The Detroit News, now fully owned by Gannett, ran one of my least-favorite non-news stories yesterday, i.e. Group you’ve never heard of expresses outrage over something stupid.
Headline: Health group calls on RFK Jr. to resign after cocaine admission
Lede:
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s shocking admission that he snorted “cocaine off toilet seats” amid his past struggle with drug addiction has led to detractors, including a prominent health care advocacy group, calling for his resignation.
Protect Our Care, a nonprofit advocating for better and more affordable health care, issued a statement after Kennedy’s confession on comedian Theo Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend,” which aired on Feb. 12.
Shocking! Shocking? The guy was a heroin addict. Cocaine was everywhere in the ’80s, and it was largely a bathroom drug. (Flashback to Jeff Borden’s keen insight, probably made in a line for the bathroom at a party, after three or four people emerged as a group: “I miss marijuana. That was social. You lit a joint and passed it through the party. Cocaine is exclusionary. You pick a few cool people to invite to the bathroom with you. That’s not good.”) So what if he snorted it off a toilet seat, which by the way I don’t believe. Why?
First of all, you didn’t need a toilet seat if the back of someone’s hand was available. Second, toilet seats slant toward the water, and you wouldn’t chop coke on a slanted surface. Toilet lid? Toilet tank? The back of the TP dispenser, provided it was flat? That I would believe. But Bobby is a natural-born liar, like his boss and all his colleagues, and “toilet seat” sounded spicy, so that’s what he said.
Also, please: “A prominent health care advocacy group” clutching its pearls? This is Schumering at its highest level. Try sending a strongly worded letter! That always does it.
Some people don’t have what it takes for the struggle we’re in. Nut up or shut up, folks — this battle is for America.
OK then. No blog overnight because we went to Ann Arbor for a show and didn’t get back until 30 minutes past mental exhaustion. We saw Terence Blanchard and Ravi Coltrane in a Miles Davis/John Coltrane tribute. It was nice to be in the old town again, and on a fine late-winter day to boot — there were lots of students on the street, and it just felt like there’s more oxygen in the air over there. (Because there is.)
And because I’m running late, that’s all there is for now, but rest assured: Fresh outrages are coming any minute now, no doubt. Let’s have a good week.
alex said on February 16, 2026 at 11:55 am
I did plenty of coke in nightclub bathrooms, but it was usually through a rolled up dollar bill and directly out of a baggie or envelope. I also used to snort out of a drag queen’s fingernail which she had grown extra long and fashioned into a coke spoon. I simply cannot imagine anyone trying to do lines in a public shit house, certainly not off of a wet countertop, much less a toilet seat.
It’s probably been close to four decades since I had any, but for many years the mere mention of the stuff would overpower me with cravings. One time in Chicago I was about to get into a taxi when the driver said “Hey, before you sit down you should know there was a guy doing coke back there and he spilled his stash all over the place.” I dove face first into that seat and Hoovered up whatever I could.
I was never an addict; just an opportunist who got a lot of invites to partake. I didn’t have the money to waste on it.
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ROGirl said on February 16, 2026 at 12:33 pm
Maybe he was shooting heroin while sitting on the toilet. NB, had to change the autocorrect from heroine.
Over the past few months , while driving on I-696, from time to time my car has filled with the smell of pot. Clearly, people are smoking it in their cars and venting it into the air. It happened this morning at around 7 am. Is it better than driving while looking down at the phone you’re holding with one hand while steering with the other?
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Scout said on February 16, 2026 at 12:47 pm
Nut up or shut up is my new mantra.
RFK,J(unkie) is one of the most dangerous lunatics in the mango mussolini admin asylum. It’s incredible that this country is so ingrained in the ‘own the libs’ narrative that we couldn’t all at least agree on that.
The 80s featured a whole lot of coke and I did try it a few times but I hate that wired feeling, so, little pothead that I am, I preferred to deploy the mellow.
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alex said on February 16, 2026 at 12:54 pm
I smell weed in traffic constantly, even in wintertime when everyone’s windows are closed. I’m surprised people are so brazen. It’s an invitation to get pulled over, searched and locked up. The local papers are full of arrests on the interstate involving people coming back from Michigan who couldn’t wait until they got home to smoke their contraband.
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nancy said on February 16, 2026 at 1:34 pm
In Michigan, ROGirl et al, it’s possible the smell is coming from grow operations, which operate in vast warehouses close to freeways. Back in the home-grow days, one of my colleagues said she smelled it when the power would go out after summer thunderstorms, which she figured was because the air scrubbers were down.
