I think we’ve tipped into Princess Diana territory now. That is, the reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk is now at the level of hysteria, egged on by, among others, the widow Kirk, who first delivered a statement with a whiff of Rwanda c. 1994, and then posted one of the cringiest videos I’ve seen in some time, featuring herself mourning over the body of her husband in his casket, whispering I love you while the camera got in close enough to see every detail and capture every sound.
It was awful, the sort of spectacle that makes you think, girl, do you not have one friend or close associate who could tell you what a terrible idea this is? And then you realize, no she doesn’t, and in fact, they were probably all egging her on. Because content. And branding. And reach. And engagement. Rick Perlstein, a historian for whom I have a great deal of respect, wrote on Facebook that it’s of a piece with Jackie Kennedy refusing to take off her bloodstained pink suit after her own husband was shot. I wouldn’t go that far, but if there’s even a shred of truth to it, I don’t feel the least bit terrible about my cold cinder of a heart. Empathy is the most human emotion there is, but there are still ways to kill it.
In the confusion of recent days and of the confusion still to come, here’s something smart I read Saturday. It’s by Cary Gabriel Costello, a sociology professor at UW-Milwaukee. It’s long, and I feel bad about pasting it in its entirety, but it was posted on Costello’s Facebook page, and I don’t know of any other way to share the whole thing, since many of you have left that platform, and good for you. Here’s a link to it, anyway. One thing I try to remember as a mantra when big news breaks is: More will be revealed. Also, and this is increasingly true, not everything you see, even in a legit news source, is true, or even factual. As I look at the case of Tyler Robinson from the perspective of Sunday afternoon, I see a motivation that could be comprised of political philosophy, dead-endism and a large smattering of legit mental illness, as Robinson is smack in the middle of that fraught age range when those afflictions present themselves.
But I think it has more to do with what Costello writes, and I’ll stop blathering and let you guys read it. Happy week ahead and let’s reach the end of it with our sanity intact:
Hi. I took a month off social media, but I’m back upon request to talk about the person who shot Charlie Kirk this week.
Here’s what we know: shooter Tyler Robinson comes from a family of Republicans and loved hunting with them. He was obviously very proficient with guns. He was a gamer and very online. He etched his bullet casings with trolling phrases that reflect this online cultural milieu. And while his politics may have once been mainstream conservative ones, he had become disillusioned with the Republican party—because, as he told a friend, he had come to see them as little different from the Democrats, too content with the system that he wanted to see smashed.
You will see him referred to as a “groyper.” That’s a term for the followers of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who hated Charlie Kirk for not being racist enough.
Groypers harassed Kirk at his public events for years—the so-called “Groyper Wars.” Now consider the collage of images I’ve attached to this post. In the first image, you see the classic meme pose of the groyper: wearing a tracksuit and doing the “Slavic squat.” In the middle we see alt-right meme icon Pepe the frog in the groyper costume and pose. At the right, we see shooter Tyler Robinson in the same pose and costume.
Does a photo of Tyler Robinson in his 2018 Halloween costume dressed up as a groyper meme mean that Robinson considered himself a groyper in 2025? Not necessarily. What it does show was that he was familiar with the group and portrayed himself as one of them at that time. But there is a possible clue in what he etched on one of his unspent bullet casings: the chorus to the song Bella Ciao. This song was an Italian antifacist folk song that was treated as an ironic anthem by the groypers.
I want to point out that all across the major mainstream news outlets as I write, the fact that Bella Ciao was etched by Robinson on his ammo is being presented as evidence that he was an antifascist. I’m sure that was part of the fun for Robinson. As the other messages he etched show, he loved to troll. That’s central to the whole business of the channish online inchoate masculinist clan: mock your enemies, and show proficiency with in-jokes to impress your chortling tribe while leaving the other team befuddled and confused.
The set of narratives expected about motivations by news sources and politicians are very much disconnected with the messages sent by lots of young shooters seeking fame today. Etched on one of Robinson’s bullet casings is “hey fascist—CATCH!” Almost all of the news sources I have just checked are presenting this as proof that Robinson was antifa. They are not headlining the markings on other bullet casings—most local news stories are not even mentioning the others. And that’s because they don’t fit this narrative. The one that housed the bullet that killed Charlie Kirk read, “Notices bulges, OwO what’s this?” That’s a phrase used to taunt opponents in game chats and social media, mockingly pretending that the speaker is a furry expressing sexual interest in the person being mocked. It’s very much like the phrase etched on another casing: “if you read this you are gay lmao.” The point of these etched messages was to taunt Kirk. To own him. To show dominance and prowess. This was like a video game in real life, where everyone would see how good a shot Robinson is, and those in the know would admire his memery.
