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I’ve got the Bandcamp listening party for “Dead Channel Sky” going while I work and holy cats it’s good.

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okay, since I've gotten some Gen X talking on my Millennial poll, who are interested in it for themselves, here we go. I also have a Gen Z poll.

Reference:

Greatest Generation: 1901 - 1927

Silent Generation: 1928-1945

Boomer Generation: 1946-1964

Generation X: 1965-1980

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It’s the end of February …

And what a decade it’s been, the past couple months. Okay, wait, I need Oreos. (Back, crunching my cookies.) Late to the party because it’s been out for a minute, but you all should check out Karen A. Sorenson’s latest book, Variations on a Theme of Pomegranates. This is a series of nested stories about family, siblings, death, Death, and fruit. It’s a little bit the Persephone myth by way of…

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Hmmm I know octopuses are generally sweet and gentle and are just curious sea puppies (and I love them!), that being said, the thoughts of being dragged by my feet by one of them into the deep and dark ocean is… safe to say new fear has been unlocked

Source

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definitely one of The Pics of all time…

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I have been on Tumblr just long enough to find this an extremely funny choice of business name.

The company caters to caring for babies and toddlers.

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Ok, this house is weird. Firstly, I was wondering what was up w/the garage door.

Turns out it's a mirror. Built in 1955 in Palm Springs, CA, it's been remodeled and you must see the choices. 3bds, 3ba, 2,319 sq ft, $1,499,999.

Check out the floor, like a mass murder scene.

Conversation pit decorated with a sofa and tables. Was this once a hot tub?

The stains continue throughout the kitchen.

Two lone side chairs in a corner.

Gray cement walls in the kitchen.

Snacks for the buyers?

Looking out toward the pool from the pit.

Cement dining table. I think it's built-in. It also appears to have a convenient electrical outlet.

It's such a huge space to fill. The sun is casting shadows, but it looks like there are steps here.

The glass wall opens to the pool.

There's a shower room here, but it's open. At least the shower & toilet are behind a wall.

The bedrooms and baths have floors that look watercolor stained. Interesting how they put the bed partly under the arch.

The bed from behind. Is that a fridge?

The ensuite is big, but so sparse and spread out. I would've expected a sink under the neon mirror. This is so ugly.

The secondary bedroom is plain and has floating nightstands installed.

The primary bedroom has folding doors to the patio.

Out by the pool, it looks like they repainted the statues pink and black, themselves. The lamp is broken.

Matching statues.

Nice fruit tree.

Fancy ceiling lights in the garage.

.28 acre lot.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2275-E-Belding-Dr-Palm-Springs-CA-92262/18019319_zpid/

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not watching severance and succession means i log on the day after an episode and everyone is like SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP THEYRE SO INSANE FOR THIS and the image cited is a man in a suit standing still in an otherwise blank, fluorescently-lit hallway. i'm happy for you guys or sorry that happened

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Quick what are you doing RIGHT now (besides scrolling Tumblr)

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This is a bit of a tangent, but I didn’t realize there was an actual historical reference for the line in the Blues Bothers (“I hate Illinois nazis”).

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

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What if we all got really into arguing about the meaning of some other short story for awhile. If I were in the room with the yellow wallpaper I would simply leave

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I kinda feel like Atwood would say the EconoWives? Because Gilead is so isolationist. However, based on my 52 years in this country, they’re getting all those uniforms from China with “Made In Gilead” tags on them.

In handmaid's tale.. whose making all the outfits?

Like are there American sweat shops we don't see or are we importing them from another country?

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mash + incorrect quotes (6)

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And if rfk jr sends me to a work camp to farm organic produce for the simple crime of having ADHD, I want you to know I am going to do the fucking worst job at it. Have fun bringing down inflation when I stare at a blueberry for nine hours, bitch.

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So either the worst allergy attack or a relatively mild cold, so here we are in bed, scrolling Tumblr.

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