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susan said on February 16, 2026 at 1:50 pm
I used cocaine once. Years ago, I played guitar in a four-piece old-timey/bluegrass string band. We were to play at a dance in a nearby Grange Hall. The afternoon before the dance, I harvested some of our rhubarb, and cut the tip of a finger on my left hand while whacking off the leaf end of a stalk. Ow ow ow! And did that finger bleed! How was I going to play my guitar, now?? I had a bandaid on it, but clearly that wouldn’t work on the strings. I didn’t know what to do.
When we got to the Grange, and we were fretting about the situation, someone came up to us and said he had some coke I could use. So I took him up on his offer. I took off the bandaid and smeared that stuff all over the cut area. Boy howdy, that sure took the pain away! And away we went. The show must go on.
By the end of our gig, there was blood all over my strings and fret board. But I was feeling no pain. The following days, though, oooph, that finger throbbed with pain.
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ROGirl said on February 16, 2026 at 2:09 pm
Nancy, my workplace is across the street from a grow operation, and when the wind is blowing in the right direction the pot smell is everywhere when you step outside. When I smell it in my car
(on the expressway, not a surface street) I’ve assumed it’s coming from another vehicle. It has been noticeable this winter.
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Scout said on February 16, 2026 at 2:22 pm
There are certain sections of I-10 and I-17 that I drive frequently that always smell of weed, day or night, summer or winter, doesn’t matter. I always figured they were grow houses. Medical weed has been legal here since 2010 and recreational since 2020. It’s a huge industry here, and all the other oldies I play pickleball with swear by it for the aches and pains we incur playing. I’m so old I remember being a member of NORML back in the day!
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Jakash said on February 16, 2026 at 2:35 pm
That’s quite a tale, Susan @ 6. What a trouper! And all for the love of “old-timey/bluegrass” music.
It makes “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” seem like nothing. 🙂
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Little Bird said on February 16, 2026 at 2:41 pm
I’m proud to say that I have never tried coke. Weed on the other hand… I smoke a little bit daily, and often have a gummy before bed. It really does help me with pain and anxiety. It’s legal here medically for years and recreationally for a few years. I swear there’s a dispensary on every other commercial block. Half the city is up in arms about it, the other half is quietly buzzed, relaxing at home. Yeah, some people are smoking out in public, but stoners aren’t the ones causing fights and trouble. That’s the drunks and the tweakers. Fentanyl is a rising problem here. People are smoking it in the public restrooms at the malls and grocery stores. It seems like the EMTs are at the local mall every week to find someone who’s overdosing. It’s mostly in the summer when that happens.
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Brandon said on February 16, 2026 at 3:30 pm
Has anyone here ever kept in touch with Coozledad, or had a mutual friend who knows whatever happened to him?
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nancy said on February 16, 2026 at 4:07 pm
ROGirl, entirely possible. I’d only note it’s been so fucking cold this winter I wonder that anyone would even crack a window to let the smoke out.
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Deborah said on February 16, 2026 at 4:15 pm
I tried coke once at a work party, in a bathroom with a coworker, since I had no idea how to sniff it she said to put a little bit on my little finger tip and put it in my mouth. Never did it again because I was up all night furiously rocking in a rocking chair. Not for me. But I was offered it a lot at work parties after that. No thanks.
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Jeff Borden said on February 16, 2026 at 4:56 pm
Robin Williams once summed up cocaine succinctly in a terrific comedy special: “Something that makes you impotent and paranoid? Gimme more of that!”
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ROGirl said on February 16, 2026 at 5:24 pm
People smoke at home with their windows open. When the weather is warm and I go for a walk, I can smell the pot smoke wafting out of an open window as I go past a house.
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Brandon said on February 16, 2026 at 5:31 pm
New York Times Reverses on Pot
The New York Times editorial board backpedaled its more than decade-old stance that legalizing marijuana “would bring few downsides,” and that it’s a “harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits.”
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alex said on February 16, 2026 at 6:13 pm
Speaking of Robin Williams, I just today happened upon this very prescient standup show he did in 2012…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kupZj_TN_XI
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Icarus said on February 17, 2026 at 8:23 am
I’m a little surprised to see how many people on this site tried coke. I was always too afraid to try any drugs beyond alcohol.
Jesse Jackson has shed his mortal coil. He gave a speech at my G-school graduation — he was simultaneously receiving an honorary degree. It was at Navy Pier and we were lined up in a stuffy, not air conditioned corridor and he was running late.
I also met him on the street once and we shock hands while he was getting into a car or cab
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Julie Robinson said on February 17, 2026 at 9:28 am
You and me both, Icarus, or at least just not interested.