But the media (Fox no less than the NY Times), and politicians, and influencers, and vast swathes of Americans unfamiliar with this online, game-flavored masculinist form of communication can’t parse any of that. They want to answer a simple question: was the shooter leftwing or rightwing? Or, since most presumed he MUST be an infuriated leftie, which flavor of “woke” were they? The immediate speculation was that Robinson must be trans. Social media are clogged with thousands of posts asserting this. The Wall Street Journal initially reported that there was evidence that was the case. And they got that “information” from federal investigators, who claimed two pieces of “evidence”. The first was that the base of the bullet casings all contained a series of stamped letters including “TRN””, which was interpreted to stand for Trans. Those were just the manufacturer’s mark; the company was Turan Ammo.
The second piece of “evidence” was an etching read “↑ → ↓ ↓ ↓”. Why that was interpreted as “pro-transgender,” I have no idea. Either FBI investigators drafting internal communications were beyond incompetent in somehow interpreting this as trans messaging, or the statement that pro-trans messages were found on the bullets was always disinformation that someone leaked to the press in order to put fuel on the fire of the hate-narrative that trans people are violently unhinged. In any case, it’s nonsensical.
In fact, that series of arrows are just representations of the controller moves used when playing the game Helldivers 2 in order to drop a giant bomb. Robinson was showing a little love to fellow gamers while signaling he was the overpowered dispenser of destruction.
Robinson’s “manifesto” here is essentially that it is Game Over for the famous Charlie Kirk, conquered by Robinson. To the extent that he has politics legible to the familiar Democrats-vs-Republicans mainstream narrative we are all way too familiar with, it is most likely that he was at least sympathetic to the far right. His Ciao Bella was a likely nod to the groypers. But it was also an attempt, along with his “hey fascist—CATCH,” to stir hatred on the more mainstream right against the left. Robinson is above all else an accelerationist. He and his ilk want a war. They want America as it stands to burn. What they believe will rise from the ashes varies, and some are black-pilled enough to hope nothing does. But they all want to blow things up.
Robinson wanted people to pore over his etched messages, so he’d be inside our heads, taking up space, getting attention. He also wanted his messages to be confusing and seem contradictory so that people would fight about what they meant. Hopefully we’d tear one another to pieces over conflicting interpretations.
The correct thing to do under the circumstances is not to feed the troll and give him what he wants: attention, social conflict, rising violence. Unfortunately, our president is not the sort of person to bring Americans together. He has declared that the left is to blame for the shooting, and anyone who critiques Kirk now that he is a martyr is fomenting terrorism. He’s not about to walk that back. And MAGA will follow his lead. If you looked around various social media in the 24 hours after the shooting, you saw thousands of people calling for actions from the banning of all leftist organizations to the extermination of Democrats to locking up all trans people in institutions.
Of course, there were also calmer heads on the right, and Republican politicians who at least acknowledged that Democratic politicians have recently been assassinated or had their houses burnt down. But the problem is that MAGA politics are not about compromise and standing up for the rights of those with differing political positions and identities. Everything happening in our national politics right now makes that clear.
Yet national reporting also shows that if there is one thing that Americans agree on right now, it is that they don’t feel safe and that something is seriously wrong with the nation. And while that’s certainly a very negative feeling, I think a lot about how we might capitalize on that and turn things around—before accelerationist, triggerhappy gloryhounds like Tyler Robinson take us all down.
I hope you are thinking about how to turn things around as well.
Brett Erin Webb said on September 14, 2025 at 3:53 pm
My local newspaper here in beautiful Southwest Ohio was all ” Beloved Republican leader cruelty struck down in the prime of life by assassin, probably a democratic communist tranny.” For a day and a half. By Friday evening there was a slight mention.. I didn’t see anything yesterday and there’s nothing today except an article from Wednesday before young Tyler got turned in.
If anyone was going to give a shit it would be my Trump addled neighbors. They don’t seem to care. The Dayton Daily News would be happy to print any crap they thought the locals would swallow.
