When life grows a little overwhelming, as it’s been this week… Listen to me. “This week.” It’s Wednesday. And already we’ve had a whatever-that-was at Quantico yesterday, a government shutdown, deepfake racist AI coming from the Oval — it sometimes becomes too much. When I’m feeling outmatched by reality, I go to Reddit.
Reddit, the platform where no trivial topic is too small to create a community of fellow travelers to waste time discussing it all. My current fave subreddits: John and Carolyn and Wedding Attire Approval. In the first, lonely women rehash the lives and deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, endlessly. A typical post might be a closeup of Carolyn, and a question: Do you think she had very subtle rhinoplasty? Comments: 85. It’s really amazing. Wedding Attire Approval consists in large part of innocents wandering into a den of bitches, posting photos of perfectly fine dresses and asking if it’s appropriate for a guest at a wedding. The answer, frequently? NO. Forensic analysis of this dress reveals it was once carried through a room containing white thread! Therefore it cannot be worn to any wedding or wedding-related event!
I’ve known that women shouldn’t wear a white dress to a wedding — that’s for the bride — but I swear, these lunatics make up rules I never heard of. No white to a bachelorette party. No white to a rehearsal dinner. And the latest is when someone will post a photo of a light pink or pale blue dress, but it gets the veto because it might “photograph” white. Or a stunning floor-length dress with a white collar could be photographed from the wrong angle, suggest the guest might be the bride, and RUIN ALL THE PICTURES.
I know the great thing about the internet is, there’s a corner for everyone, and if the algorithm didn’t push it into my face all the time, I could forget it exists. But it does, and I can’t.
Meanwhile, here’s an analysis of the event at Quantico yesterday (gift link, natch):
It was a speech unlike any other and just like every other.
…Several hundred military commanders turned up at Quantico on Tuesday morning. Some had flown in for it from places as far away as Germany, Brussels, Japan and South Korea. They sat mostly in silence as Mr. Trump talked for 73 minutes about the same things he talks about almost every day, no matter where he is or to whom he is speaking.
He talked to the generals about Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the infamous autopen. He talked about the media. He talked about tariffs and the border. He talked about the time he went to a restaurant in Washington to eat dinner. He talked about not being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize he felt he had earned.
He talked, in other words, exactly the same way he talks to rally crowds and the sycophants who gather around his table at Mar-a-lago. Only the military brass didn’t do what those crowds do — laugh and smile. They sat mostly stone-faced while President Wetbrain talked for…73 minutes. He told them he wanted American cities to serve as “training grounds” for soldiers; in other words, that he expected American troops to kill and wound Americans. What did he expect? Cheers? Clearly he did.
Lucian Truscott quotes from the same speech. It was chilling, not just because of the kill-your-countrymen thing, but the fact this man is obviously losing his marbles:
He began by attacking Biden, naturally, complaining that “We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling down stairs every day – every day, the guy’s falling down stairs – and I said, that’s not our president. We can’t have it. I’m very careful, you know, when I walk down stairs, I walk…very…slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just, try not to fall, ‘cause it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen, and it became a part of their legacy, you know. Walk nice and easy. You don’t have to set any records. Be cool! Be cool when you walk down, but don’t…don’t bop down the stairs. The one thing with Obama…I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs, I’ve never seen…da-da-da-da-teh-deh-bop-bop…I’ve never seen…he would go down those stairs, bop-bop, he wouldn’t hold on, he’d go down those stairs, I said, it’s great! I wouldn’t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but eventually, bad things are gonna happen, and it only takes one. A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. This country was going to hell. We had nothing.”
And let’s not let that be overshadowed by this:
There were Black generals and admirals sitting amidst their white counterparts in that audience in Quantico today. Not one of them, white or Black, could have missed the rank racism when Trump imitated Barack Obama “bopping” down a set of stairs. Trump said he “never seen” anything like it, as if he were describing a tight end in a football game catching a difficult pass. None of them missed the racism when Trump mentioned, in speaking about “the nuclear” that there are two “N-words” you can’t say. Every person in that room knew what the other N-word is, and they got it that Trump was complaining that “political correct,” as he called it, had stopped its usage.
Ugh. Our president.
OK, I have an interview coming up that I must prep for. Carry on, enjoy your Wednesday, and we’ll see how it goes.
alex said on October 1, 2025 at 11:20 am
There are three n-words, actually, and one of them describes the president and anyone who voted for him: Nincompoop.
