Late but welcome, fall has arrived. I always note that there’s a week’s load of laundry a couple times a year that contains both shorts and at least one flannel shirt, and I guess it’s this week. It was 70 and muggy when I got up Tuesday morning, currently struggling to reach 50. Dinner last night was adjusted from chicken on the grill to BLTs. Can’t deny it: It feels great.
Check with me in another month, when the whining begins.
So. The week began at a gallop and has slowed to a forward canter. Coming back from my creative-writing class at Wayne State, on surface streets to avoid the freeway parking lot, I listened to “All Things Considered,” and wondered after a spell if it might be wiser for me to just quit paying attention to the news altogether. In an interview with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, he said (paraphrasing), “President Trump doesn’t read, and doesn’t know what ‘insurrection’ means.” The reporter, with her Bias Alert going WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP, said, “I think the president would disagree with you on that.” Gee, thanks, I feel so much better now. We wouldn’t want to let an American governor get away with speaking the truth, would we?
But I can’t stop, because that’s how I’m made. Before that, I heard the last few moments of an interview with Beth Macy, who has a book out this week. She was on “Fresh Air,” and had an op-ed in the NYT Sunday, and has this piece in the Atlantic today. Title: “What Happened to Ohio?” and yeah, it’s a gift link. It’s about Urbana, where Alan started his newspaper career and from which Macy hails. Turns out it’s not the place she grew up:
I was most shocked by what I gleaned from people I’d known the longest. My childhood friend Joy, a Black lay minister who had conducted my Mom’s celebration of life, revealed that she didn’t believe George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin. My niece’s husband, a type 1 diabetic, turned down not one but two life-saving transplants because the donors had taken COVID vaccines. When I spoke with my sister Cookie about my oldest son, Max, who was about to marry his husband, she used the Old Testament scripture from Leviticus to condemn homosexuality.
A friend asked recently what it felt like to spend time in a place I had once loved but no longer connected with, and I had to admit that my predominant emotion was pain. Often, I’d leave two or three days before my rental was up, eager to return home to my husband, my dog, and my largely privileged circle of friends who don’t espouse beliefs that repulse me.
Sigh. When does this shit end? Do we ever get out of it? I’m skeptical.
Deborah said on October 8, 2025 at 9:36 am
Painful but there will always be people like that, there always have been. Because everyone has a platform now we hear about a lot more of it. I have been shocked by how many people there are like that in our country for sure and we are finding out, the whole world.
I have been reading about who Carl Schmitt is and what he did and wrote about and boy howdy, scary, scary stuff. Really frightning that people like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin and their ilk, study him and promote his ideas. Creepy.
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Jeff Gill said on October 8, 2025 at 10:12 am
I admit to oscillation between the definite reality that conspiracy stuff has always been well rooted in the body politic (as a minister, I long have suspected I get told more stuff than many hear casually, and the bizarre & implausible plots were stuffed in my hand back in the 80’s on mimeographed documents received in the mail, before the same stories were forwarded to me with a truly staggering CC list of addresses), and the equally true statement that the Ohio I moved to in 1989 is not the Ohio I live in now. Lots of once 50/50 settings in non-political spaces, groups & associations like churches & service clubs, are now 70/30 or even 80/20 MAGA. That’s a shift.
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alex said on October 8, 2025 at 11:11 am
I should just give in to the temptation and subscribe to the Atlantic, but I’m already buried in an avalanche of things, including the New Yorker, multiple newspapers and multiple Substacks that I don’t have enough time for, and I wish I could just take a break from all of it.
That was one powerful story and it mirrors a lot of what I see here in Indiana. My partner is one of the few in his family with a college education and the only one who isn’t MAGA. Needless to say, we haven’t been spending much time with any of them anymore.
I had friends in college who got through with Pell grants and work-study jobs and they had been the best and brightest in their high schools despite growing up with modest means. It’s definitely a different world now, and all the worse for it. In my partner’s family I’ve seen promising kids start college but then give up and drop out.