I’ve been reading here for years. (Edroso sent me.) I don’t think I’ve ever commented. It’s a great place!
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Mark P said on September 14, 2025 at 4:32 pm
So they call that the Slavic squat. About 50 years ago when I was a reporter, I was at some outdoor event and squatted like that. One of my coworkers asked me if I had been to Vietnam. I guess that type of squat was common among the Vietnamese. I suppose that war was too long ago for that to be understood in our culture today.
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alex said on September 14, 2025 at 5:49 pm
The Slavic squat sounds like something Melania would have done astride her clientele wearing six-inch heels and nothing else.
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Dexter Friend said on September 14, 2025 at 5:51 pm
Vietnamese squat like that inside, or alongside the roads waiting for a bus or in my time, Lambretta Tuk Tuks. They just squatted instead of standing, everywhere. Men would urinate roadside, at will all the time; no public indecency there.
So it was good to read about the way these people communicate. I don’t care though, way out of my orbit.
I communicate with friends on Facebook. It’s easy to customize your page to block stuff you hate, or just ignore it. I have an X page, never been there since Musk took over. IG is easy, but Facebook suits my needs perfectly, with no censorship at all now.
Most of my TV viewings are YouTube videos. There is a 45 year old man, a car wheeler-dealer dude, who leased an EV, A Dodge Charger, and had it wrapper to look like the Dukes of Hazard “General Lee”. Today he revealed he leased this total piece of shit car to get views on YouTube. He has garnered $15K in views , into his bank account, from posting how he can’t find charging points , if he does, they are out of order, and the quirks of the car are maddening , and it’s in the shop most of the time, but people watch his videos, me included.
Since 2015, he’s collected $2.5M in revenue from advertiser money. HELL of a way to make a living. Monetizing is the way.
Detroit grit today, on display. Lions throttle the Bears in Detroit. Damn fine way to boost my spirits.
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susan said on September 14, 2025 at 6:03 pm
Costello describes a world I have no knowledge of. Weird and sinister. Alien. It’s so disturbing to realize it exists along side the world I live in; and that it appears to have so much influence in the current chaos.
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nancy said on September 14, 2025 at 6:39 pm
I’ve actually seen the Squat discussed in fitness journalism, i.e., why can Asians (and many others) squat like that well into old age, while Americans struggle with it after, say, 40? I can get fairly low, but I can’t stay there for long, which is the same as not being able to do it at all, probably.
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Minnie Fleming said on September 14, 2025 at 6:55 pm
Slavic squat, huh? I grew up knowing it as hunkering. It was a mostly rural state, not a lot of park benches on the back forty, so you took your ease as you could find it.
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Ann said on September 14, 2025 at 7:45 pm
My Uncle Joe, who spent much of his career in India, got a knee replacement at age 90. His goal was to be able to use a squat toilet again.
My father, son of a rancher, could hunker down just fine. I picture him doing it as he taught us to play mumblety-peg in the side yard of our house. I suppose we were hunkering too, but we were kids then and could do such things.
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Deborah said on September 14, 2025 at 8:03 pm
I used to be able to sit like that for ages when I was a kid, we just called it squatting. I could still do it but not for very long.
I finally go to the Dr tomorrow to find out why I’m having migraine clusters again. Since last Friday when we were still in NM I’ve had nearly one a day. This happened to me once before a few years ago, I had one a day then for 2 weeks. This time it’s accompanied by light headedness during the day when I’m not having a migraine. Coincidentally there was an interesting article in the New Yorker recently about migraines. Basically it said they’re mysterious. I started getting them when I was in my 40s. They started with just getting the aura, or scintillating scotoma with no pain. Now I have the aura, pain and occasionally temporary aphasia (that part is scary). Hope I get some answers tomorrow.
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Sherri said on September 14, 2025 at 8:27 pm
I’ve heard it called the Asian squat, as Nancy says, and I do it to warm up before doing heavy squats in powerlifting.
Most people didn’t even know who Charlie Kirk was, but the right is going to turn him into someone who was murdered because he was a Christian, because they have this fantasy that Christians are being persecuted for their faith.
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alex said on September 14, 2025 at 9:47 pm
Christians, the only people in the world with 501(c)3 status and unenforced prohibitions on doing political advocacy. So persecuted they are. (Well, they are having their pockets picked by their own, which makes them pathetic, but it’s quite a leap to call them persecuted.)