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Mark P said on October 1, 2025 at 12:12 pm
Trump commented on the fact that the room was completely quiet when he walked in. He expected applause.
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Dexter Friend said on October 1, 2025 at 12:53 pm
The brass was assembled, they heard what was up with Trump…and no coup occurred?
“No beardos”, no more fat generals waddling around in The Pentagon, time for DIs and Drill Instructors to start slapping the recruits around at-will. And even though my time as a draftee was long ago, the only thing holding back the Drill Instructors from smacking the shit out of us was Congressional protection. Just wait. Soon we will be getting reports of broken jaws and cracked heads from the training centers.
Lawrence O’Donnell says Trump is deranged to the point he must be stopped and removed.
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Jeff Gill said on October 1, 2025 at 1:48 pm
These preparations suggest both parties expect this shutdown to be of lengthy duration.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/01/national-parks-shutdown-republicans-democrats-00589355
And for what it’s worth, the sergeants were complaining about their legal inability to lay hands on us in 1980, so that restriction ain’t recent. And the law to require emergency departments to treat any & all, in return for which they’d get additional Medicaid funds to cover it, was passed over Reagan’s signature, and revisited & reaffirmed as part of the welfare reform under Clinton which Newt himself signed off on. So the idea that Medicaid full funding might occasionally help treat an undocumented person in the US could fairly be called a Republican policy…
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ROGirl said on October 1, 2025 at 2:33 pm
In other news, the winner of Fat Bear Week is Chunk https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8r2ej4m0ro
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Mark P said on October 1, 2025 at 3:47 pm
I saw that some former NPS officials were recommending that national parks be closed during a government shutdown. They say the parks suffer from insufficient maintenance because of staffing shortages. That’s going to be even worse now that Trump and Musk have fired so many park employees.
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s said on October 1, 2025 at 3:54 pm
We lost a World heroine. Jane Goodall died
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Sherri said on October 1, 2025 at 5:53 pm
We all learned that our Founding Fathers didn’t expect that political parties would be a big factor and so didn’t account for the rise of them in designing the Constitution. The question is, why did they believe this? The Whigs and Tories had formed a century earlier in England. Why did they think political parties wouldn’t form here (and did, as soon as Washington was no longer president.)
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Jeff Borden said on October 1, 2025 at 6:04 pm
Josef Goebbels sneered that the Nazis used democracy to take power. The Heritage Society knows exactly what it’s doing and it’s working the same way right now. Even if we make it through this, the damage is massive and will take much time, much money and much focus to repair.
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Heather said on October 1, 2025 at 6:10 pm
Today I went to have coffee and a donut (mochi-filled; it’s an Asian-American-owned place) and work a while at a cafe near my home in the multicultural Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago. My alderperson came in a bit later and was on her phone constantly, talking to constituents and community groups about ICE kidnappings in the area today–there were several, one just blocks from me. They are urging people to stay home if possible. She was very upset and tearful but said she was buoyed by the solidarity in the community.
Documented, not documented—these are our neighbors and a big part of why I live here. I’m so angry. ICE just pops up like whack-a-moles and there’s little we can do besides film it and warn people after the fact. And the federal troops Trump has promised haven’t even shown up yet.
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FDChief said on October 1, 2025 at 6:17 pm
The weird “800 Flag Officers Over Quantico” nonsense just reminded me of an old Army aphorism: “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, socially inept twelve-year-olds talk pushups, beards, and “warriors”. Whiskey Pete is SO obviously a mediocre mid-grade officer in over his head it’s not funny. There’s a reason the big officer cull comes between major and lieutenant colonel, and this nitwit is walking proof.
Felony Fats, though? He really IS nuts. It’s not just his ramble Tuesday. He straight-up stated he’s sending GIs to us here in Portland because he saw footage from 2020 on FAUX and thinks it’s current. He literally can’t separate propaganda on his favorite network from reality…think about that. The man sitting on the most enormous, complex, invasive intelligence organization in human history…is making decisions based on delusional nonsense.
We really are fucked, aren’t we?
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Sherri said on October 1, 2025 at 7:36 pm
I have more questions about Pete and his warrior ethos. What brand of hair gel is the most manly and warrior-like? In addition to the grooming standards, will the generals also get their own makeup studios like Petey has at the Pentagon? Will Pete be teaching makeup for warriors?
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Alan Stamm said on October 1, 2025 at 7:43 pm
Spiraling reality on this week’s whirlwind carousel includes imaginative NY Times outreach after Hegseth told senior officers that “if the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink,” they should “do the honorable thing and resign.”