Sorry to hear about Jesse Jackson, a great and flawed warrior in his day. We saw him while dropping off a kid at O’Hare, but didn’t try to get close because BODYGUARDS.
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alex said on February 17, 2026 at 10:05 am
During my Chicago years, Jesse Junior was a rising star in Dem politics, but then he got busted for financial improprieties that look penny-ante next to what’s being tolerated today. He did hard time for it and his career in politics was over.
Jesse Senior became sort of an eminence grise on the world stage, although some considered him an annoying gadfly, but he was always fighting the good fight.
We also lost Robert Duvall. I was a fan of his movie “Tender Mercies,” which first came to my attention in a college class about successful storytelling. The movie was a box office bomb but nonetheless critically acclaimed.
They say these things happen in threes. We should be so lucky…
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Peter said on February 17, 2026 at 10:59 am
Alex, Jesse Jackson Jrs “…career in politics was over.” may be premature: he’s running again to reclaim his old seat in Congress, now that Robin Kelly’s trying for the Senate (and good luck with that…)
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Jeff Gill said on February 17, 2026 at 12:04 pm
God bless Jesse’s memory, and that he was willing to do this:
https://x.com/DannyDeraney/status/2023800692360835511/video/1
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Deborah said on February 17, 2026 at 12:52 pm
I went to Jackson’s Operation Push while I was visiting Chicago when I was in College. It was amazing, I was gripping the arms of the seat I was sitting in to keep myself from standing up and cheering. Lordy that man could preach. “I am somebody”, the crowd was going crazy. I was with a few other young, white, sedate Lutherans and we were moved, more than I ever have been since.
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Jakash said on February 17, 2026 at 3:01 pm
Some fine remarks and a swell SNL video with regard to Jesse Jackson. Julie’s “a great and flawed warrior in his day” works for me.
I’m among those who tried cocaine once, way way back when, offered to me in a bathroom at a wedding reception. I was too drunk to notice any variation in my already altered state. Like Scout @ 3, I much prefer feeling mellow to wired, though I’ve only used the wacky tobacky occasionally and have yet to find an edible that I like. I can get plenty wired from coffee, if I want to, which I pretty much no longer do.
I know that the stated policy of nn.com is that paczki are just jelly donuts that don’t deserve the hype. Nevertheless, it’s Fat Tuesday, which is Paczki Day in Chicago, and I’m enjoying a delicious cherry version from a small local bakery right now. (Small local bakery + late morning visit = no lines, FWIW.) My appreciation of it is almost certainly elevated by the fact that I may well not have had a donut since Paczki Day last year, but so be it.
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Brandon said on February 17, 2026 at 3:25 pm
Re: Pączki. It’s Malasada Tuesday here.
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Suzanne said on February 17, 2026 at 3:27 pm
I never tried cocaine or any other drugs, even pot. Quaaludes were big when I was in college and I was always kind of shocked at the people who took them with no clue what they really were or what they might do.
I learned about paczki from a friend who lived near Calumet City IL which, at that time, had a fairly sizable Polish ethnic population. She, a non-Polish Methodist, wandered into the local bakery one day during Lent and asked if they had any paczki. The clerk (according to my friend) looked at her in astonishment and angrily answered that of course they had no paczki because it was Lent and “YOU CAN’T EAT PACZKI DURING LENT!”
Ever since that, we make it a point to by a couple of pre-Lenten paczki (-:
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Deborah said on February 17, 2026 at 3:41 pm
Jakash, in Chicago I got a really good edible, can’t get it in NM. It’s called Betty’s Eddies something or other, it comes in 10 mg which I cut in half and took about an hour before bedtime when I had kidney stone pain. I used it mainly for pain and it was great for sleep too. It’s more like taffy than a gummy, cherry flavored, best tasting edible ever. The place I got it was on Ohio or Ontario and Wells called Green Rose, it’s got a well done large mural on the side of the building that’s of a green rose (duh), can’t miss it.
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Sherri said on February 17, 2026 at 4:52 pm
After an experience with amphetamines, I never went near cocaine. I didn’t want anything that wound me up any tighter than I already was! A major reason I was attracted to alcohol was that it took the edge off. Smoked some pot and it was okay, but alcohol was more effective for me. Until it wasn’t.
No cannibis for me these days, not willing to test my sobriety.
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Julie Robinson said on February 17, 2026 at 5:09 pm
To be clear, I’m very interested in edibles for pain relief and better sleep, but they aren’t legal here. There is a process where you get a permit or something that costs $300, then you can see one of their doctors, and…I dunno, I’m not convinced the regulation is good and everyone around it seems sketchy. I may have all those details wrong.
