Some years ago, I was kicked out of a local moms group on Facebook. It was at the very height of Facebook popularity among normies, and all sorts of drama was kicking off there. There was the woman whose marriage fell apart over the course of a morning after she sent up the alarm that her husband was missing, then revised it an hour later: No, he had apparently spent the night with a stripper, everybody stand down. That was a good one. My banishment doesn’t even compare, but it went like this:
The school district announced it would provide free FluMist flu vaccines for any child whose parents wanted it. Permission slips, etc., nothing out of the ordinary, but it set off a huge outcry on this particular mom group, who all seemed to post in all caps about VIRUS SHEDDING and BIG PHARMA PROFITEERING and WHY WEREN’T WE NOTIFIED and ISN’T THIS A VIOLATION OF MEDICAL ETHICS, and THESE COMPANIES WILL STOP AT NOTHING, etc. At the height of this back-and-forth a new voice parachuted in, a woman who said she had honey for sale from her own bees, and that this honey had “anti-viral and anti-fungal properties,” and that it could be a natural, organic, healthy way to protect your child from influenza. The clamor immediately shifted from BIG PHARMA to OMG DO YOU DELIVER and various forms of SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.
And then along came me, who wondered why it was evil for a pharmaceutical company to offer a vaccine, but OK for this lady to sell her honey. Well. The honey lady complained to the admins, and I was bounced from not only this group, but another that the same admin ran.
“And that,” my friend Dustin said at the time, “is when you got your teardrop tattoo, right?” Ha ha ha.
I could not have known at the time, in the innocent era of the Obama administration, that these women were proto MAHA moms. The anti-vax movement was making itself known, but they didn’t have a spokesman other than Jenny McCarthy and some Hollywood twits, certainly not an actual Kennedy. And that Kennedy, HHS Secretary Croaky, made all their dreams come true this week when he nominated Casey Means as the U.S. Surgeon General. Means is being identified as a doctor, and she did graduate from med school (Stanford! Impressive!) but never finished her residency, which my doctor friend tells me makes her not-quite-a-doctor. His text:
You don’t become a physician in medical school. Med school is a hazing ritual that earns you the right to become a physician over the ensuing years of residency (+ fellowship, etc.) if you survive.
Whatever. Apparently Means became disenchanted with otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat, for you people who don’t speak Medical) and dove headfirst into so-called functional medicine, which many consider pseudoscientific, and I know you will be astonished to learn that she is very suspicious of these “vaccines,” and is cut from the same cloth as Croaky, i.e. it’s the pollution and the seed oils and blah blah blah. And now she’s on deck to become the nation’s top doctor. Wikipedia:
(Means’) book’s central claim is that a single mechanism which the authors call “Bad Energy”, which they describe as a uniquely common form of mitochondrial dysfunction caused by improper lifestyles (contrasted with scientifically-established, genetics-based mitochondrial diseases), which causes disorders as diverse depression, anxiety, acne, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, as well as “most other conditions”, because “it can show up in different cell types” and thus causes different symptoms.
As I believe we’ve discussed here about a million times, I have no problem with eating better, and I believe a healthy diet will improve one’s own health, but I don’t recall this being kept secret by the AMA. In fact, I think they’re the ones who are always handing us a copy of this or that diet on our way out of the exam room. And those of us who remember the Obama years also remember the conservative response when Michelle Obama dared to suggest school lunches could be healthier, and that exercise was a good thing.
(Cul-de-sac: A friend sent me a years-old story about a school lunch staple of our youth — Johnny Marzetti. This story goes into the rise and fall of Johnny Marzetti, best described as sort of a baked ziti, but more downmarket. Apparently it has nearly disappeared from school cafeterias, driven out in part by the nutritional reforms pushed by Mrs. Obama. I had NO idea.)
Conservatives bitched up a storm over those reforms, and now they’ll be obligated to support a quack who believes Bad Energy is what causes illness. Tell that to the sick folks in Kentucky and West Virginia, you cowards. Offer them a jar of honey instead. It’s delicious on toast.
Best social-media joke I heard this week: I don’t want to alarm anyone, but the orcas now have two F-18 Hornets.
The weekend awaits, doesn’t it? Think I’ll clean three bathrooms and go for a bike ride. You do what you like.
Mark P said on May 9, 2025 at 2:32 am
I have been watching clips of Mark Carney speaking back in Canada, and I thought, “Well, we have lived to see the torch being passed.” Canada is simply too small in population to replace the US entirely, but I think in terms of moral authority, they are now it, and the US is receding into shithole territory, soon to be an irrelevancy as the world moves on without us. Who would have thought? We weren’t irreplaceable after all.
