My school district is being sued in federal court. The story might be paywalled, so I’ll quote a bit more liberally than I usually do:
A parent filed suit in federal court March 23, saying the Grosse Pointe Public School System violated his First Amendment right to free speech and also defamed him when it banned him from district buildings after he posted a video critical of a LGBTQ+ flag in a classroom and suggested the teachers were indoctrinating students.
According to the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, Gary Pruitt was attending his child’s back to school night at Parcells Middle School in September 2024 when he saw LGBTQ+ flags in the school. He contacted the principal to ask what was being taught to students. The principal referred him to the district’s interim superintendent, who suggested he contact the school board.
…Later that fall, Pruitt posted a video of the flag in a classroom to a Facebook group for district parents. In the video, he said the flag represented “radical programming being forced upon children by adults.”
He also posed a question: “Do you want to continue to let these groomer teachers push their distorted worldview upon your children … or would you like to stand with us in speaking out against it?”
Afterward, the district banned Pruitt from its school buildings and other district facilities, with, Pruitt said in the lawsuit, police showing up at his home to deliver a letter informing him of the ban. Pruitt said the middle school posted a photo of him in the middle school office, identifying him as a trespasser, which caused other students to ridicule his child.
Pruitt saw the flag during back-to-school night, and later entered the school (seemingly after hours) and walked the halls until he found it, shooting video all the while, giving running commentary as he did, then posted it on Facebook. Today he wonders why the school won’t let him back in.
I keep thinking about the word “emboldened.” The worst people in the country are feeling emboldened now. They want veto power over everything they don’t like. Tolerance? What’s that? If there’s a gay pride flag somewhere in my kid’s school, that just means SOMEONE is telling SOMEONE that being gay or lesbian or bi or whatever isn’t a hanging offense, WHICH IS NOT WHAT I’M TEACHING THEM AT HOME AND IT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
It’s true that parents go a little nuts around middle school time, when kids start to be more sexual. (I do not believe in a latency period, Dr. Freud.) It’s freaky when you realize that one day your little girl will probably have sex with someone before she marries him, or your son might be interested in boys more than girls. I recall getting Kate the HPV shot when she was…about 12, I think. There was a little shudder, thinking that my baby would eventually be someone else’s, and not in the same sense. But I recognized it as normal, acknowledged it and let it go. Some people can’t do that.
Why do these folks live in cities, I often wonder. Move to some rural outpost and tie your kid to a fencepost like a dog. Not too many pride flags there. (The same percentage of gay people, however. And groomers.)
Grr.
I’m in a crabby mood, as you can see. The rest of my week is going to be pretty busy, so this may be it until the weekend. Or maybe not! One never knows. Enjoy the midweek.
Sherri said on March 25, 2026 at 12:33 am
I’m in a crabby mood, too. I’ve decided that you just aren’t allowed to hate immigrants if your own ancestors haven’t been in this country since before the Civil War. I mean, you shouldn’t hate immigrants even then, but I’m really annoyed by people like Stephen Miller and Greg Bovino who want to deport everyone when they grew up with family members who remember the family who came from the old country.
If your ancestors came before the Civil War, then you can’t complain about “illegal” immigrants, because people just came; there was no system of legal immigration then.
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Sherri said on March 25, 2026 at 12:53 am
Oh, and we all might want to know that Bab el-Mandeb means Gate of Tears in Arabic.
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Jeff Gill said on March 25, 2026 at 7:26 am
My Native American friends in Oklahoma are all sharing on various platforms the clip of Trump yesterday introducing Markwayne Mullin as his new Homeland Security secretary. He’s surprised to learn a basic fact about the guy, which says VOLUMES about his vetting process, and then hits the classic vibe of “oh, but you don’t look like an Indian” with him. The cringe, it is intense.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/955495030264850
(There’s also a clip later in the same sequence when he gives Hegseth the podium to sum up the state of affairs in Iran, and Pete gets excited about being “hard” with an . . . eloquent hand motion, and Trump does an eyebrow raise which might make you spit out your morning coffee. It’s easy enough to find; if I post two links this’ll go to moderation, so I’ll stick with the racist clip for your edification.)
