I was a sickly independent scholar of women's studies in the third grade.
Now let's see
what it has to say.
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Your country, such potential!
Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - "I Hate Myself for Loving You"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bpNw7jYkbVc&si=qJI6AWhpwsCWuWzQ
"Bahamut" by Hazmat Modine
https://youtube.com/watch?v=QPDA_enGSWw&si=_S7rPQjrtLqOINhV
Kawehi - "Somebody That I Used To Know" Mashup (live at the Pike Room 7.11.15)
Dear Conservative Friend, dare to think you deserve better.
Believe.
"Every Pick Me Girl on an Alpha Male Podcast"
ButterFaces
https://youtube.com/shorts/zI2JvzYI0gE?si=etfqIQDI0Vrk3lv0
"ICE agents stormed Canal Street in New York City attempting to arrest street vendors"
This actually kind of reminded me of something else, too.
Being at an all women's college in the 1990s where all the students got rape whistles.
"On a recent evening at a Logan Square dog training facility, nearly 100 people gathered to assemble whistle kits, which include “know your rights” pamphlets. The event was organized by the owner of a local pet bodega and a local dog rescue group, and drew people from different ethnic backgrounds and age groups.
“I’m happy that it’s a diverse group,” said Beto Montenegro, 36, who grew up in the mostly Mexican American neighborhood of Brighton Park. “It’s not just Latinos or undocumented people. It’s everyone. Everyone from the community is helping out.”
By Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
Whose kids? whose parents?
"Other neighborhoods are also seeing a burst of grassroots opposition to the federal presence. In heavily Hispanic Belmont-Cragin, about a dozen teachers gather twice a week outside their school, holding signs that read “Hands Off Chicago” and “Nadie es ilegal,” or “Nobody is illegal.”
‘Holy nuisances’
Faith leaders and veteran immigrant rights groups had been bracing for Operation Midway Blitz long before federal agents arrived. In January, when Trump vowed to send ICE to Chicago the day after he took office, churches and nonprofits began holding Know Your Rights workshops and training businesses to respond if immigration agents showed up at their doors.
They pass out whistles with clear instructions: short bursts if ICE is in the area; a long note if someone is being detained. The whistles — which are both warning devices and emblems of the organizing effort — have popped up across Chicago. At least three parents of students have been detained by ICE, the teachers said."
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
Why don't the other moms feel empowered to help her?
Who thinks being cold-hearted to a mom whose babies have a rare form of cancer is like spreading the good news of Jesus? Not me.
"MOM TO MOM..."
Mallory Carlson
Examples of Human Competence and Caring!
Gosh, I didn't realize people can get those things from both "Call the Midwife" and "Law & Order: SVU." (I've never watched the latter.)
"I know this is supposed to be a feel-good show..."
https://www.reddit.com/r/CallTheMidwife/s/3jAMI9FszH
"I will love everything about you."
LeeWakefield-g8k
https://youtube.com/shorts/SsXMcGftITE?si=j9dNTqFG1A0a542Q
Helpers are needed, because...
"In recent weeks, as they have heard from more immigrants unwilling to venture outside for even basic necessities, network volunteers have turned to school group chats, book clubs and day care friends for drivers.
For members of Cepeda’s MMA gym, the catalyst for immigration-focused organizing came in June, when several members rushed to a nearby elementary school after hearing that “suspicious-looking guys” were waiting outside. The gym members created enough noise and commotion to disperse the individuals, whom they thought might be ICE agents — though they did not know for sure.
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
The people in charge have sown so much discord and mistrust.
"Now about 35 people patrol the neighborhood. When they suspect a federal law enforcement presence, they spring into action by trying to confirm the officers’ identities, warning neighbors, and taking videos, notes and audio recordings.
“We don’t … want to just document what they are doing,” said Cepeda, who is also a writer and English literature doctoral candidate. “We want to prevent what they might do.”
Earlier this month, DHS touted Cepeda’s arrest with a firearm at a protest in ICE’s Broadview facility, calling him “a violent rioter.” Cepeda said the agency’s news release did not note that he is licensed to carry concealed weapons and was released without charges. His attorney, Brad Thomson, said Cepeda had not been charged after DHS publicized his arrest. A search by The Post did not find any federal, state or local criminal charges filed against Cepeda."
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
I see a helper!
"On a recent afternoon, a woman drove across town to Chicago’s South Side with 20 bags of groceries in the trunk after answering a call on a school group chat to deliver food to families. The instructions were simple: receive a list of addresses and phone numbers; pick up the groceries at a North Side church, text recipients with photos of the groceries. If you’re followed, don’t go to the next house.