Shortly afterward, NYT posted a four-item interactive questionnaire under this prompt: “If you are a senior U.S. military leader, we invite you to answer the following questions: Are you resigning your commission? If so, why?”
Confidentiality assured. (Gift link, natch: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/us/politics/military-leaders-quit-callout.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qE8.Szxe.Yx0XIICBVBxr&smid=url-share)
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Dexter Friend said on October 2, 2025 at 8:24 am
I just knew that when I tuned in early today…yep, another attack…
“Manchester synagogue stabbing live: Two killed in car and knife ‘terror attack’ and suspect believed dead
The suspect has been shot after the attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall.” credit:Yahoo! News….
Yom Kippur, atonement, but with the modern twist of hatred from evil demonic sick fucks.
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basset said on October 2, 2025 at 6:48 pm
John & Carolyn… Mrs. B and I have been to the coastal-island Georgia church where they were married, as part of a nature and old-houses tour. It’s tiny, the size of a big backyard shed, and every woman on the tour appeared to be just fascinated by it.
Most interesting part of the visit, aside from the seashore and the wild horses, was walking through a selection of irrationally wealthy families’ vacation homes. One of them had a basement room entirely devoted to… ironing sheets. In Georgia. With no electricity, no air conditioning and little to no airflow. Apparently that ironing was somebody’s full-time job.
Just to get away for a few minutes from Washington and terror attacks and trying to stay sane… can we get an update on Kate’s house? Or the band?
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Julie Robinson said on October 2, 2025 at 8:19 pm
Jackie O required clean sheets each time she slept in a bed, and she almost always had an afternoon nap. So, two sets a day. Plus they were a special linen, which must have been super fun to iron. If you ever why rich people need so much staff, there’s exhibit A.
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basset said on October 2, 2025 at 10:34 pm
Reminds me of a tour accountant I met awhile back who said one of his clients, he wouldn’t say who, required a case of diet Evian water backstage at every show. Not that they cared about water or that diet Evian even exists, they put it in there so when the promoters said they couldn’t find it anywhere the performer’s people would know they’d read the contract.
Same deal with Van Halen and the bowl of M&Ms with the brown ones picked out… put something crazy in the contract and see if they catch it, if they don’t you look for other stuff they might have missed.
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Mark P said on October 2, 2025 at 11:18 pm
Way back in the before times, my mother ironed bed sheets. That gradually fell by the wayside. Although I can understand the appeal of wrinkle-free sheets, I do not now and never have ironed sheets. I iron nothing, and I don’t care. Even if I win the lottery, I don’t think I will hire a full-time ironer. I might hire a regular vacuumer, given the amount of dog hair that accumulates on our floors. Maybe not. Vacuuming is about the only exercise I get these days, what with my knees and the dogs’ failing hips.
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Mark P said on October 2, 2025 at 11:18 pm
Way back in the before times, my mother ironed bed sheets. That gradually fell by the wayside. Although I can understand the appeal of wrinkle-free sheets, I do not now and never have ironed sheets. I iron nothing, and I don’t care. Even if I win the lottery, I don’t think I will hire a full-time ironer. I might hire a regular vacuumer, given the amount of dog hair that accumulates on our floors. Maybe not. Vacuuming is about the only exercise I get these days, what with my knees and the dogs’ failing hips.
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Colleen said on October 3, 2025 at 12:29 am
I don’t iron either….I’m not even sure where my iron is.
As for sheets…if I ever became insanely rich, having clean sheets every other night would be the ultimate indulgence…
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Jeff Gill said on October 3, 2025 at 7:35 am
Opinions on Taylor Swift’s new album? (And I hope Kate’s house process is going well, too.)
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alex said on October 3, 2025 at 7:55 am
I remember being chided one time by a man who was dating one of my female friends and seemed bothered that she was hanging out with other guys. He looked askance at my linen shirt and said “Don’t you own an iron?”
“Hey, I’m supposed to be the gay one here,” I shot back.
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Deborah said on October 3, 2025 at 9:30 am
I used to only iron my linen shirts but now I don’t even do that. Many years ago I used to iron a lot of things but now almost everything I wear doesn’t need ironing, mostly jeans and cotton turtlenecks. I just hang them on a drying rack to dry instead of putting them in the dryer. I turn them inside out when I wash them and use cold water, it lessens wear and tear. Any suits or dressy clothes I take to the cleaners, but I hardly ever wear them anymore so that’s rare.
