wide-ranging corruption, allowed as how “he was far from perfect.” As for the rest, the economy, the deportations, the destruction of the federal government, he thinks we should give it some time.
And yes, he thinks himself a good Christian. I used to go to church with him, but he left the Episcopal church “because it was too political.” He now goes to one of the conservative Anglican churches, because, you know, they’re not political.
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Sherri said on April 28, 2025 at 5:22 pm
Whether or not Republicans in Congress figure it out, Josh Marshall points out that public opinion still matters: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/yes-public-opinion-still-matters-even-more-than-before/sharetoken/c3ff09b8-4225-4ca3-9483-3a096023a72e
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Jakash said on April 28, 2025 at 6:06 pm
May I ask an inane question of the nn.c powers-that-be? It seems to me that, at some point in the last couple or few days, the little symbols next to commenters’ names have changed. (Not for people who supply their own avatar, however.)
In all the time I’ve been commenting, I’ve had 2 of those symbols. One for a long time, then it switched years ago, but has stayed the same since that switch. Now, it’s a third version, (my least-favorite of the 3, but that’s beside the point).
Was this done intentionally, or did it just randomly accompany some software upgrade, or something? Or is it only happening on my screen due to something about my setup? Or may I not ask such an inane question? 😉
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jcburns said on April 28, 2025 at 6:36 pm
Jakash! Those symbols and/or the photographic icons come from the gravatar people at http://gravatar.com. If they change the icons, we just pass them through. It might be more trouble than it’s worth—but at this point I think we just do it because we always have.
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Jakash said on April 28, 2025 at 6:51 pm
Well, thanks for the very prompt reply, J.C.! That certainly explains it.
Aha! The website offers “New ‘Tools’ For Your Digital Identity.” Since my digital identity is pretty much being a tool, to begin with, I don’t really want to make it any clearer than it already is. 🙂
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David C said on April 28, 2025 at 7:58 pm
Schumer sent one of his famous strongly worded letters. If that doesn’t work, he’s going to hold his breath and stomp his feet. That’ll show him.
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Jeff Gill said on April 29, 2025 at 6:56 am
JC, how do we “turn on” our Gravatar here? I blink in and out at long enough intervals I don’t recall how to reactivate it here . . . just checked that I still have a live account with them.
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Jeff Gill said on April 29, 2025 at 7:35 am
Never mind, I must have done it somehow without knowing it.
Hey, Nancy: doors open today at 1:45 pm up in Warren!
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Julie Robinson said on April 29, 2025 at 8:41 am
Completely off-topic: today and tomorrow we’re getting some sliding glass doors replaced, and they said they’d be here at 8. So of course they came at 7:25, while we were rounding up the cats to quarantine on the other side of the house. The older one went willingly, but the kitten, who is more of a teenager these days, was energized by the idea that we were chasing him and galloped all over the lanai and around the pool. Finally I asked the guys to step aside since they were working right where we needed him to go in.
Just as we got out the dreaded towel-that-means-vet-visit, all his fur raised up and he leaped across the pool cover, skipping down only three or four times, and ran into the house. Doors closed, we got him on the other side, where the food and cat pans have been relocated, and turned the area back to the contractors.
And now it’s all poundpoundpound, sawsawsaw, and drilldrilldrill, but we’ve all been there. There will be no coherence today.
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ROGirl said on April 29, 2025 at 9:49 am
I’m at work, which is about 3 miles from where the stupid fat fuck will appear. Maybe some of my fellow employees will head on over there. Elon could stop by, he’s our biggest customer.
Enjoying the new gravatars.
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alex said on April 29, 2025 at 9:58 am
I remember Expo Chicago back when it was called Art Chicago. I got dragged there by a stoner friend who did the art listings at the Reader and we staggered around in our sandles sneaking tokes and making fun of the exhibits.
So I’m in a group text with some old Chicago friends and they post a lot of political stuff. I can’t seem to find any verification of this in the press, but there are Substackers talking about it: Supposedly German intelligence arrested two Russian spies and found Pete Hegseth’s private number in their cell phone contacts. Anyone else see this story? I’d like to believe it, but only if it’s true.