So Tyler Robinson is either a commie fucking a transsexual or he’s a neo-nazi killing an uncommitted neo-nazi for making bank off of pretending to be one. And our media are committed to making believers on both sides go away happy.
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Mark P said on September 15, 2025 at 12:07 am
Deborah, it’s odd that you didn’t start getting migraines until you were 40. Most of the time people have them when they are younger and they tend to outgrow eventually. My mother and brother were cursed with migraines. I had a few when I was in my first year of college. They started out mild, but each succeeding one was worse, until I had a really bad one. After that, I really didn’t have bad migraines. I had the aura fairly often until I was in my 50’s, but it almost never developed into an actual headache. However, I had what I called a hangover the next day.
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Kristen said on September 15, 2025 at 9:10 am
The widow Kirk…ugh. Even grief can be commodified, apparently. Check out how many GoFundMe campaigns there are now for her “expenses”. Those are in addition to the “more than $4.7 million [that] has been collected for Erika Kirk and her two young children via platform GiveSendGo through a fundraiser organized by Tucker Carlson’s ALP pouches tobacco company.” (per the NYPost)
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FDChief said on September 15, 2025 at 11:00 am
So effectively the Costello piece – if you’re already fairly familiar with the online Right – comes down to his question “what are you doing to reverse/tone down this climate of fear and hate?”
To which my only-partially-facetious reply would be “building a Time Machine to return to 1995 and murder DeLay, Gingrich, Limbaugh, McConnell, and two dozen other Republicans”.
Because now?
That ship has sailed, hit the rocks, turned over, exploded, and sank.
The GOP is a frothing mass of hate, delusion, and grievance. Why not? What ELSE can the Lords of Project 2025 offer? Fiscal sanity? Social cohesion? Intellectual curiosity?
The Left has done nothing since Reagan but give the Right what it wants.
But what it wants is for the Left to die.
How do you “compromise” with that?
So the answer to Costello’s question is “figure out how to make the wingnuts less insane” and my codicil is “good luck with that”…
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Jeff Borden said on September 15, 2025 at 11:25 am
Neil Steinberg in today’s Chicago Sub-Times compares social media with the old Punch and Judy shows. I think he’s onto something.
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Jeff Gill said on September 15, 2025 at 11:27 am
No, this is all because a weasel caused a power surge at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2016, triggering causal ripples through our reality, and changing our timeline to a more random, chaotic state.
I can’t think of a better explanation.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/29/476154494/weasel-shuts-down-world-s-most-powerful-particle-collider
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FDChief said on September 15, 2025 at 12:22 pm
Jeff: I know it’s comforting to blame social media and the rise of the internet for our current political disaster.
But I was alive and in the Army in the 1980s and I spent many a bored hour talking to the proto-MAGAts in bivouac sites and defense positions and the virus was already there.
The Southern Strategy had infected the GOP with the racist Dixiecrats. The antifeminist backlash had burrowed the future Hegseths and Kirkwives in deep. The hardhats had brought in the hate for the Yippies and the democratic socialists. The fundies brought the Republican Jesus.
Sure, the Facebook revolution was an accelerant. But how much I’m unconvinced. These scumbags were always the foot soldiers; it was only a matter of time before they found their Fuhrer.
Point being, even if there was a magic word to undo the electronic media, the MAGA genie isn’t going back in the bottle, any more than killing Kirk was ever going to muzzle his TPUSA scum.
The hard lesson of Munich – if it ever is – is going to have to be relearned. MAGAts, like Carthage, like Nazis, like Terminators, can’t be compromised with. They can’t be reasoned with. They can’t be pleaded with.
They MUST be destroyed.
GOP delenda est.
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Mark P said on September 15, 2025 at 12:55 pm
I have a friend of 50 years who is a very smart guy. Some time around 40 years or so he changed. He started listening to Rush Limbaugh all the time. I tried to listen to Limbaugh. It was such crap I couldn’t. I don’t think a normal person without those stupid beliefs could listen long enough to be converted, so I have to assume that there is something already present in their minds, some seed of racism, fascism or maybe a huge, empty space ready to be filled with conspiracies, that allows them to listen to such obvious crap. And, of course, it reinforces what was already there. I’m afraid the best we can hope for is to undergo a catastrophic series of events that will allow the sane among us to force those people’s natural tendencies back below the surface.
