I remember during the financial crisis, reading truly stomach-churning headlines, then glancing out the window and wondering why there weren’t people running down the streets clutching 10-pound bags of rice to their chests. It was such a disconnect between Life as Reported on the News and Life as it Happens Close Up. While I’m certain there were anguished conversations happening in homes over collapsing home values and disappearing jobs and cratered stock portfolios, by and large life looked normal from the outside.
Some people were not surprised by this. My last editor’s parents were both Holocaust survivors. His mother, a teenager at the time, was pressed into factory work for the collapsing Nazi regime. She told him that she and her fellow workers joked and laughed all the time, because what else could they do? In Auschwitz. So I get it, but there’s something about a weekend that we just endured that feels like 10-pound bags of rice clutched to the chest would be a totally normal thing to do.
We are…about to invade Greenland? Sending troops to Minnesota? About to see the Department of Justice investigate the widow of Renee Good, just as soon as they find the toadies willing to do it? And yet, I spent the weekend socializing, exercising, shopping and eating hamburgers. Well, just one hamburger. And I didn’t buy much, but it was nice to get out of the house and walk around a mall, like it was the ’80s again.
Then I come home, read the news and learn that this dork is nominated to be our ambassador to Iceland. I love Iceland. I could live there, easily. It’s so beautiful it almost hurts to look out a window. I’m sure this chucklefuck will have the Icelanders hating us soon enough, like the rest of the world.
However, there was comic relief. In the wake of the shameful gift of Maria Corina Machado’s Nobel medal to Tubby, there appears to be a grassroots effort for people to send their own awards to the White House. Gene Weingarten offered his Pulitzer Prize. If I hadn’t tossed all our journalism awards a few years back, I’d be happy to send the miniature bust of Mark Twain that Alan won for something, I think in an AP contest. For once, the AI creations are really funny:
But still, it’s an unsettling time. How weird that as I got in the car to go get that hamburger, this was on the radio. What a great song. All they have is Lee Greenwood. We have Gil Scott-Heron.
I don’t have much to report. But a new week lies ahead. Let’s white-knuckle through it.
Brandon said on January 18, 2026 at 5:37 pm
Say what you like about Milli Vanilli, but they were great dancers.
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Jeff Gill said on January 18, 2026 at 6:33 pm
Girl, you know it’s true.
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susan said on January 18, 2026 at 7:44 pm
Baby wants shiny
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JodiP said on January 19, 2026 at 2:59 am
I think about this a lot. Yes, I’m doing a lot of socializing as usual but also canvassing to grt input on proposed gun safety legislation and several other things.
We absolutely need joy in the midst of crisis so we can continue the fight against fascism. And we need to pace ourselves.
I had a bit of a scare yesterday at my YMCA that ended well. A couple of Cadillac Escalades parked, idling. All windows tinted, black but transparent license plate covers. Total ICE vibes–the gym members are a diverse group. I let staff know and she monitored via live video. Turns out as the young staff person stated, “They were normal people, some Somali guys.”
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Jeff Borden said on January 19, 2026 at 9:34 am
Any weekend that includes a pardoned J6 rioter who is an anti-semitic, racist Nazi gets his comeuppance from a group of counter protesters in Minneapolis, who assaulted him with snowballs, water balloons and silly string in sub-freezing weather, is a good weekend. The fact he was “rescued” by a large black man, who helped him back to his hotel, added the perfect note.
America will be the first empire to die by suicide. No novelist or screenwriter could craft the story we’re living right now: A mentally ill bully is loosed upon the world, upsetting everything from the smallest to the largest norms, while his poltical party stands by mute and/or cheering. There will be no cleaning up this mess in our lifetimes. It’s simply too widespread. Reputations linger for generations and ours is at the septic tank level. Soon enough, we will be alone in the world except, maybe, for some third-rate countries still hunger for whatever crumbs are left. And when the next disaster hits, as it inevitably will, no one will come to our aid. And with good reason.
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Deborah said on January 19, 2026 at 9:38 am
Jodi, I was wondering how you were doing. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help Minneapolis.
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Mark P said on January 19, 2026 at 11:00 am
This is what tectonic change looks like, at least at first. Look out any window and nothing has changed, unless that window is in Minneapolis. This peaceful corner of NW Georgia looks just like it did before the infection erupted to the surface. I’m sure that in 1933 Germany there were beautiful mountain villages with lederhosen, beer steins and singing. There is no going back. No matter what happens after this, even after the tubby Nodfather finally croaks, things will never go back to the way we imagined they were. It makes me mad to think that my father risked his life in WW 2, only to have his country voluntarily embrace the same filth he fought. Fucking Nazis, and fucking Republicans.