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Brandon said on May 9, 2025 at 4:40 am
That reminds me.
https://kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/Mutual_of_Omabwah
Dale sets up a booth at the farmer’s market to sell his minimal honey harvest but finds that the trendy women there want to buy bee stings as a natural homeopathic preparation, which he quickly capitalizes on.
The word for all this is apitherapy.
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David C said on May 9, 2025 at 6:23 am
Our huge black bile problem will be cured once and for all goddamnit.
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Jeff Gill said on May 9, 2025 at 6:50 am
So, we heard the gunshot, but we never saw the body. Assuming the nuclear conflagration was just dramatic license at the end of Dr. Strangelove, it appears Gen. Jack D. Ripper survived, and became a doctor. And adviser to MAHA. Who knew there could be a sequel to Kubrick’s masterpiece?
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Peter said on May 9, 2025 at 7:32 am
(continuing yesterday’s thread) Deborah, I saw a couple of texts about the new Pope:
“If he was a real Chicagoan, he’d be Pope Ditka II”
“Now there’s going to be a schism – is the Eucharist deep dish or tavern style?”
“He spent his entire career ministering to the downtrodden, the miserable, the unfortunate – of course he’s a Sox fan.”
“JD Vance is fake – any real Catholic who got yelled at by two consecutive Popes would have died of shame.”
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Peter said on May 9, 2025 at 7:38 am
Another one: “The new Pope is from Chicago? How many dead cardinals voted in that election?”
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alex said on May 9, 2025 at 7:53 am
So it looks like Shitler is appointing Jeanine Pirro to the DC US attorney post, what with Ed Martin circling the drain. I guess it’s not disqualifying in the Senate if your distasteful guests and past outrageous remarks are broadcast on Fox and not some obscure podcast.
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David C said on May 9, 2025 at 8:14 am
They’re freaking out that Leo didn’t speak in English yesterday. I’m sure that was his first message to the United States. When he does speak in English, they’re really going to freak out.
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Deborah said on May 9, 2025 at 8:16 am
Speaking of Jeanine Pirro this SNL skit is making the rounds https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TEbtOSXmY0c
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Suzanne said on May 9, 2025 at 8:51 am
Last night, at a gathering of women’s club that I have been with for a number of years, I had to sit and listen to a presentation on the wonders of essential oils and how they can help with anything from nasal congestion to anxiety. The woman next to me mentioned that she had heard the brand doTerra was bad because their oils contained chemicals. Oh honey, the oils themselves are chemicals. The earth and all the fullness therein is made of chemicals. 60% of our bodies are water which is a freaking chemical.
Then someone else told of a women she knows who has breast cancer and is near death because for several years, knowing the cancer was there, she has been treating herself with natural substances but surprise surprise, it’s not working. The cancer is now causing her bones to break and the tumor is seeping. The woman has four young children.
How did we get to a point of such mass stupidity??
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Icarus said on May 9, 2025 at 10:07 am
he had apparently spent the night with a stripper
This is one of the rare documented case of “The stripper really likes me”
it is amazing that a “single mechanism” can cause such a diverse variety of unrelated disorders. Have we checked if it causes gayness or trans yet?
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Jenine said on May 9, 2025 at 11:53 am
I really enjoyed the #ChicagoPope posts on bluesky yesterday. One of my faves: “It appears they’re already preparing celebrations” over a picture of the Bean sculpture with a mitre on top.
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JodiP said on May 9, 2025 at 2:15 pm
Loved the Pope memes!
Many here have connections to Indiana, so sharing this article from the Smithsonian Magazine about a successful fight to end voting fraud by the Democratic machine in Terre Haute in 1915:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/trailblazing-suffragist-crusading-prosecutor-teamed-up-expose-election-conspiracy-180984903/
There’s so much history and knowledge I learn in the magazine!
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Dorothy said on May 9, 2025 at 9:42 pm
My hubby’s been a beekeeper for around 15 years. When he has a honey harvest, we have frequently had people declare that his honey helps their allergies SO SO much! “Oh local honey?! Yes please – I’ll take 3 bottles! When you get more let me know!!!” We have heard that over and over again, not really being sure if there was any basis in fact for this claim. Well he’s been in several beekeeping groups and had conversations with other beekeepers. The honest ones admit to each other that there really is no scientific proof that this theory is true. Other beekeepers seem to think this old wives’ tale is not an old wives’ tale, but honest-to-goodness science. Googling this topic will tell you this, too. But are we going to say that to customers? Hell to the NO. Let them believe what they want to believe. Far be it from us to tell them otherwise! We just nod and smile when they say it helps their allergies. We’re not dumb!
Honey is pretty dang great but that lady in the Facebook group stretched the truth just so she could sell her product.