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Deborah said on April 29, 2025 at 12:09 pm
I recall the art exhibition at Chicago’s Navy Pier that I attended being called SOFA can’t remember what the letters stood for, but it was ironic for sofa art, the ubiquitous painting over the sofa, that matched the decor of the room rather than having any meaningful expressiveness.
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alex said on April 29, 2025 at 2:22 pm
Deborah, the only art at Navy Pier that I remember vividly was a chalk-painted sidewalk with a trail of candy meant to entice children up to an old refrigerator painted over with clown faces. It was open on one side and propped up on a stake like a booby trap. And darkly humorous, I guess.
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Sherri said on April 29, 2025 at 3:56 pm
I’m listening to the latest set of episodes in the Empire podcast, Victorian Narcos, about what happened in an earlier era when China was exporting more than it was importing, in this case to Britain. Britain had a balance of trade issue with China, because Britain was importing Chinese tea and paying silver for it. They solved it by exporting opium from their Indian colony to China, which led to an addiction problem in China and led to China banning opium. Britain couldn’t have that, and thus, the Opium Wars, and China’s Century of Humiliation.
The First Opium War began in 1839, but trust me, this is not ancient history to the Chinese. I’ve talked with Chinese immigrants from mainland China, and the Opium War and the Century of Humiliation is still a big deal. (I was trying to find out why Chinese residents were so virulently opposed to retail cannabis.)
So, if Trump or Navarro or anybody else thinks the Chinese will cave in the face of tariffs, I don’t think they’re very aware of Chinese history.
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Bob (not Greene) said on April 29, 2025 at 3:58 pm
Alex,
The Hegseth thing may just be rumors at this point: https://michaeldsellers.substack.com/p/fact-checking-claims-that-hegseths
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Deborah said on April 29, 2025 at 9:49 pm
May Day, May 1st International Workers day, everybody check your notices for protests near you. As the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker says, “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now.” in Chicago there are protests May 1, 2 and 3. Make a simple sign and get out there en masse. The one Thursday, May 1st in Chicago is a March from Union Park to Grant Park, starts at 11 AM. I have no idea where Union Park is, but I’m gonna find out. You don’t even need a sign, just get your body out there and raise your voice.
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FDChief said on April 29, 2025 at 10:31 pm
Saw a captioned crop of Melania’s heavily-veiled outfit: “Dress for the job you want: widow.”
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Jakash said on April 29, 2025 at 11:11 pm
“I don’t think they’re very aware of Chinese history.”
That’s quite an understatement, there, Sherri. Given that the orange felon knows little of American history, I would assume that a Chinese restaurant menu has more information on it than anything he’s ever read about their past. Not that I picture him frequenting many restaurants that don’t serve cheeseburgers.
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Jeff Gill said on April 30, 2025 at 7:18 am
“I don’t think they’re very aware of… history.”
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Jeff Borden said on April 30, 2025 at 9:21 am
Ignorance is the new religion of the MAGAts. Why else would they be working to trash our universities, dictate what can and cannot be taught in our public schools, remove unpleasant history from our museums, defend libraries and ban books?
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Peter said on April 30, 2025 at 10:14 am
Deborah, Union Park is that little park on Ashland/Lake/Ogden Avenues – it’s where the Fulton Market portion of Randolph ends. Cute little park. And I think the Ashland stop on the green line is open, so easy to get to.
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Suzanne said on April 30, 2025 at 12:41 pm
This discussion of MAGAs & history brings to mind a woman in a Bible study I was once in who proudly told us that she didn’t have any interest in learning anything different about Bible stories than what she learned in Sunday School. I honestly think that is a great swath of people in this country; they don’t want to k ow any more about history than what they learned in 5th or 6th grade.
And so here we are.
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Dexter Friend said on April 30, 2025 at 3:20 pm
The FBI, Homeland Security, and ICE are storming citizens’ homes and ransacking them, stealing all cash, seizing phones, tablets, desktops and laptops. Rachel showed the woman in Oklahoma City , just moved into a rental house, but mail was still being mailed there to people under suspicion. These goddam fucking thugs shoved this woman and her kids out into the rain , they clad only in underwear,
and trashed the house 100%. One agency in question is quiet, 2 denied all. This woman and her kids are United States citizens.
Maddow went to list many more such incidents in just the past few days.