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FDChief said on September 15, 2025 at 1:27 pm
What of the current events wouldn’t qualify as a “series of catastrophic events”? Even the slightest hint the wingnut flying monkeys have considered for a moment they should stop screeching and flinging poop? No..?
Think Hitler Youth dying in the rubble of the Tiergarten.
There is no evidence these people will ever come to reason. They seem to prefer to rule in Hell. I’d love to hope for better, but that assumes facts not in evidence.
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Scout said on September 15, 2025 at 1:59 pm
Kirk’s body is currently undergoing whatever funeral homes do to them less than a mile from my house. There is a large Princess Di-esque temporary memorial set up out front with balloons, flowers, stuffed animals, etc and all weekend there have been gatherings of the fervent faithful holding hands and standing in circles around it. It’s disgusting to me that they are idolizing a toxic racist and misogynist, while cloaking him in their so-called oppressed Christian fervor of delusion. I’m ready for his violent death to be as forgotten as every other victim sacrificed on the altar of the 2A.
In yoga class that pose is called the yogi squat.
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alex said on September 15, 2025 at 2:22 pm
One more reason to drop the Washington Post:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/business/media/washington-post-charlie-kirk-karen-attiah.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mE8.erHh.AvnKn_plJNWI&smid=url-share
(gift article)
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Sherri said on September 15, 2025 at 2:24 pm
We can blame it on Rush, or Fox News, or social media, but none of those existed during the violent reaction to Reconstruction, or during Jim Crow, or during the civil rights movement. I know it seems crazy today that Kirk called MLK an awful man, but lots of people thought that when MLK was living.
We are a violent people, with a violent history. I want gun control, but I know that wouldn’t end the violence. Remember the Tulsa massacre involved bombs being dropped from planes!
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ROGirl said on September 15, 2025 at 2:26 pm
From On Totalitarianism: A mixture of gullibility and cynicism had been an outstanding characteristic of mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of masses. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything is possible and nothing was true.
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Mark P said on September 15, 2025 at 2:32 pm
FDChief, I was thinking along the lines of WW 2, where Germany was left in smoking ruins and occupied by the Allied forces. I want to be in the Canadian zone. Or Japan, where every city was left in smoking ruins and occupied by the US, who wrote them a new constitution. We obviously can’t be trusted to write our own constitution.
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Brandon said on September 15, 2025 at 3:25 pm
“How to Build Up to a Yoga Squat.”
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Sherri said on September 15, 2025 at 3:35 pm
The message from the Right: Charlie Kirk was a good Christian man who believed strongly in free speech and open debate, and anyone who says otherwise should be punished. He was killed by the Left, who we are at war with, and our enemies should be killed.
Wilhoit’s Law continues to explain all.
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Dexter Friend said on September 16, 2025 at 7:54 am
Yeah, I dropped WaPo when Bezos would not endorse Harris. Fuck that rag.
Vance, Bondi, Miller, Patel all vowing to seek and destroy anybody posting negative mentions of Trump, Incorporated. “Call their employers and get them fired!”, bellowed Vance.
Bondi has no idea at all what guaranteed free speech means.
The Nazis are here. What we gonna do about it?
We can cripple these bastards next election, in 14 months.
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Jeff Borden said on September 16, 2025 at 9:34 am
Project 2025 continues apace. There is no allowance for a “loyal opposition” in its pages. It is a flat-out authoritarian state run for the benefit of oligarchs. That a bunch of poorly informed but hot-headed people voted for the man who will make them and their families serfs to the likes of Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg is the sourest kind of irony.
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Jeff Gill said on September 16, 2025 at 10:12 am
Robert Redford does his own best eulogy here, with an adaptation of Norman Maclean’s words:
https://youtu.be/OsDnrFBpsBk
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Deborah said on September 16, 2025 at 10:44 am
I saw Redford once in Abiquiu. He used to travel by car between Santa Fe and Utah or where ever he lived and he’d stop at the Abiquiu Inn for pie or at least that’s what they said there. There used to be an Art College in Santa Fe that had a film school that he gave money to etc. I never thought of him a fantastic actor but he certainly was handsome. He was also small, perfectly proportioned though.