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alex said on May 9, 2025 at 10:19 pm
This should be an interesting papacy, on many levels. Turns out Pope Leo’s family fled the south because of Jim Crow and the “one drop rule.” https://wapo.st/4iWtdaC
This revelation is all the more poignant given Trump’s newly announced diabolical plan to give “refuge” to Afrikaners who don’t need it but deserve it in Trump’s eyes because their right to subjugate Black people was taken away from them.
Such serendipitous timing. It could almost make me believe in God again.
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Andrea said on May 9, 2025 at 10:52 pm
My next door neighbor went to high school and college with Pope Leo. He calls him Bob, or Father Bob if he is being respectful when speaking about his old friend. People here on the south side of Chicago are out of their minds with joy. I never thought I would be two degrees of separation from the Pope.
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Jeff Gill said on May 10, 2025 at 8:53 am
Da best: https://x.com/Chicago_History/status/1921010291292209405/photo/1
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FDChief said on May 10, 2025 at 10:16 am
Not to be pedantic, but..Means is NOT an actual medical doctor because the residency is essential instead of a whatever.
I’m a professional geologist because 1) I completed a degree program in geology from an accredited institution, 2) passed my professional exams, and 3) completed a three-year residency working for a licensed geologist.
The third part is not optional; it confirms that I didn’t luck out or slide through the training. It’s no different for an MD; without the OJT it’s not evident that they have internalized the curriculum they took.
So no; Means is exactly what she looks like. A quack and a nitwit who believes in idiotic woo.
Which is perfectly on brand for Tubby, who loved the Demon Sperm lady, too.
These are the stupidest goddamn people.
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Dexter Friend said on May 10, 2025 at 10:34 am
Fuckingcrackpotbootlickin’ J. Pirro is a goddam joke…not to be taken seriously…a clown, cartoonish to the max.
So who is surprised at her elevation?
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Mark P said on May 10, 2025 at 11:14 am
Who here has heard of the Strauss-Howe generational theory? They came up with the idea that we go through major societal cycles lasting about 85 years, which they considered sort of the average extreme length of one generation. I never thought much about it, and it’s not taken seriously by a lot of historians, but last September I started thinking about my father. His unit, the 104th Infantry, landed in France in September 1944, 80 years earlier. So I wondered, what happened 80 years prior to that? The surrender of Atlanta in the Civil War. And 80 years prior to that? The Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris. And 80 years (almost) after the surrender of Atlanta? The election of Donald Trump. So, shit, it’s beginning to look like a major societal change is under way, and it’s going to be permanent from my perspective.
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Jeff Borden said on May 10, 2025 at 11:19 am
Pee Wee German aka Stephen Miller says there are active discussions within the White House to revoke habeas corpus on the grounds ‘Murica is being invaded. If that ever happened, this nation would be dead.
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Deborah said on May 10, 2025 at 4:29 pm
This MAGA Maoism is interesting https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/maga-maoism-trump/682732/?gift=e2EpXMuPtOgT-df8U_sJIMT21faQo7XRo5H6eSBip-Q&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share Gift article for those who don’t subscribe.
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ROGirl said on May 11, 2025 at 8:50 am
From a longtime commentator on the auto industry:
“So now, here we are, the automakers and their suppliers – along with those staggering UAW members saddled with a woeful dollop of buyer’s remorse – are being held at gunpoint by a Dictator-in-Chief who not only doesn’t have the first clue about this business but who simply doesn’t give a shit about what this industry means to this region and to the country overall.”
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alex said on May 11, 2025 at 9:25 am
I swear, the only thing that sumbitch knows how to do is grift. He wrecks shit and then makes people buy his memecoin in exchange for a chance to make a deal. It’s a fucking protection racket. If he doesn’t get sent to the electric chair for his audacity then there is no justice in this world.
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Suzanne said on May 11, 2025 at 11:35 am
Sobering words rom the Atlantic article above, which was shared by Deborah:
“When I asked the Foreign Affairs co-author Kurt Campbell for his assessment of Trump, he told me that he has had alarming conversations with analysts in China. “Some of them will candidly say, ‘You know, we had our timetables for how we might come at you … for how we might pull [you] away [from] your allies,’” Campbell said. “‘And what you’re doing in three or four months exceeds what we would have hoped to do in five or 10 years.’” The ultimate accomplishment of American Maoism would be this: Our great leap backward would give China the global preeminence that Mao himself failed to achieve on his own.”
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Sherri said on May 11, 2025 at 3:36 pm
Many of the companies who sell to the strength community (selling squat racks, barbells, plates, etc) manufacture in China. I’m seeing the first tariff surcharges appear on equipment. Rogue Fitness, based in Ohio, is about the only company that manufactures in the US, and they’re also the priciest.
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