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alex said on March 25, 2026 at 8:30 am
Meanwhile here in Indiana, our governor is “partnering” our public schools with TPUSA, and he defends this move as necessary to counterbalance all of the supposed “leftist ideology” being advanced in public education. So “grooming” and “indoctrination” are okee-doke with MAGA as long it mints new Republican voters and White nationalists.
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ROGirl said on March 25, 2026 at 8:36 am
Am I the only person who saw TPUSA and thought TPUSSY?
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Julie Robinson said on March 25, 2026 at 11:28 am
TP will always read toilet paper to me. And Florida is doing the same thing with Turning Point, so there’s plenty to be crabby about.
Then there’s a glimmer of hope: Trump’s new representative in the Florida legislature is a woman and a Democrat. Emily Gregory flipped the seat blue, with Trump cheating by mailing in his ballot. Cheating, that’s what he called it as recently as Monday. Laws are for thee and not for me.
JeffG, I am NOT doing a search for Hegseth getting hard.
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Jeff Gill said on March 25, 2026 at 12:04 pm
At 25 seconds is the eyebrow raise… this is the shortest version I could find, and you’re welcome.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/2036518500265763197?s=20
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Deborah said on March 25, 2026 at 12:52 pm
I have to say reading a bit about Markwayne and his background makes me feel a bit of empathy for him. According to Wikipedia he had a clubfoot and wore a brace for it and had a speech impediment as a kid. Maybe he got bullied a lot which could explain his attitudes now, instead of understanding and learning how bullying is bad for everybody, he may have gotten scrappy as revenge and has stayed that way, unfortunately. As far as his Cherokee pedigree, in Oklahoma there is no percentage required as long as you have at least one direct ancestor who is listed on the Dawes Rolls (official tribal rolls) dating back to 1898 – 1906. You have to prove that by birth, death, marriage certificates. Maybe his own mother or father was full blood for all I know. At least we know that he considers native American issues as something important, that’s good. I know the guy is a huge Trumper and I don’t respect him for that but at least now I can kind of imagine how he might have gotten to love a bully. That’s sad though.
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David C said on March 25, 2026 at 1:12 pm
It’s been a while, but didn’t Elizabeth Warren meet the same standard of having an Indian ancestor? If so, Trump better start calling Markwaynebillybob Squanto.
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Suzanne said on March 25, 2026 at 1:51 pm
It’s always interesting to me that people who grew up with obstacles in front of them (poverty, health issues, being bullied, etc) as adults are generally either very compassionate and caring or mean jerks like MarkW seems to be. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. The compassionate take what happened to them and vow that they will help others through while the jerks decide to protect themselves by being nasty and mean in order to avoid ever being victimized again.
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Dorothy said on March 25, 2026 at 3:39 pm
This might be a bit of a stretch, but speaking of dogs and moving, last week I bumped into one of my neighbors who has two dogs. Our dogs love each other so it’s always a happy thing when we cross paths. Roger said he was in the middle of cleaning up some #2 from one of his dogs when the owner of said place spoke to him in a very cranky voice: I don’t appreciate you letting your dogs go in my yard. WHILE HE WAS PICKING UP THE POO.
My good man, if this makes you unhappy why didn’t you move into a community where they don’t allow dogs?! I can’t stand people like that. You live in a big world, Mister. The man was doing the right thing and cleaning up after his dog. Get over yourself.
We also don’t do our own grass cutting or landscape stuff at all in these homes. We pay big bucks to the HOA and a company does all that for us. The yards are the size of postage stamps. We have NO UPKEEP. Why does the dog going in his yard bug him so much?
You can tell I’m cranky now, too.
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David C said on March 25, 2026 at 4:02 pm
I think sometimes HOAs attract people like that. They’re as much concerned that you might think of doing something wrong as much as they’re concerned about someone actually doing something wrong. They were probably hall monitors in their youth. So far, our HOA seems pretty chill. I hope it stays that way.