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Dexter Friend said on October 3, 2025 at 1:24 pm
My mom was always ironing everything. I did like that ironed/starchy shirt on Sundays as I dressed for the Methodist Church service, and I liked a hard-pressed handkerchief. We have a city junk drop-off in a couple weeks and the ironing board is going away. I never ironed anything.
Julie Robinson: I gave you a shout-out to Chuck the cobbler yesterday. He just sort of nodded…did he remember you? I have no idea.
Man, these shoes are better than new, and shined to the max. Chuck’s Foot Support, Maplecrest Road, Fort Wayne.
I have decided to buy a good used big SUV like a Suburban to get through the winter salt and slush and maybe even snow. I looked into getting a snow-plow, but to hell with that, I will just battle the driveway snow via hiring the job. Mostly I just want an old money-pit-something new-to-me big-ass vehicle for a toy. There, I admit it. Not worried about a carbon footprint as it won’t be used going cross-country. I also priced a rental for a drive up to the Bay City area. Very cheap, I was shocked. Only $50 + tax, unlimited miles of course. Well worth a few bucks to eliminate old-car anxiety since I don’t carry tools around and I am no kind of mechanic except for the basic stuff like checking fluids and tire pressures. Oh…I am finally going to buy a portable battery-powered tire inflator, likely a Milwaukee brand. I have been having the men at the tire store check my tires and I tip them $5 or $10…but that seems awkward. And so, the new machine.
Go Detroit Tigers, and go Wolverines against Wisconsin.
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Sherri said on October 3, 2025 at 1:50 pm
Explain to me how this is supposed to work. Trump wants to send troops into blue cities, and withhold federal money from blue cities and states. But the money to fund the federal government comes mostly from those blue cities and states he’s attacking. Now, Trump may or may not understand this, or may believe that his tariffs will magically pay for everything, but I’m sure Russ Vought knows this.
Do they really expect that the blue cities and states will just keep footing the bill while being occupied? I mean, how are they going to handle their grift needs and pay the soldiers? History says if you don’t pay the soldiers, it seldom works well for you. But Elon and Peter Thiel need their government contracts, too. And Donald doesn’t like to share his bribes.
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Sherri said on October 3, 2025 at 4:13 pm
Kavanaugh Raids
https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/welcome-to-the-era-of-kavanaugh-raids?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=welcome-to-the-era-of-kavanaugh-raids&_bhlid=45fb9d95868eea6cb02ce9ead0101004be2b34e4
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Julie Robinson said on October 3, 2025 at 4:49 pm
Sorry, I can’t doomsday scenario anything right now, there’s too much of his happening in my own house.
Dexter, there are a LOT of Julie Robinsons in Fort Wayne. And it’s been over four years since I was a patron, but I definitely agree he’s a gem. His new soles doubled the life of my husband’s dress shoes. He’s such an unusual size, when he needed new ones we would call Toenges* and they’d say black or brown, no other choices.
*A Fort Wayne institution for those with difficult feet. Nothing was cheap, but at least you could find something. Haven’t found the like here so far.
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Deborah said on October 3, 2025 at 5:05 pm
With a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court says the Trump administration can cancel Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants. Of course they did. There are a number of Venezuelan mothers with small children who sell candy on street corners around here. They always impress me because they are such attentive mothers to their babies and toddlers. They often sit on the hard pavement and hold their kids for hours. Sad.
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tajalli said on October 3, 2025 at 5:55 pm
Not particularly constructive, but el ICE == LICE
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Deborah said on October 3, 2025 at 6:27 pm
Oh my God, look at these assholes cuffing a Chicago Alderperson in a hospital who was asking about a patient who had been tackled by ICE, broke his leg, and required surgery. The way she was manhandled, the ICE guy treats her horribly and she was just asking a question. The guy is seething and furious that a hispanic woman is standing up for herself and the patient https://bsky.app/profile/eric-reinhart.com/post/3m2crwovop226 this stuff. This is disgusting and it’s just one example of many, of these guys act like monsters.
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Deborah said on October 4, 2025 at 11:19 am
The cost per sq ft of Trump’s ballroom at the White House that’s beginning construction at 90,000sf with a projected cost of $200 million it comes out to over $2,000 per sq ft, that’s a hugely expensive cost per sq ft number, by a lot.
A football field is about 57,000sf, including the end zones. The whole White House is currently 50,000sf, so that thing will be almost twice as big as the existing building.