Enough of the major bummage. Here’s something light and amusing and should be near and dear to the heart of our proprietress:
https://wapo.st/4gXrrqa
Gift link.
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Suzanne said on October 8, 2025 at 11:19 am
I used to consider myself a conservative but when the Tea Party types took over, when they excused Gingrich’s non-family values life style and blatent lies (and Limbaugh’s), clearly embraced reports of the salacious details of Bill Clinton’s blowjob, and started going down the conspiracy rabbit hole, I realized I didn’t belong anymore. What the Washington political class missed is that people in these forgotten rust belt towns embraced the things I listed. They really truly believe that there is a Dem pedophile ring, that babies are being stolen and sacrificed, and all that other insane garbage. Through Trump, the GOP extremists saw an opening to power and latched on while the Dems and the more moderate Republicans laughed it off thinking that no sane person would really believe that conspiracy junk. But red state voters absolutely do believe it and will vote to eradicate the perceived evil even if it means eradicating themselves. They are doing God’s will so if it doesn’t work out here, there is a spot in heaven for them. They win either way.
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FDChief said on October 8, 2025 at 11:26 am
My suspicion is that We the People have always been “like this”; credulous, gullible, vicious, and more than a bit craven.
We believe this nasty ignorant trash because we want to, it satisfies our need to be smug about our shitty little lives – at least we’re not THOSE people!
The big difference is that MAGA encourages us to proudly fly our “shitty person” freak flag. Paleo-lefty blogger Driftglass calls it “the tribe that rubs shit in their hair”; it’s tying yourself to your group because you stand together for things that revolt and disgust the Others, those nasty liberals and egalitarians and feminists who for so long told them their prejudice and ignorance and credulity and cravenness were Bad and Wrong.
Well! Those days are gone; Trump is king and our MAGA faith – hate, violence, cruelty – is God.
And, no. There’s no going back, any more than there was going back to Weimar in 1939 Berlin other than the road that the T-34s took down Unter den Linden and the 8th Air Force took over the Reichskanzlerei
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David C said on October 8, 2025 at 1:19 pm
They say everyone believes in at least one conspiracy theory. I can’t think of any I believe in except that there are special banana lights in stores that make really green bananas look yellow for color blind husbands to take back to their wives and have her say “Well, those will be OK in two or three days”. I made that one up myself to cover for my shortcomings as a husband, so I’m not sure that even counts.
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Peter said on October 8, 2025 at 1:46 pm
Wait, you’re saying that stores DON’T have special banana lights that make green bananas look yellow?
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Deborah said on October 8, 2025 at 1:52 pm
The conspiracy theory I personally beleive in is that Melania is Trump’s dominatrix. I don’t know anyone else who beleives it, so I think I made it up, no I’m sure I made it up. But it seems so absolutely possible to me. Can’t you just see her standing over him, squinting with a whip. Sorry.
OK, now that I’m confessing, Sorry if this is TMI but I have kidney stones again, it’s been going on for weeks and it’s not fun, on top of my long covid lightheadness etc. As ALex says about doom scrolling constantly on various subscriptions etc, sitting a lot doing that is killing me. Plus just sitting and reading books is problematic. Sitting is an issue for me now, I can only do it for short amounts of time and lying down all the time is making me sluggish. I tried finding a standing desk that I can place on our dining table, that collapses and folds up flatly to put away when not in use, forget it. Everywhere I look they are way over engineered and cost waaayyyyy too much. So now I just put a thick cookbook I keep in the kitchen, on top of the thick butcher block also in the kitchen on the counter, put my lap top on that and voila I have the right height to stand and doom scroll or read as long as necessary, as they say necessity is certainly the mother of invention. I can still walk miles a day, no problem as long as I don’t have to dodge out of the way quickly in crowds which makes me more dizzy. Such is life.