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James Friend said on March 25, 2026 at 4:03 pm
I just accept my status as owner of an ancient frame house. Water usage went up 40%. I tracked the cause, a silent leak of a toilet tank. Plumber coming first thing tomorrow, $164 to enter the house and after 1 hour, $100 per hour. I suppose that is cheap for others in affluent areas; I am not complaining. I am hoping for a quick fix, or else I will have a new shut-off valve installed ( the 4 year old one is corroded shut) and just not use that toilet anymore; I have two in the house. I won’t be living here after I hit 80 in 3.5 years so I am not upgrading this old house any more than I have to. By 2030 , I’ll be moving to Port St. Lucie to live with my daughter and her husband, if their offer will still be standing. I’ll see them Saturday at Te-Ke-la, a cocina/restaurant in Toledo for her birthday. My daughter will be 55. Her sister will soon be 58. Even if they did come with Carla Lee when we married, that still ensures that I am an old man.
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alex said on March 25, 2026 at 5:22 pm
I would have no objection to dogs shitting in my yard if their owners were cleaning it up, but some aren’t, and I may have to get a poo cam and embarrass them on social media.
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Colleen said on March 25, 2026 at 5:51 pm
One of our neighbors flew a drone over another neighbor’s back yard and anonymously reported a shed being built. (Not allowed by HOA regs) Other neighbors posted that anonymous should mind his beeswax and shamed him for spying on someone’s back yard.
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Deborah said on March 25, 2026 at 6:03 pm
There undoubtedly will be a tyrant involved in every HOA, it seems to be a rule. There always has to be one person who’ll go apeshit over the most insignificant thing.
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Sherri said on March 25, 2026 at 8:56 pm
Whether or not an HOA is involved, there’s something about suburbia that makes some people think they ought to be able to control their environment precisely. They want the advantages of living among people, but they don’t want the messiness of living among other people. An HOA just gives them more ammunition.
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Dexter said on March 26, 2026 at 8:38 am
I was hacked! Ha! My last post used my real name, James. I took the name Dexter from my old chatroom days when we all had aliases or dumb nicknames. One former neighbor from my childhood asked if I had gone into farming and had Dexter cows. No…it was because I am a big fan of Dexter Gordon’s tenor saxophone genius. Man, he’s been gone 36 years come April 25.
Plumber fixed my minor issues in just 25 minutes. Fine service. Stark’s Plumbing & Heating, Bryan, Ohio. 🙂
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alex said on March 26, 2026 at 10:21 am
I’ll say this for our HOA, it’s very live-and-let-live. And I serve on the board because so few conscientious people are willing to take on the work that needs to get done, like dues collecting and bill paying, and maintaining common areas so that we don’t have to raise dues to hire a landscaping service. We get an earful from people bitching about their neighbors but it’s nothing that ever rises to a level that warrants our intervention, and most back off if we tell them to take their concerns to the offending party before they bring them to us. In 100 percent of cases we know that they’re acting out of personal animus and not genuine concern. We’ve had some jerks try to serve on the board in the past whose only purpose was to get retribution on neighbors, but these folks always flake off when they find that the rest of the board isn’t willing to go along with their schemes. All in all I’d say we’ve got it pretty good here.
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Julie Robinson said on March 26, 2026 at 10:47 am
No HOA here, or our front yard garden shenanigans would never be allowed. Our son and wife came back from a trip to a notice of a dirty driveway that must be corrected or they’d be fined. Geesh. Of course, it made for an easy birthday present, a pressure washer.
Dexter, I’d think hard about moving sooner rather than later. It gets harder every year you age, all the packing and address changing and doctor finding.
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Mark P said on March 26, 2026 at 10:55 am
Our neighborhood has a restrictive covenant, but no HOA, so the covenant isn’t enforced. A few people have done things not strictly according to the covenant, like leaving concrete block foundations exposed, but this area is more rural than suburban, so no one really cares. The real problem is that the county doesn’t enforce the zoning ordinance or even simple health codes. A neighbor had a house that is completely out of character with other houses. He put it on the market for three times what other houses sell for here, and had to finance part of it himself. The buyer turned it into a residence for people being treated for drug addiction, so it violates the zoning, and it has more residents than the septic system is sized for. Even worse, one guy moved a tiny home onto his property, and he doesn’t even have a septic system. He dumps sewage right onto the ground. Fortunately, neither is close enough to us to cause problems for us.