A new rite of passage for us; went for our hearing tests and one of us is getting hearing aids. One of us is really really not happy about this. One of us is taking it like an insult to one’s manhood. If you chat with one of us, please don’t mention it.
A gay person reminded me that as far back as 1984, Jesse Jackson included the LGBTQ+ community in the Rainbow/Push Coalition. How many black politicians and especially pastors are that accepting today?
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Sherri said on February 17, 2026 at 5:18 pm
A hospital near the border is being overwhelmed providing charity care to people crossing the border to get care. See, that immigrant invasion is a problem!
Except the border is between Washington and Idaho. A blue state and a red state. A red state that hates taxes, immigrants, and has lost a big chunk of its obstetricians since passing a harsh abortion law.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/charity-care-patients-from-idaho-straining-eastern-wa-hospitals/
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Jeff Gill said on February 17, 2026 at 6:07 pm
Sherrod Brown is not giving any campaign donation money back to Les Wexner, as he never received any. I wish the coverage mentioned that as they list the growing parade of politicians getting their names out as returning his money, since in politics apparently all publicity is good publicity.
If Ted Carter hasn’t had a red folder in a locked drawer for a year or more outlining the action plan to remove all the “Wexner” signage from campus quickly & quietly at Ohio State, I would be greatly surprised. Just wondering what it will take to cause him to implement it.
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Deborah said on February 17, 2026 at 6:46 pm
It’s got over 2.8 million views so far, the Stephen Colbert interview with James Talarico who is running for senator in Texas. You’ve probably all heard by now that Brendan Carr of the FCC said Colbert couldn’t do the interview on air or even talk about not being allowed to do it, but he did talk about it on air and the interview is on You Tube, here it is https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A of course it’s the Streisand effect, way more people will see it now.
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Carter Cleland said on February 17, 2026 at 8:31 pm
Was talking/thinking about PUSH today and recalling that it was People United To SAVE Humanity b/4 it transitioned to People United To SERVE Humanity b/4, in 1996, becoming Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
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David C said on February 18, 2026 at 5:59 am
He’ll get over it, Julie. Hearing better is nice and they say it’s good for your brain too.
I remember watching Jimmy Stewart on The Tonight Show. Johnny asked him if he felt old. Jimmy said “Sure. I look in the mirror, and I’m old”. He went on to say “I have a friend who struggles to to hear. I got tired of it and said get one, they work” as he pulled a hearing aid out of his ear. The audience went nuts laughing.
So he should get one. They work.
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Julie Robinson said on February 18, 2026 at 9:55 am
Oh, he is. I’m a noodge when it comes to health.
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alex said on February 18, 2026 at 10:00 am
My dad loves to pout and moan about not being able to hear anything but he refuses to consider hearing aids. He also doesn’t seem to realize that anymore he’s all talk and no listen, which is why I don’t spend as much time with him as I might otherwise. My mom had the good sense to get hearing aids when the time came for them and she was much better company. She also recognized that her own mother, who eschewed hearing aids, had become a tedious chatterbox without them and she swore she wouldn’t let that happen to herself.
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Mark P said on February 18, 2026 at 10:17 am
I’ve never used any drug other than a very occasional glass of wine, a beer, or heavily spirited egg nog, but all this discussion reminds me of a story from my way-back days. Around 1976 I was crashing behind the sofa of a group of 20-somethings doing the 20-something thing at Lake Tahoe. Two of the girls worked as maids at one of the casino hotels. I was lying behind the sofa, not quite asleep, when they came back from work one night. They were discussing what pills they had found left behind in one of the rooms. It went Iike this:
“Hmm, I wonder what this one is.”
“I don’t know. Let’s take it and find out.”
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Dexter Friend said on February 18, 2026 at 6:00 pm
Wow, man…all kinds of stories rushing about drugs, from the late 60’s to my sobriety date, too many to get started on… but anyway—when I landed in Viet Nam in 1970, I quickly learned the “cocaine” that all the “cowboys” (little boys) were selling was actually 97% pure heroin. Not me, never never, no no no. But they also sold con-sa. That was the strongest weed ever. The myth, if it was a myth, was that Cambodian Red was even much stronger. If we had that, I do not know. I am color blind.
I remember one night in a tavern in Indiana, a guy who was an acquaintance was drinking with “my group” at a table. He had his GF with him. She saw a van pull up, jumped up, ran out to the van…my friend yelled at her that if she got in that van, they were through. It was the coke dealer…and away went that van. She inside.