He claims that the money has been donated, not coming out of tax revenue. My question is: what is the quid pro quo of what the donors get in return? Granted a big part of it is access to Trump but what else? And it will live in infamy as the Trump Ballroom.
This is a good article by Debbie Millman in the NY times. She’s famous in graphic design circles and she’s married to Roxanne Gay. Gift article https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/opinion/trump-ballroom-rebrand.html?unlocked_article_code=1.q08.2JNa.Ad7zvi-M1DH-&smid=url-share
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Jakash said on October 4, 2025 at 12:35 pm
I haven’t paid much attention to this ballroom bullshit, beyond disgust at the People’s House being desecrated by the short-fingered vulgarian in many ways, this apparently being much the most extravagant. Thanks for sharing this article, Deborah.
One of the comments: “I consider it sad there is not more push back from the design community. Removing politics, it is a very poor design that harms the integrity of the WH. We are afraid to say that the emperor has no clothes on.” To which the writer responded: “I’m trying!”
You’re trying, too, Deborah, and I appreciate it.
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Deborah said on October 4, 2025 at 3:53 pm
I saw an image and headline in the Santa Fe New Mexican, the local Santa Fe newspaper, that feels very awkward to me and frankly bigoted and I’m honestly wondering if it’s just me. I don’t know how else to show this to you because I’ve already used up my 3 free clicks to read anymore articles this month, so if you click on this link https://www.santafenewmexican.com/ to the splash page of the newspaper and scroll down you’ll see an article about Jane Goodall who spent time in Santa Fe to relax and so forth. The photo shows a little hispanic boy caressing the side of her face and she’s smiles kindly directly into his eyes. The headline is “Champion of Chimps, Including New Mexico’s, Jane Goodall had a soft spot for Santa Fe”. So here’s the thing, ever since she died the internet is loaded with images of her caressing chimps and being caressed by chimps. This headline and image suggests to me that the hispanic kid is being compared to a chimp which is a horrible trope that has been used by bigoted assholes for ages (for black kids too). I don’t think it was intentional by the newspaper, at least I hope not. But what a clueless faux pas to put in a newspaper in a city that has a large hispanic population, especially these days when ICE is behaving so horribly to a lot of them all over this country. Is it just me? Am I the only one who is seeing that insinuation?
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Sherri said on October 4, 2025 at 4:07 pm
So, Drunk Pete is really big on the warrior ethos. I wondered what he did in the military in search of that warrior ethos. Ranger school? Nope. It’s not that he washed out, I can’t find that he ever tried. No wonder he hates women in the military, since women have started earning that coveted Ranger tab, meeting the same standards all soldiers must meet.
He pulled strings to get assigned to the 101st, but never did Air Assault school, or Airborne school. He led an infantry platoon in Iraq long enough to get his Combat Infantry Badge, then switched to Civil Affairs.
Guess that chasing women, getting drunk, and hitting the gym didn’t leave much time for being a warrior. But I bet his platoon met the grooming standards!
(I wonder whether he can actually grow a beard. If he can, then he must spend a lot of time manscaping his chest.)
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Carter Cleland said on October 4, 2025 at 10:47 pm
Heather @ 10. I spoke to Alder Andre Vasquez today, Saturday, and he reported that 650 people had shown up for his Know Your Rights meeting at Mather H.S.
My newest poster reads: Peaceful Protest Is Our Civic Duty.
On the sheet question, get yourself an all-cotton, low thread count set, and hang them out to dry after a brisk shaking while wet. You’ll never use the dryer again. Till winter, that is.
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basset said on October 5, 2025 at 12:56 pm
Today is the 63rd anniversary of the first Beatles record… a song that they recorded three times with three different drummers, and all three were eventually released.
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Heather said on October 5, 2025 at 1:27 pm
@Carter, I went to a very informal gathering Friday night at a bar to fold flyers and attach them to plastic whistles that people can use to alert others that ICE is around. It was packed. The organizer was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. I gave some to my neighbors and have been leaving them in Little Free Libraries.
It’s a weirdly dissonant time here. There are skirmishes on the street but the weather is also amazing so I’ve been making the most of it. Headed to the beach today, which I don’t know if I’ve ever done in October before.
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Mark P said on October 5, 2025 at 5:04 pm
A number of commentators don’t think the US will return to what we used to consider normal after Trump is gone, either out of office or dead. They argue that the country has gone too far to come back. I fall on the it’s-too-late side on that argument. Some are talking about changes to the Constitution, which is unlikely to happen, unless things get so bad that even Republicans are moved to responsible action.
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