Trump is out to destroy this nation, and we all must be aware. This truly, actually, could happen to any of us. If you can access Rachel Maddow’s show from 4-29, do it for this segment. It freaked me the fuck out.
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Deborah said on April 30, 2025 at 3:40 pm
Thanks Peter, I looked it up on Google maps. It appears that they will march on Randolph to Grant Park and that’s quite a long march. Tomorrow will be a day of walking for me, from my place to Union Park and then the march and then home. I will wear comfortable shoes for sure.
Have any of you read Howard Gardener about intelligence? It’s been a while but I remember (vaguely) his writing about the unschooled mind. He said as I recall that the average five year old has a sense of themselves and of others, as an individual and a member of a group, they recognize leading and following, they have developed their own positions about things and they have emotional feelings about those things. The scariest thing about what he said was that a huge segment of the population never get beyond that phase. For a long time I thought that was ridiculous but over the last decade I can see that he was right. I had no idea until Trumpers came to light.
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Sherri said on April 30, 2025 at 5:30 pm
Even many educated people don’t realize that what they were taught in high school or even in an introductory class in college about a subject was not completely accurate always, that it was a simplified view of the subject that left out things, things that mattered in the real world sometimes. The world doesn’t operate like Econ 101 describes it, biology is more complicated than XX and XY, and nobody really understands quantum mechanics.
My most vivid experience with how things move from simple to complex came in studying electricity and magnetism. The first course was full of elegant math, and you knew you were going off base if your equations started getting ugly. Then in the second course, we started learning about antennas, and the math was just ugly and messy and frustrating. Real life is like that.
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Suzanne said on April 30, 2025 at 7:47 pm
Speaking of history, Indiana’s own intellectually challenged (but good Christian) Lt Governor might want to study up on some history to discover why considering a black person as 3/5 of a person doesn’t mean what he thinks it does.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/04/29/backlash-erupts-after-indiana-lt-gov-calls-3-5-compromise-a-great-move/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR7MRxGe79U0S5fGwa1IGuYA0jT10_TAzzZNhti3box9rIa3mYaaKjcsjfl28w_aem_EEKQS7T26AP_bVttDWOMxA
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Sherri said on April 30, 2025 at 10:19 pm
That’s probably what he was taught at his Christian university.
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Sherri said on April 30, 2025 at 10:41 pm
Make it make sense.
A bunch of people who were totally unwilling to sacrifice anything in the pandemic are going to be hunky-dory when there’s nothing on the store shelves for Christmas? Not that they could afford anything anyway, because the jobs will have disappeared. And their hospitals will close when the GOP passes its budget, slashing Medicaid.
That’s a shame, too, because the food supply is going to be full of salmonella.
I can never decide whether Musk or RFKJr is higher on my Arya list.
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Sherri said on May 1, 2025 at 12:43 am
At least the bad kerning didn’t result in any unfortunate word appearing, just ugly appearance.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91324550/kerning-on-pope-francis-tomb-is-a-travesty
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Deborah said on May 1, 2025 at 7:56 am
At least the lettering on the Pope’s tomb is traditional V carving. Most of that is done nowadays by sandblasting or laser cutting, where the indentions are straight in instead of slanted in. It’s hard to find people who still do V cutting, but I suppose Rome has plenty of them. I used to design architectural signage and I was often looking for traditional carvers to do cornerstones.
Of course today is the May Day protest in Chicago and it’s raining. I’m going anyway and my sign is waterproof.
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alex said on May 1, 2025 at 10:49 am
I don’t know whether Beckwith is really that stupid, or if he just thinks the rest of us are, but I’ve encountered plenty of Republicans who love to take credit for their party having ended slavery, and using this to bash Black people as ignorant and ungrateful. In today’s GOP, it’s an astute politician who knows how to rewrite history for the benefit of people who never learned it in the first place, and in this godforsaken state there’s a large plurality of them.
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Dave said on May 1, 2025 at 1:40 pm
This has nothing to do with the topic but I immediately thought of our late regular poster, Connie, when I saw this story and I’m certain this was once her library. Shooting in a library, another awful thing:
https://www.wbiw.com/2025/04/30/heroic-citizen-tackles-gunman-in-seymour-library-shooting-18-year-old-charged/#google_vignette
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