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DavidC said on March 26, 2026 at 11:48 am
I was on the board of our HOA for our previous home in Michigan and I’d rather be dead in a ditch than do it again. There were only nine homes on the street with three of them deciding they didn’t have to pay the dues. They all said because they paid property taxes the county should maintain the private street. When I moved away, they were still fighting. I wish I knew how it turned out. It soured my from ever doing it again, though.
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4dbirds said on March 26, 2026 at 11:59 am
My HOA sent us a letter with violations which will probably cost us between 5 and 10k. I haven’t been reading or commenting on Nance’s site since I haven’t been doing much for the past five years except taking care of my daughter. I can’t remember if I mentioned her brain tumor in 2019, but after years of neurosurgery and targeted radiation, it is back and growing. She is on palliative care. There is no more treatment, and she isn’t quite ready for hospice so we’ll manage her pain and go forward with and live as best as we can. I retired in Feb 25, since I couldn’t stand the fact of working for the orange Cheeto a second time. Virginia Medicaid pays me a small stipend to care for her. I’ve missed all of you. I miss the thoughtful and informed comments, the humor, the insight and the knowing that there are people out there like me. Well, I’ll be busy for weeks, I have five years of posts and comments to catch up on.
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Suzanne said on March 26, 2026 at 1:22 pm
I am so sorry for what you and your daughter are going through 4dbirds. Brain tumors are horrific. Peace to you and your daughter as you navigate through this.
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Peter said on March 26, 2026 at 3:08 pm
4dbirds – I am so sorry to hear about your daughter. I hope her suffering can be reduced.
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Deborah said on March 26, 2026 at 4:15 pm
Oh 4dbirds, I’m so sorry to hear this. I hope you have peace and some hope on this journey. How old is your daughter, if I may ask?
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Julie Robinson said on March 26, 2026 at 4:22 pm
4dbirds, I’m so sorry for what you and your daughter have been going through. I hope and pray you are able to care for your own mental health. As a caregiver myself now, I find that the tricky part. (Writing from yet another waiting room.)
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4dbirds said on March 26, 2026 at 7:55 pm
Thank you everyone and to answer your questions, please indulge me in what I think will be a long reply. My daughter, Katie is 35. We started this journey when she was 17 months old and was diagnosed with a leukemia called juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia. The only protocol was chemo, total body radiation and a bone marrow transplant. They read us all the informed consents with all the things that ‘may’ happen from the treatment and ignored it begging them to save my baby. Since my husband is first generation Irish, he had very specific DNA and the closest match was his sister who gladly volunteered to be her donor. The protocol actually cured her leukemia, but we went down a path of every known and unknown effect of chemo and radiation on a toddler’s body. Diabetes, stunted growth, serious dental issues, learning disabilities, she didn’t go into puberty, developed osteoporosis, and behavior problems. I despaired over the times the police brought her home or her court appearances for behaviors, mostly fueled by drugs and alcohol.
On one visit to our family doctor in 2019, they noticed a bump by her saliva glands and suggested we take her to an ENT. They suggested a CT and told us to see a neurologist who suggested an MRI. They told us she had a mass and further referred us to a neurosurgeon.
The diagnosis was a meningioma and suggested she have MRIs so they could manage it and do surgery when it interfered with anything in her brain. He also told us meningiomas are associated with radiation and head injuries. Not always but in enough cases that it is considered a possible long-term effect of radiation. The irony is that a few years after her initial treatment, researchers in Europe developed another protocol that didn’t involve radiation. The watch and wait on her tumor lasted less than a year for the next MRI showed significant growth. She had surgery and directed brain radiation because they couldn’t get all of it. The radiation caused significant neuro-cognitive decline, and we basically had a 5-year-old child on our hands.
The last two MRIs showed the tumor is back and growing. She started experience pain as it presses against her eye and nerves. There is no more treatment. Surgery would kill her as it is deep and radiation would do nothing good for her brain. The amount of pain killer that keeps her comfortable made her eligible for palliative care. No one thinks she’s ready for hospice, but that will come. We don’t know her timeline. It could be months or years. My gut says less than a year. My rational self says if I could go back in time, I would turn down that informed consent and say, ‘let her go’. Of course, that never would have happened. She was and is a much loved and wanted child. Thanks for listening. Julie, who do you care for? Are you able to get paid from an agency such as medicaid or VA?