It was a shame when the school closed, they lost accreditation or something somehow and now the campus is being fought over what to do with it. It’s been an open question for years. There is still a movie theater there or at least there was a few years ago, the only thing I ever saw there was the opera Carmen that was filmed at the Met. It didn’t show first run movies.
Movie stars used to hang out in Santa Fe, not much anymore.
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Sherri said on September 16, 2025 at 4:54 pm
Yep, Charlie Kirk’s mourners are all about free speech.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/09/16/employee-firings-charlie-kirk-shooting-social-media/
Meanwhile, Brian Kilmeade, host of Fox and Friends, Trump’s favorite show, said on air that homeless people who rejected offered services should be given involuntary lethal injections. “Just kill them.” He still has his job. (He did apologize, after all.)
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Deborah said on September 16, 2025 at 9:10 pm
I subscribe to Andy Borowitz on Substack, he had an interview with John Fugelsang the other day about his new book, Separation of Church and Hate. It was interesting, I’m thinking about getting the book. It’s about how Evangelicals basically no longer espouse the teachings of Jesus, love, forgiveness, the beatitudes etc. Fugelsang’s mom had been a nun and his dad had been a Friar before they married.
I’m reading a book for our book club now that I need to finish first, Middle March by George Eliot, it’s good but quite dense.
Did I mention that I found out from my Dr visit yesterday that my lightheadedness and migraines are because of when I had Covid about a month ago, for the 3rd time? Apparently it’s a thing that can happen. I don’t know how long I’m going to have it, hopefully not much longer. The Covid wasn’t bad, very mild only one day and night when I felt pretty bad. I was completely free of it, or so I thought, tested negative after about 5 days, then a few weeks later about a week and a half ago I started having migraines and feeling vertigo, everyday. I’ve just decided I’m going to ignore it, finding out this is what it is made me weirdly feel better, I was worried I was in for a stroke or something very serious.
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David C said on September 17, 2025 at 8:18 am
I’m on a three hour layover at DTW. The woman sitting next to me on the flight from Kalamazoo was guzling Mucinex. If it wasn’t for allergies, I’m screwed.
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alex said on September 17, 2025 at 8:51 am
I’m still recovering from a bad cold that hit me and everyone around me beginning in late August. Crossing my fingers for you, David C.
Here’s a gift article because why not spread the joy as long as the link’s on my clipboard…
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/opinion/trump-economy-deportation-inflation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mk8.dIHU.Rw5o64KPmdme&smid=url-share
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Icarus said on September 17, 2025 at 9:31 am
I don’t know how many baseball fans are here but the Toronto Blue Jays are likely to win their division and have a good chance of making and even winning the World Series. It would serve America right to lose to Canada (even though the players are Americans).
Sorry Dexter, I know you want the Tigers to win and I’m okay with that since the Cubs won’t go very deep (they are 1 game away from securing a Wild Card spot).
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Dexter Friend said on September 17, 2025 at 1:46 pm
Icarus, my cable teams are DET, CLE, and CIN.
I was a White Sox fan all my life until I started following teams closer to me. In 1993 I started being a CLE fan, going to most weekend games for 10 years until I retired and had to watch my pennies. I like all 3 of my cable teams, and the Tigers are roaring, but last night CLE beat them. I have only been to Comerica Park a dozen times or so, and only to CIN a few times in the past 30 years. Toronto was a big rival of DET , then they got separated division-wise, so the Blue Jays are out of my daily orbit. I just know Vladimir, Jr. signed for 14 years for $500,000,000.
AI says: ”
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signed a record-breaking 14-year, $500 million contract extension with the Toronto Blue Jays in April 2025, extending his deal through the 2039 season. This landmark agreement includes a significant signing bonus and ensures Guerrero Jr. will remain a centerpiece for the franchise. “
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Sherri said on September 17, 2025 at 5:53 pm
Just picked up Paxlovid for my husband, who tested positive for Covid last night. He’s feeling okay, just cold-like symptoms, but annoyed, because he had scheduled but hadn’t received his Covid vaccine yet. I got mine 2 weeks ago, so hopefully I can avoid catching it from him, plus we’ve gone into our separate parts of the house routine.
I think this is his 4th go around. I’ve had it twice, but he’s exposed more than I am. He still goes into work, sings in two choirs, and goes to a larger gym than I do. I’m mostly at home, and train about half at home and half at a smaller gym during less popular times.