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alex said on January 19, 2026 at 11:21 am
So Trump has more or less admitted that his threatened conquest of Greenland was a ploy to intimidate Denmark into awarding him the Nobel, as if the country itself had any say in the matter. Because the ploy failed, he intends to retaliate by following through.
I don’t know whether he belongs in a booby hatch or a penitentiary but Congress needs to invoke the 25th Amendment ASAP.
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Sherri said on January 19, 2026 at 11:35 am
“Give me the peace prize or I’ll start WWIII!”
I just can’t understand why the GOP Congress is willing to sit idly by and let him destroy NATO. Surely there are at least a few of them who understand the consequences.
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Scout said on January 19, 2026 at 12:24 pm
Sherri, I believe their understanding of the consequences is overshadowed by the threats they’re receiving, or will receive, from the orange mob boss. They’re all cowards and HCR’s letter today should be required reading for all of them. It might sink into enough thick skulls long enough for someone to catch a spark of courage. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-18-2026
We also had what looks from the outside like a normal weekend. Had brunch at a fun place yesterday morning with some friends, one of whom is a lawyer. When we shared our fears about my brown wife being dragged into a van and disappeared, she told me my first phone call will be to her because she ‘has people’. My second call will be to her son, who also ‘has people’. It’s prudent to have a plan besides gobbling enough gummies to numb the fear. ICE is here in Phoenix already, harassing people at a Home Depot only a few miles from us. We feel safest shopping and dining in Scottsdale these days. Sad sad sad.
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annie said on January 19, 2026 at 2:37 pm
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr., American Leader/Activist
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Kath said on January 19, 2026 at 3:14 pm
It hasn’t been a quiet couple weeks just southeast of Lake Wobegon. ICE arrested two local teens who worked the drive up at Target. Both American citizens. They let one of them go a while later dazed and bloody at a Walmart a few miles away. There’s been nary a peep from the CEO of Target, which until the company walked their DEI policies back to about 1972, was a favorite hometown company.
They went door to door in areas of my neighborhood with large immigrant populations. Basically everything I learned 30 years ago in law school about the Fourth Amendment, probable cause, individualized suspicion, the freedom of assembly, or due process and equal protection is obsolete now. I wonder if I can get a refund on my student loans?
Meanwhile Greg Bovino has been waltzing around town in his great coat from the 1933 Hugo Boss collection grinning for the cameras like Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs. Whoever did his media training lied to him. He is in fact not being greeted as a liberator.
We were warned on Saturday to stay out of downtown because a large anti-Muslim protest was expected. A right-wing influencer planned to burn a Koran and march to Cedar-Riverside, where hundreds of Somalis live in the buildings Mary Richards called home in the later years of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
But several hundred people didn’t heed this warning. And only 12 members of the master race showed up. I’m sure the influencer thought that this would be like Skokie and a phalanx of police would protect him from the counter protesters. But this is not Skokie. The Minneapolis cops were indifferent to the plight of a cop-assaulting J6er with pardon in hand. He was hit with water balloons and silly string and bravely ran away. Now safely ensconced behind his keyboard, he’s claiming that he was lynched. But no one in this crowd brought a gallows to a protest.
Elsewhere on Saturday people went about their business. The 974th annual Powderhorn Park Art Sled Rally went off without a hitch. A couple hundred or more people gathered to sing and march through neighborhoods where people were hiding in their homes to let them know that they are not alone.
I went to a meeting at my local library of people over 60 who want to participate but maybe can’t go to protests because they’ve just had a knee replacement. When Mr. Rogers told us to look for the helpers, these are the people he was talking about. They are the ones who run the food pantry, give the elderly rides to doctor appointments, and volunteer in the schools. They fill the gaps and make this a more pleasant place to live. They’ve been through it before: the AIDS crisis, the pandemic, and the uprising following the murder of George Floyd. They’ve got the skills and now they are on Signal.
Lately ICE has been moving beyond the urban core. In the town where I grew up, about a hundred miles west of here, ICE arrested the employees of a Mexican restaurant. What has people so angry is, not the arrest itself, but the fact that the ICE officers ate at the restaurant and then waited outside until it closed to arrest the employees as they were leaving. It doesn’t sit right with people that they would accept someone’s hospitality, and then wait like cowards in the dark to arrest them. ICE was denounced from the pulpit on Sunday in one of the reddest counties in Minnesota. They’ve pissed off Lutherans! Do you know how much that takes?