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Sherri said on October 8, 2025 at 2:11 pm
My feeling is that a lot of those places that seemed 50-50 just needed permission to go 70-30 and 80-20, but that the reverse was never as true. Maybe that’s just because I watched too many people who would get along fine with a Black person, because “he’s one of the good ones,” or were willing to help the “deserving poor,” but lost their minds over Black people getting jobs they thought should have gone to them. Or saying “we’d direct them to one of their churches” in response to what would we do if a Black person came to our church.
They love their multiracial grandchildren, but they still feel deep in their bones that white Christians like them should be the norm and everybody else should just conform to them.
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Mark P said on October 8, 2025 at 2:34 pm
No matter the what happens in the next or really any future election, this country is not coming back. I still believe the best, and only solution is partition. It would be hard and painful, but the best thing is to let the deplorables go their own way.
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Dave said on October 8, 2025 at 4:31 pm
Mark P., I hate agreeing with you but as a senior citizen, I’m very unhappy that I probably won’t be around long enough to see the country go back the other way or even make a little progress to that end. I struggle about every day with what is going on with this country and endlessly wonder how people can believe such utter foolishness. I blame the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the advent of the Internet. Maybe the war on public education and book banning, too. There’s always more nonsense.
Jeff Gill, you were talking about how you try to go see your mother every two weeks, even though she doesn’t know who you are. I feel your pain and sadly remember that for the last nearly two years of my mother’s life, we were living in Florida and saw her seldom but when we did, she didn’t know us. It was awful.
Deborah, I’ve never had kidney stones but had a brother-in-law who did and remembering him describing the misery was enough to make me hurt. Hope you can be rid of them soon. Oh, and buying green bananas, we’ve made the mistake of buying green bananas and they never did turn yellow.
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FDChief said on October 8, 2025 at 5:41 pm
So I don’t have a kidney stones story, but I do have a gross/funny one.
A friend who has had a really tough year has been unloading on me as a sympathetic ear. She’s had it all, and had it good and hard; illnesses almost continuously since January; infection w chronic pain, sleeplessness, digestive nightmares, blood sugar and sodium imbalance.
Plus horrible work conditions – she’s an addiction counselor and has had a string of awful clients this year – and a husband having a difficult recovery from a bad stroke.
Which includes, unsurprisingly, some sexual struggles (between his dysfunction and her illnesses)
Anyway…the latest infodump included changes in medication, treatment, sleep, diet, etc. Amid all that she tossed off “the sex is a little better…”
I’m like, wait, what? You’ve been horribly sick, sick like at one point you thought you had a viral AND a bacterial infection AND a mold allergy/reaction. How the hell did you and him manage to have better sex?
To which she replied “We had a couple of times before the violent diarrhea…”
Oh, my. The mental picture.
I recommended to her husband that he might consider waiting until his wife is less likely to experience explosive decompression in the midst of coitus before initiating any more romantic encounters.
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Dorothy said on October 8, 2025 at 7:12 pm
Can’t let the opportunity to share good news slip away. Mike had another surgery today, this one with a top tier oncologist at The James in Columbus. And the doctor said he got all of the tumor. He’s still going to have radiation, but to go back and see him in recovery 75 minutes after we talked to the doctor and hear him speak in his regular voice again?! It’s just stunning… he sounds a little raspy but he’s certainly not whispering and it just feels like some kind of miracle. Not to get all woo-woo but I’m sure you all know what I mean. Today is a good day.
I can’t thank you all enough for all your sweet and supportive comments. It means so much to us, I promise!
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Julie Robinson said on October 8, 2025 at 7:48 pm
That’s the best thing I’ve heard today, Dorothy. I’m so very glad.
And Deborah, may the kidney stones pass, and SOON.
Robert Reich says the government shutdown will be ending soon because of the air traffic controllers, just like 2018. The rich a**holes need to get their private jets around on time, you know. But not in time for Dennis, whose flight home tonight is delayed, probably will be canceled.
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Sherri said on October 8, 2025 at 7:57 pm
Great news, Dorothy!!