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Julie Robinson said on September 17, 2025 at 6:10 pm
Sherri, choirs are a perfect spreading opportunity, what with everyone projecting their voices and viruses. I’ve had it twice from singing in a choir or my kids bringing it home from a choir. That time the entire choir of over 300 got sick, then took out it into the world. I’ve been part of choirs almost my whole life and dearly love making music with others, but I won’t ever do it again. My lungs never recovered and I’m prone to asthma, on two new meds, and have trouble getting full deep breaths.
Dennis and his sister are having a great time on their trip, spending the last two days in the Seneca Falls region, seeing the suffragist museum, the bridge that inspired the one in It’s a Wonderful Life, hiking in old growth forest, and visiting the Lake Placid Olympic center. Remember Al Michaels and Do You Believe in Miracles?
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Sherri said on September 17, 2025 at 7:40 pm
ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air after the chair of the FCC threatened their broadcast license over his remarks about Tyler Robinson being MAGA. No surprise, this administration shreds every part of the Constitution. Yes, even the Second Amendment; only certain people have the right to bear arms.
In other ludicrous news, after Trump blew up another small boat and JD Vance made a tasteless joke about avoiding fishing in those waters, John Yoo, infamous author of the Bush-era Torture Memos, says maybe blowing up small boats in international waters is a step too far.
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Sherri said on September 17, 2025 at 9:37 pm
It would be nice if our elites weren’t such spineless craven lickspittles. Remember how we wondered how Germany succumbed to Hitler? We’re getting to watch it all happen, live.
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JodiP said on September 17, 2025 at 9:55 pm
Deborah, I hope the migraines pass soon.
Back at the No Kings rally in May, I marched with a local action group. It was started on 2017 by a couple. They get stuff done. I went a constitutional observer training and noe I know how to document when ICE takes someone into custody. They do a door knocking for state candidates and have made a difference. I am super excited I found these folks.
Re:squatting. I’ve always been able to do it and do it in yoga. It’s useful if I have to look at something on the low shelf of the grocery store.
A week from today I’ll be doing the “ask” at the annual fundraising luncheon for my favorite non-profit Clare Housing. This year we’re doing a fairytale theme with lots of drag queens!
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Mark P said on September 18, 2025 at 10:09 am
I saw a clip of Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue that so offended the snowflake censors of the right. It was not offensive, although it showed Trump’s hypocrisy. When Trump was asked how he was holding up (!) after the nazi’s assassination, he said he was doing okay, and then pivoted immediately to how wonderful his new ballroom would be, and how it was needed for 150 years. There was absolutely nothing offensive in what Kimmel said. Apparently some companies that own multiple stations said they would not air Kimmel because of the comments, so that probably had some effect on ABC.
Sherri, we really are there. About the only thing we are lacking is uniformed thugs rounding up dissenters and shipping them off to concentration camps. That is, unless you count immigrants who were rounded up for dissent.
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alex said on September 18, 2025 at 10:19 am
No news is good news, at least not when Larry Ellison controls it…
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/opinion/larry-ellison-paramount-cbs-tiktok.html?unlocked_article_code=1.m08.7xj6.V8qEyB7VEQ5E&smid=url-share
Gift article.
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Julie Robinson said on September 18, 2025 at 12:58 pm
My current read is Dangerously Funny, by David Bianculli, about the Smothers Brothers show, which was on CBS. From day one they fought the censors and corporate brass, and finally got cancelled. It’s feeling familiar.
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john (not mccain) said on September 18, 2025 at 2:15 pm
Unless CBS canceled the Smothers Brothers because of pressure from the government (I’m old enough to remember their name from the olden days, but not anything else) it’s not the same.
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Julie Robinson said on September 18, 2025 at 3:02 pm
Point taken, John. It does seem that Nixon’s administration put pressure on sponsors, at least according to Bianculli, but not quite the same. Johnson hated them too.
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Brandon said on September 18, 2025 at 4:20 pm
For what it’s worth, a Family Feud rerun aired last night on KITV in place of Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
Wanda Sykes was ready to go on his show when she learned of the hiatus and spoke out on Instagram.
US Weekly: Who Was Supposed To Be on Jimmy Kimmel Live Before ABC Pulled Show.