I keep thinking about my friend’s father who led a protest in his hometown when the Nazis invaded Norway. They arrested him and sent him to Buchenwald. But after three months they sent him home–beaten and starved–as a warning to his neighbors that this would happen to them if they protested. Here they’ve murdered a legal observer, and hit the minivan of a family of 6 coming home from a basketball game with tear gas and flash bangs. They’ve shoved our elected officials and arrested and held numerous protestors without charge. But this hasn’t cowed people.
If you’ve ever been stuck in the snow and the group of people who came to help push your car out included a woman in high heels, you will know that Minnesotans are tough, we are indifferent to the elements, and, when our neighbors need us, we pitch in to help.
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Suzanne said on January 19, 2026 at 4:03 pm
“They’ve pissed off Lutherans!” Must be the ELCA Lutherans because most of the LCMS Lutherans don’t see much problem with what’s going on with ICE. I know some of you will understand the difference.
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Deborah said on January 19, 2026 at 4:45 pm
Suzanne, I thought the same thing.
I’ve been to Minneapolis many times, I’ve had design projects there and I have family there, it is one of my favorite cities. It has good art museums and good theater, good architecture, nice people most of all. I almost moved there once, but thought maybe I wouldn’t like all the snow and ice, never dreaming it’d be that kind of ICE.
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Julie Robinson said on January 19, 2026 at 5:34 pm
Not for nothing are Lutherans called the Frozen Chosen.
I look for Orlando to be one of the next places to get the special treatment. We’re a blue city with many immigrants, and have had huge No Kings protests. Our daughter’s groups are tracking real estate filings, hotel reservations and rental cars, and are convinced ICE wants to set up another detention here. She and some others staked out the place last week, which is why I was worried she’d get herself arrested. I don’t know if they have attorneys arranged yet, but they are talking about pooling money for bonds.
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Deborah said on January 19, 2026 at 7:52 pm
OK, now I’m going to brag about one of my design projects in Minneapolis because I looked it up to see if it’s even still there. I figured it was since it’s made of bronze and kasota (lime)stone. It’s an outdoor exhibit on the grounds of the Federal Reserve Bank by the river. Leading up from the river, there are five of these kiosks as I said made of cylindrical shaped kasota stone bases with bronze tops that explain the history of that area of the city. I had a design team of 2 or 3 people and the fabricators were from a place called Gruppo, which no longer exists there, but were a great group of sculptors and foundry people to make the bronze part. The Minneapolis historical society wrote the copy about the five historical time periods read circularly around each kiosk. We, the team left our personal mark on it, that you need a mirror to read under the bridge of the fifth kiosk. If you slide the mirror under the bridge, the designers, sculptors and the team working on it were etched names under the bridge backwards so you need the mirror to be able to read the names properly. It was one of the most fun projects I ever worked on because of those people. Here’s an explanation and photos, unfortunately in B&W, in actuality they’re in beautiful bronze in color. and the bases are lovely golden kasota stone (bases are not in these photos) https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/1998/riverfront-history-on-the-plaza.
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Colleen said on January 19, 2026 at 8:49 pm
As someone who married into an LCMS family, I get it. One sister is still LCMS, the other two have converted to Catholicism. One guess which sister is a Trumper…
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Jeff Gill said on January 19, 2026 at 11:21 pm
Deborah, check out Shirley MacLaine’s tshirt!
https://x.com/dadiclementi/status/2013355892343726127
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Sherri said on January 19, 2026 at 11:39 pm
Congrats to the IU fans among us!
Maybe Indiana winning the CFP will heal the rift in the space time continuum caused by the Cubs 2016 World Series win, and we can return from this alternate reality.
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basset said on January 19, 2026 at 11:50 pm
You could not make this up… undefeated, Big Ten and national titles, Heisman, Coach of the Year, what’s left to win?
Been looking for webcams of the street celebrations, haven’t found any yet… maybe I’ll call Nick’s and see if they pick up.
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Jeff Gill said on January 20, 2026 at 8:06 am
My sister (faculty member at IU in B’ton as well as BA alumna) sent me pics of fireworks downtown. Apparently a couch was burnt somewhere nearby, because campuses gotta campus. But the street celebration even in single digits looked joyful; this Purdue alum was happy for our traditional foes. The Heisman kid was amazing, and when the stadium PA played “Fernando” by ABBA just after game end, it was too delightful.