I have my fingers crossed that we’ll be able to make our planned trip to New York next month without too much trouble.
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Deborah said on October 8, 2025 at 8:12 pm
Dorothy, great news!
Julie, I’ve already passed some sand. Thank god kidney stones have never included explosive diarrhea, for me anyway. This is the 4th time in my life I’ve had this, the first time I was 18, a freshman in college, I know what to expect now. Both my father and my sister have had it, and my sister’s oldest daughter too, so it seems to run in our family. I don’t drink enough water and I salt everything, you’d think I’d learn my lesson.
I’m going back to NM next Friday, I’m trying a new schedule, instead of going in three month intervals I’m trying shorter times, more trips, this time I’ll be there almost a month. Still spending as much time each place over the course of a year, I hope. The bad part is that I’m increasing my carbon footprint with more trips. Anyway I hope my flight isn’t delayed or canceled.
My husband will be staying in Chicago this time because he’s got a major workload coming up. I’m working on the project too but I can participate easily via zoom, he needs to be able to go to the project site.
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Suzanne said on October 8, 2025 at 8:21 pm
GREAT news Dorothy! So happy for your hubby…and you!
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tajalli said on October 9, 2025 at 1:57 am
Wonderful news, Dorothy. To go from zero to 100% is just miraculous.
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ROGirl said on October 9, 2025 at 4:22 am
Great news, Dorothy!
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alex said on October 9, 2025 at 8:16 am
Yay Dorothy!
Well, I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me sooner, but I just figured out the perfect way to reduce my screen time. I’m replacing my Aeron desk chair with a Swedish exercise ball. And anyone who knows me knows how much I hate exercise. My back and hips are killing me this morning already and I think I need to go outside and walk it off. And so begins my new core workout.
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Mark P said on October 9, 2025 at 8:57 am
I’m currently in a rest area just east of Amarillo, and arrive in Edgewood NM today for a few days with some friends. I may do a little traveling around NM/Colorado if the national parks are open and have available campsites.
Good news Dorothy. My father and brother had kidney stones but I have been spared so far.
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Dave said on October 9, 2025 at 9:23 am
Dorothy, that’s great news, so pleased for you both.
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Jeff Gill said on October 9, 2025 at 9:32 am
Yay, Dorothy, and thank you; I’m delighted by the idea that Deborah & Dolly Parton have something in common. Sorry that it’s something painful, but the juxtaposition is amusing . . .
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Jason T. said on October 9, 2025 at 10:23 am
A song for Mark P.
Warning: Earworm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBDbUjUH5So
Wikipedia:
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Diane said on October 9, 2025 at 11:29 am
Well, we cancelled our subscription to the WaPo today. It is, as he described it, a radical move for my husband. Perhaps we are late to the party having stuck with the Post until now but today’s editorial board piece on Jack Smith, etc. was too full of inaccuracies and slant to swallow. My husband went and read one of the court opinions that they talked about and decided that the piece skewed the facts and was simply not trustworthy.
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alex said on October 9, 2025 at 12:12 pm
I didn’t renew my Post subscription, but because I’d paid for it a year ahead I still have access for another month or so. And I agree that the false equivalence they’re trying to create between Jack Smith’s legitimate prosecution of Trump’s crimes and Pam Bondi’s meritless and vindictive prosecution of James Comey is so off-the-charts bad, so wrong, so insulting to the intelligence of anyone who’s intelligent, that I don’t even want to look at that damnable rag from here on out. They won’t win me back even if they offer me a subscription for free.
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Deborah said on October 9, 2025 at 1:02 pm
Mark P, if you’re still in NM and happen to be in Santa Fe after the 17th let me know, maybe we can meet up for coffee somewhere.
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Mark P said on October 9, 2025 at 2:12 pm
Right now I’m sitting in my little trailer in the Love’s parking lot in Tucumcari with my two dogs, eating an Arby’s sandwich.