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Sherri said on February 18, 2026 at 6:39 pm
It was announced today that the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks are for sale. Nobody here is surprised by this; the terms of Paul Allen’s will stipulated that all his assets be sold and the money used for philanthropy, though there was no timeline specified. Under the terms of the agreement that funded the stadium where they play, until 2024, 10% of the gross from any sale would have been owed to King County. Now that that date has passed, and now that the Portland Trailblazers sale is about to close, it was expected that the Seahawks sale process would begin.
What’s interesting is that at one time, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Steve Ballmer would have been the most popular candidates among fans for buying the team. Now, judging from what I’m seeing in comment sections, fans don’t want Bezos or Gates anywhere near their beloved Seahawks. The most popular option? Jody Allen, Mackenzie Scott, and Melinda French Gates joining forces to buy the Seahawks. (Jody Allen is Paul Allen’s sister, and has been acting as owner of the team for Paul Allen’s trust since his death.)
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Deborah said on February 18, 2026 at 8:52 pm
I only wear my hearing aids when I’m out in the world around other people and because I’ve become such a homebody that’s not very often. I need to do some work on them, changing filters etc, I wore them today and my right one is barely working but that’s my best side so I got by.
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Mark P said on February 18, 2026 at 9:43 pm
I’m really out of the loop. I just learned that Trump will visit my hometown of Rome, Ga, tomorrow, Thursday, I guess because early voting has started for the replacement for MTG. I just hope it doesn’t interfere with my trip downtown to the cat rescue group that’s taking our two cats. Or with my regular lunch with relatives. Or my trip down to the nursing home where my wife is currently staying. One of his stops is along the route from my aunt’s assisted living, which may cause problems if I have to pick her up for lunch. He screws up *everything*.
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Colleen said on February 18, 2026 at 10:25 pm
My husband’s hearing is awful. He blasts the tv, and gets mad when I say “never mind” after repeating myself three times. All those years in radio have taken their toll. I’m working on getting him to go to a hearing clinic….because a grown man should have his wife managing his health care.
His mother had hearing aids and stubbornly refused to wear them. Like mother, like son, I guess. The thing that irks me is that he acts like it’s everyone else’s fault he can’t hear. His sister mumbles. I don’t talk loudly enough. No dude, you need hearing aids!
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ROGirl said on February 19, 2026 at 6:07 am
Holy crap! The member of the Windsor family formerly known as Prince Andrew has been arrested.
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Jeff Gill said on February 19, 2026 at 6:49 am
But here in central Ohio . . . one of the Democratic congressional reps who came to depose Les Wexner said they got a better idea of his influence getting off their plane at the airport and seeing his name about a dozen times on buildings and ads on their way to the hotel, even before heading into New Albany (created with significant help from J.E.) & the Wexner estate.
On the Olympics coverage, major ad time is by the three major health systems battling it out for our inevitable expenditures, and I can’t help but think Ted Carter and other key leaders are uneasy as all heck with the repeated presence of OSU Wexner Medical Center ads, which apparently they can’t pull because that would be unilateral disarmament versus the massive presence of OhioHealth with an irritatingly compelling narrative campaign of fragmented stories in quick cuts woven into some well-chosen music.
But the brand damage to Ohio State by saying Wexner Wexner Wexner right now on TV each night next to the sacred block O . . . I’d pull ’em, but what do I know about development work? Meanwhile local media is freed to talk in detail and at length about long known public stories as if it’s all breaking news, which is fascinating in a creepy tragic way itself.
Full disclosure: the Farmer assaults all took place less than 20 miles west of me as the crow flies, as does Les & Abigail’s pied-a-terre, the jewel in the setting which is New Albany.
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Dave said on February 19, 2026 at 7:57 am
My wife has been wearing hearing aids for at least three years now, I tend to lose track of time. She’s been told her entire life that she has exceptionally small ear canals and this doesn’t help her hearing. I doubt that anyone is ever happy to start wearing them and she had a lot of trouble getting a proper fit because of the tips that enter into the ear canal, we made many trips to the audiologist trying to get something that fit her without irritation. It hasn’t been pleasant. We also have a wireless speaker that she keeps on an end table that broadcasts the audio from the TV.
Colleen, I have to say, I don’t know what I would have done had she had that attitude.
The piece of trash has sued the IRS and the DOJ for $10 billion, where does it end with this utter waste?
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David C said on February 19, 2026 at 9:07 am
I’ve had my hearing aids for a couple of years. I got tired of saying what all the time. I’ve had hearing problems since I got measles when I was four years old. With my wife’s Parkinson’s disease causing her voice to be quiet, I didn’t have a choice, really.
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