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Julie Robinson said on January 20, 2026 at 8:45 am
Much excitement in the Robinson house, where a small IU banner hangs from a front window. The MAGA-ficatiin of the university had led me to consider removing it. Now can coach Cig lend his winning ways to the basketball team?
The football curmudgeon in me notes a lot of rough play that could have led to serious injuries. The Big 12 officials were stingy with their yellow flags when it came to roughing the passer, face mask violations, and late tackles. The announcers kept saying they’re letting them play. Mendoza was bleeding from the mouth after a no-penalty play.
Also, no bands at half time.
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Deborah said on January 20, 2026 at 9:11 am
Jeff G, Shirley went to Bode’s a lot, that was the only place I ever saw her. I’m not sure if she sold her land yet, she has/had 9,000 acres on the other side of Sierra Negra from us in Abiquiu. Bode’s delivered to her place too, Bode’s former owner’s daughter-in-law Karen was our real estate agent when we bought our land, she used to work at Bode’s and made deliveries to Shirley. Karen had lots of stories of Shirley’s house with all kinds of “alien art”.
There are very few celebrities around these parts anymore, they’ve mostly sold out or died by now, like Gene Hackman, that was a sad case.
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Suzanne said on January 20, 2026 at 9:21 am
Even the Empire State Building lit up in cream & crimson! Cignetti mentioned that his beer of choice was from Upland brewing in Bloomington which does make good beer. I expect they will be working overtime for the near future!
I hope the Kelly School at IU uses this moment to teach their business majors about the importance of fundamentals and choosing team members who show potential and a work ethic and then making sure they have the training to do their jobs, something that is currently lacking in the world of work. Any job I had in the 10 years before I retired operated on the mentality of “just figure it out as you go” and it always resulted in chaos. Most of the IU team members were not top recruits but the coach saw potential, recruited them (well, paid for them), and gave them the training they needed to reach the top tier. After all the years of lousy IU football I have seen, this is sweet.
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Deborah said on January 20, 2026 at 9:56 am
As I am completely unaware of what this football talk is about, what in the heck is going on? It obviously has something to do with Indiana University, that’s all I know.
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Julie Robinson said on January 20, 2026 at 12:56 pm
IU defeated Miami in Miami for the national college football championship, which capped a perfect 16-0 season. Lots for the sportswriters regarding IU’s quarterback and his his mom who has MS, the coach, yada, yada.
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Dexter Friend said on January 20, 2026 at 2:27 pm
When Urban Meyer said “hell yes IU can win the National Championship…” in early October, I began believing too. Being that I was a student at IU in Fort Wayne for a year and took classes in Bloomington for a while, I am very happy. The fact that I have rooted for UMichigan sports for over 50 years and the fact I am a parent of an OSU grad and a UToledo grad does not generate hatred towards other schools or their athletics. I love sports. Unbelievable joy in Bloomington today.
“…and Whitey on the Moon…”—GS Heron.
I am a real Luddite per my views of space travel. We went to the moon 57 years ago. Going back? Horseshit. Going to establish colonies on Mars? Cmon, man!
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Dexter Friend said on January 20, 2026 at 2:31 pm
PSA: Be careful on the roads. On Sunday, Greg Wagner, a work friend from long ago, age 50 , was killed as a vehicle crossed the US 127 median near Clare, Michigan, and crashed into Greg’s truck. Greg was killed instantly and his 10 year old son is clinging to life in Ann Arbor’s Children’s Hospital.
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Deborah said on January 20, 2026 at 6:08 pm
Usha Vance is pregnant. Not on my Bingo card.
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annie said on January 20, 2026 at 7:00 pm
poor baby Vance
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susan said on January 20, 2026 at 7:11 pm
Wonder who the father is. Keta-lon?
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Sherri said on January 20, 2026 at 9:48 pm
A graphical representation of the damage Trump has wreaked on science in the US: https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-00088-9/index.html
Even if some of the cuts are reversed, a lot of the damage isn’t as easily undone, because of the enormous uncertainty that’s been introduced into the whole funding process for scientific research. Fewer grad students are being admitted, which will lead to fewer undergraduates even pursuing science if careers in research are not available.
This administration would rather have thugs terrorizing people in their homes than cure cancer.
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Mark P said on January 20, 2026 at 11:02 pm
The Trump regime is talking about gutting atmospheric research at NCAR in Boulder, CO, and Canadians are happy, because if the cuts go through, there will suddenly be a large group of top atmospheric scientists looking for a new home.
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