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Dorothy said on March 26, 2026 at 8:41 pm
My heart aches for your daughter, and you, 4dbirds. A tragic and mind boggling path for your family. I will be thinking of all of you. I don’t regularly pray like I used to, but rather I have conversations with the Almighty in my head. I’ll be imploring for the suffering to be over soon.
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Mark P said on March 26, 2026 at 10:38 pm
4dbirds, it’s heartbreaking, for you and your daughter. I can’t imagine the pain.
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ROGirl said on March 27, 2026 at 4:02 am
So sorry for what you and your daughter have been going through, 4db.
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Julie Robinson said on March 27, 2026 at 8:54 am
4dbirds, my mom and daughter live with us. Mom is almost 94, memory issues, almost blind, refuses any exercise so is frail, and cranky as hell. Husband has heart problems, had surgery and rehab, but is on a boatload of meds with their own side effects. I have to make and go to every medical appointment, oversee the meds, deal with the insurance and paperwork, rinse and repeat. You know. No Medicaid or VA, no pay, fortunately don’t need it at this point. Daughter is our lifeline and picks up slack wherever possible, but has a demanding job as a pastor and social activist. Every week she creates a menu plan and shopping list and that’s a huge mental burden lifted. I am grateful and aware of how much worse it could be. I will be thinking about you as I face today’s problems.
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Suzanne said on March 27, 2026 at 9:49 am
4dbirds, I am so sorry you and your daughter have to endure this. My dear sister had a brain tumor (glioblastoma so different than your daughter) in 2024 and it, too, was too deep in the brain for surgery. It was horrible and there is no sugar coating it. My heart goes out to you and your daughter and I wish I could do more to help.
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Dave said on March 27, 2026 at 3:37 pm
4dbirds, so sorry that you’ve had to struggle with this. I can’t add any better words to what others have said.
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Jeff Gill said on March 27, 2026 at 3:51 pm
4dbirds, glad to hear from you, even if the news is sad; I hope you can stay connected here. The line from Spider Robinson about shared pain being lessened and shared joy magnified I think holds true in practice. There’s little more to say other than we’re sorry, and we care, and I hope you have some reinforcements in real time where you are. Caregiving is a load to carry, and it helps to set it down occasionally if you can.
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Mark P said on March 27, 2026 at 5:36 pm
I just finished doing our federal and state income tax returns using Online Taxes (OLT.com). If your AGI is under $51000 (I think) it’s free. I did ours there last year, so they still had most of my information. It was fairly quick and painless. Now I have to do my 87-year-old aunt’s taxes. My uncle left her well-provided for, so her return will be a little harder than ours.
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Julie Robinson said on March 27, 2026 at 7:29 pm
Mark, it’s similar here in that our taxes are quite simple and my mom’s more complex. She has bank accounts in two states and had received several inheritance. We’ve been whittling them down but have a ways to go.
Okay, I now have experienced the old person version of hunting through the trash after your kid left their retainer on their lunch tray. Yesterday I got to search 20 feet of scratchy bushes, hunting for a hearing aid. After we got home from his appointment D said he was missing one of his hearing aids, the ones he’s had less than a month. I called the facility to see if one had been turned in, but no dice.
Next I remembered they have a find me feature, so we pulled up the app and it said last seen at the facility. Back we trekked through late Friday traffic, where the lovely people helped us search and even emptied the dirty linens one by one. The app showed the aid right along the edge of the building, narrowing it down outside in the shrubs. After half an hour of pulling out trash and scratching our hands we gave up. I was kind of furious and told him he needed to contact Costco to take care of the replacement process. 24 hours later this has not happened.
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alex said on March 28, 2026 at 10:21 am
Good to see you again 4dbirds and I’m sorry about all that you’ve been going through.
Julie, we’re trying to help my 98-year-old dad get his taxes done and he has somehow managed to misplace or throw away all of his tax documents this year.
Getting ready to go to our No Kings event this afternoon.