Canceled shows
Wednesday, September 17
Wanda Sykes
Jay Shetty
Chef Christian Petroni
Thursday, September 18
Chelsea Handler
Bill Nye
Musical guest: The Swell Season
Friday, September 19
Guests TBC
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basset said on September 18, 2025 at 5:59 pm
Our ABC station here in Nashville is a Nexstar property; they went straight to NewsNation right after the late local news. And our local Fox station is owned by Sinclair, so there ya go.
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Sherri said on September 18, 2025 at 6:21 pm
The ABC affiliate here is owned by Sinclair, so they’ll be running the tribute to Charlie Kirk on Friday night in his time slot. Probably more right wing crap after that, maybe re-run their Seattle is Dying documentary.
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Sherri said on September 18, 2025 at 10:11 pm
Didn’t I just say that the Christian Right would be claiming that Kirk died for his faith? Even if they have to use AI to put words in his mouth posthumously, they’re going to do it.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/churches-play-ai-generated-clips-211255014.html
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alex said on September 20, 2025 at 9:23 am
Paul Krugman interviews Karen Attiah. (I’m a subscriber and I hope this “share” link works.) All kinds of interesting stuff. I didn’t know that she was the one who hired Jamal Kashoggi at the Post and that the reason he’d been banned as a writer in Saudi Arabia was for his criticism of Trump.
https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/karen-attiah?r=43a8hi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
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Mark P said on September 20, 2025 at 10:07 am
I recently looked at the line of succession for the presidency. There is not one person on the entire list that is remotely qualified to be president. And that’s being generous.
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Brandon said on September 20, 2025 at 3:31 pm
The Charlie Kirk special didn’t air on Sinclair affiliates Friday night. (But it will be shown over the weekend.)
https://thedesk.net/2025/09/sinclair-pulls-charlie-kirk-documentary-abc/
On Friday evening, viewers of Sinclair’s local ABC affiliates who were expecting to see the much-publicized documentary about Kirk were greeted by the Steve Harvey-hosted game show instead.
In a statement released on social media, a Sinclair spokesperson said the broadcaster made the decision to offer ABC network programming on its affiliates instead of the Kirk special, which was posted to YouTube.
“Tonight, Sinclair will continue to air ABC network programming as scheduled in the late-night time period,” the Sinclair spokesperson said. “The Charlie Kirk special will instead be available on The National News Desk’s YouTube channel, ensuring viewers can continue to enjoy ABC programming while also providing full access to the special online.”
Sinclair intends to air the Kirk documentary on all of its owned or operated TV stations over the weekend.
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Deborah said on September 20, 2025 at 3:53 pm
I’m in Cambridge, MA, tomorrow we’re taking a ferry to Province Town and then on to Chatham on the Cape where we’re staying.
Here’s something interesting I read about yesterday: the woman who sued Trump for raping her in a Bergdorf’s dressing room and won like $80 million has come up with an idea for wearing a paper clip as a subtle symbol for resistance particularly for women, also denoting connection. It’s easy, almost everyone has paper clips. It can be a simple thing but a powerful symbol.
Of course a lot of you know that E. Jean Carroll is the woman who came up with it. I have her hilarious book, Not My Type, that she wrote about the whole trial etc.
So today we were walking around Cambridge, we went to see this chapel at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) designed by Eero Saarinen, a famous architect and I happened to look down and see a paper clip so I picked it up and put it on my collar. No one so far has asked me about it, I hope I don’t lose it. It’s an omen to me now. I’m going to try and wear it every day. I love things like that, subtle clues to other people who might know what it means. I hope it catches on. Pass it on if it appeals to you and it’s not just for women.
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tajalli said on September 20, 2025 at 4:05 pm
Plastic-coated paper clips are available in a range of colors, so could be worn in a rainbow for a bit of double entendre.
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alex said on September 20, 2025 at 4:07 pm
I used to hoard paperclips for reaming out my marijuana paraphernalia. Now I can’t find any to use for their intended purpose, like the other day when I was putting away a bunch of loose documents in my filing cabinet.
Just sold our convertible for the asking price to a buyer who drove all the way here from Cleveland. I hope she’s happy with her purchase. I’m happy with the garage space and the cash, but I’ll miss that car even though I hardly ever drove it anymore.
Hubby’s helping an architect friend of ours do some repair/remodeling work on her newly acquired mid-mod house and I’m about to head over to see the progress.
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