Jason T, here’s another:
“I’ve been from Tuscon to Tucumcari
Tehachapi, to Tonopah
driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
now i’ve driven the back roads so i wouldn’t get weighed
And if you give me weed, whites and wine
and show me a sigh
i’ll be willin to be movin”
I’ve been in all four of those towns. I don’t do weed, whites, or wine, but I’m still willing to me moving.
Deborah, I’m not sure where I will be on the 17th, but if I can meet up, I’ll comment here. A meetup would be cool.
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Julie Robinson said on October 9, 2025 at 2:17 pm
My WaPo subscription is coming due in a couple of weeks and I haven’t been planning on renewing. But I really like the book reviews, and Dorothy’s daughter works there, so I’m wavering. Guess I’ll see what price they give me.
Dennis’s flight was about two hours late, no explanation given. Sarah and I are heading to NYC in 10 days but I never schedule anything for the first night so we’ll be okay if there are delays, just tired and cranky. Same for coming home. I’ve been burned too many times by missed flights and those Broadway tickets are pricey.
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Brandon said on October 9, 2025 at 3:36 pm
No one has mentioned “My City Was Gone.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_City_Was_Gone
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Peter said on October 9, 2025 at 4:25 pm
Dorothy, I am so happy for you and your husband. It’s a relief to hear some good news with everything going on these days. I sure hope he gets through this OK.
Deborah, it’s been over 20 years since I had kidney stones, and I still remember that event. I hope you’ll pass those without much pain.
And I’m proud of my son – he’s a store manager in a Chicago suburb, and yesterday a few ICE vehicles set up shop in his parking lot.
He walked out to the group, said hello, and told them that he and his employees are mostly paid on commission, and having a few ICE trucks in their parking lot in a hispanic suburb isn’t good for business; would they mind if they could move down the road? And they did.
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Colleen said on October 9, 2025 at 5:57 pm
Great news Dorothy!
I heard that Fresh Air interview as well. Found it interesting…so many people see such a bleak future for themselves, and our society doesn’t do much to encourage anything but that bleakness.
Speaking of bleak….every day it’s something worse coming from DC. Now we are actually having discussions about whether undocumented people should be given emergency health care. WTF is wrong with us?
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Deborah said on October 10, 2025 at 11:16 am
Ha ha ha ha ha, he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, is anyone surprised? I love it that the Nobel committee often picks people that few people in the world know about, that helps them get attention to their causes.
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susan said on October 10, 2025 at 2:25 pm
But the orange phüker still made the headlines for NOT winning, over María Corina Machado who did win. He is a master at propaganda, if nothing else. There is nothing else.
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Deborah said on October 10, 2025 at 3:54 pm
But the news is that he’s a loser, so he probably hates that.
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Deborah said on October 10, 2025 at 4:29 pm
I trust we’re all going to Sunday Oct 18 protests in our various cities/towns? I’ll be in Santa Fe, my husband is going to the one in Chicago which I hope is massive. I’m going to use my Stephen Miller rat sign, I had one printed there and used for the last protest, and my husband will use the same sign in Chicago that I had printed here for the last protest. I was going to make a new one but what with everything going on I don’t have the energy. I hope at least 10 million people in the US are out protesting, if not millions more. I’m sure ICE and such will try to incite violence but don’t let that stop you, wear crazy costumes and dance, sing, pray, whatever shows you’re peaceful.
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Deborah said on October 10, 2025 at 6:29 pm
Apparently Trump said this today “The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today, called me, and said ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it.’ A really nice thing to do. I didn’t say ‘Then give it to me, though.” How many people actually think that happened?
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alex said on October 10, 2025 at 7:27 pm
CBS evening news had an interview with Maria Corina Machado in which it was mentioned that she spoke by phone with Trump today and she said she thanked him for supporting the cause of democracy in Venezuela. Living in hiding as she does, she’s evidently unaware that the Donald doesn’t give a shit and that he’s deporting Venezuelans who were here legally applying for asylum, and doing so with brutality. A real journalist would have brought it up in the interview to see if it registered any shock.
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