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Dave said on March 28, 2026 at 11:06 am
Oh, that’s a dilemma, Alex, is there any way that can be accessed online? If you don’t know all of his accounts, then it’s another problem but perhaps last year’s return could provide some clues. That’s very upsetting, three upsetting posts, between Julie Robinson’s D’s lost hearing aid and the sad news that 4dbirds is living with, now your problem.
That fat worthless idiot wants to put his signature on all the currency.
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Deborah said on March 28, 2026 at 12:06 pm
A little less than an hour, I’ll be walking to the No Kings protest in Grant Park in Chicago. It officially starts at 1, I’ll be leaving at noon (CDT), it doesn’t take that long to walk there but I’ll be taking my time. I hope it’s huge, it’s sunny with a high expected in the upper 40s and not much wind, so far anyway. I looked at a weather map of the US and it looks like good weather all over the place, I hope that means lots of people will be out in it at a protest in their area.
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Mark P said on March 28, 2026 at 12:30 pm
I saw a suggestion for what to do if Trump gets his name on currency. It involves a sharpie. You could black out the name, or just add “pedo” to it. It almost makes me want him to do it. I’m
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David C said on March 28, 2026 at 12:32 pm
I’m at the No Kings protest in Kalamazoo. To my eye, I looks like maybe 25% more this time than last. I took the bus and I’m glad I did. Everyone is saying you have to walk quite a few block from where you park.
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Julie Robinson said on March 28, 2026 at 12:45 pm
Oh man, Alex, that’s tough. Electronic access is probably the only way to get them in time, unless you file for an extension. Crud.
One advantage of Mom living with us is that I can snap up all the documents as they come in and save them in a file folder, just like our own. I live with three people who can lose things walking them to another room. Kinda tired of all the adulting I’m having to do. There is a trip to NYC coming up, at least.
Staying home as that designated adult this afternoon. Our daughter will be leading the Orlando Singing Resistance, a group she formed after seeing Minnesotans protesting through song. And she bought herself a megaphone. They will be noticed!
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susan said on March 28, 2026 at 2:11 pm
At today’s protest, I will carry a Minnesota state flag on a light-weight metal pole. A sign without words.
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Sherri said on March 28, 2026 at 3:05 pm
4dbirds, glad you’re back with us, and sorry for what you and your daughter are going through. Even if it’s only virtual, this community is real, and we care for each other.
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Deborah said on March 28, 2026 at 6:15 pm
I’m back from the Chicago protest. I have no way of knowing how many people were there, if it was bigger than the last one or not? From where I was standing it was very hard to tell. It was really long and I got such a sore back from standing listening to music and speakers, I had to peel off earlier during the march because slow walking was killing me. There isn’t a lot of press about the whole country, so it’s hard to tell how effective it was or will be. My sign got lots of photos again. One guy had a hilarious sign that compared a photo of Stephen Miller with a photo of an anal polyp and it was right on. We connected because my sign was Stephen Miller’s face on a rat body and said “nazi”.
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4dbirds said on March 28, 2026 at 7:21 pm
First, I’m amazed and heartened to hear of everyone’s elderly parents. My own mother lived to be 95. She grew up on a farm in Missouri and lived much of her adult as an army wife. She traveled, went to college in her forties and became quite a good painter. I consider her life well lived. Suzanne, I’m so sorry to hear about your sister. When Katie was first diagnosed, I was relieved to know she didn’t have a glioblastoma, little did I know that brain tumors are mother-f-ers and they do what they want. I hope your sister had good relief at the end. I think Katie will, but who knows? Hospice took good care of my sister and my mother. I received a notice from the IRS that I understated our income in 2023 and we owe the money. I was surprised but I did owe, only because I didn’t understand how bitcoin was reported and taxed. It took a couple of weeks, but I found all my buys and sells and got my capital gains down to where I only owe a couple of k. I still stubbornly do my own taxes. Maybe with bitcoin I should have hired an accountant. I don’t watch any legacy news anymore. I follow people on YouTube and Substack. None of legacy news will ask the felon the questions I want asked. One is why don’t you have a scar on your ear? Another is when did you as an adult start having sex with children? I know, I know, they can’t, but still there are ways of asking without really asking.
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