“I used to not consider myself that political, but I wanted to help,” the woman said. (Like several others interviewed for this story, she spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation from the federal government.)
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
And why should she be afraid?
"Just before arriving outside a three-story apartment building, she used a translation app to send a message to a family living inside. She grabbed four bags from the trunk, climbed the steps and knocked on the door. A middle-aged woman answered, standing alongside a young girl and a man.
“Thank you for coming!” the woman, an asylum seeker from Venezuela, said in Spanish. She hasn’t left her house lately, she said, out of fear of ICE. Her neighbor had been detained just a few weeks ago and hadn’t returned.
The driver is part of a food delivery network that supplies about 50 families with weekly groceries from the Greater Chicago Food Depository, according to organizers."
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
Remember the "Look for the helpers" quote?
"But there is also a quieter effort that has taken root in daily life, mobilized through churches, parent-teacher groups, dog rescues and cycling clubs.
Participants honk their car horns to warn of ICE agents approaching, shoot video on their phones when arrests unfold, trade descriptions of federal law enforcement vehicles in group chats and organize safe walks to school."
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
Sounds like they're helping their fellow human beings.
"Federal officials have framed the efforts as the work of 'domestic terrorists' and a threat to law enforcement. The unrest, they said in court records, justified sending National Guard troops to protect federal personnel and facilities — an effort blocked so far in Illinois by federal courts, though the administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Trump officials have also sought to curtail how residents track immigration operations — asking companies and social media platforms to remove applications and pages showing ICE patrols, and citing recent attacks on ICE facilities to argue that efforts to identify where agents are working could place them in danger.
“The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly — not rioting, doxxing, or threating federal law enforcement,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Federal agents in Chicago have fired pepper balls at protesters, bystanders and journalists, prompting a judge to bar the use of tear gas or other crowd-control weapons except when agents are in immediate danger. The same judge later mandated that any agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz wear body cameras, citing concerns about the continued tactics against protesters.
Gov. JB Pritzker (D) has urged his constituents to answer the show of federal force with visibility — but also to avoid violence.
'Get your cellphones out — record what you see. Put it on social media. Peacefully ask for badge numbers and identification,” Pritzker wrote on X. “Speak up for your neighbors. We need to let the world know this is happening — and that we won’t stand for it.”
Brandon Lee, a spokesperson for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the response from everyday Chicagoans “has been overwhelming.”
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
Going through hard times...
"Joe Rogan Unleashes Bonkers Rant to Defend ‘King’"
https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-rogan-unleashes-bonkers-rant-to-defend-king-trump/
He can't seem to figure out what he thinks, huh.
"Joe Rogan says Trump's deportation policies are 'scary'"
Violence can mess with perception."The most visible clashes between protesters and agents have occurred at a suburban ICE processing facility and in the streets while officers conduct arrests. One woman, a U.S. citizen, was shot by an agent after allegedly ramming a Border Patrol car she had been following. She was charged with the assault and attempted murder of a federal employee, but her attorney disputes the government’s account, saying body-camera footage shows agents swerving into her."
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
Good leaders are out there!
"Along with jujitsu and muay thai, Elias Cepeda offers anti-bullying and self-defense classes in his mixed martial arts gym.
In recent weeks, he and his students have expanded that mission, trying to counter an intense immigration crackdown by the Trump administration in their mostly Latino, working-class neighborhood.
They watch for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers during school pickup and drop-off, shuttle food to neighbors afraid to leave homes and, toward the end of the day, buy the last remaining tamales and paletas so street vendors in Pilsen can head back safely indoors.
'We’ve had major mission creep the last year and a half,' said Cepeda, a veteran activist and executive director of the nonprofit Pilsen Defense and Access."
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
"Chicagoans band together..."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
"The administration’s Operation Midway Blitz, launched last month, brought an influx of federal officers to the nation’s third-largest city — one long shaped by immigrants, with a surge of newcomers in recent years. The agents have so far made more than 1,500 arrests in Illinois, according to the Department of Homeland Security — part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Though officials have portrayed the operation as targeting 'the worst' criminals, the effort has also swept up U.S. citizens, longtime Chicago residents and immigrants with pending asylum cases or protections that would typically shield them from deportation. The administration’s tactics — deploying tear gas, making arrests in broad daylight as immigrants work, attend school or go about their daily routines — have prompted residents from a variety of backgrounds to mount a forceful pushback."
~ Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
Here's a poem about kindness.
Emma Thompson reading 'Kindness' by Naomi Shihab Nye
~ femalepoetsociety
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPopLxhCAaI/?igsh=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==
House will never be the same. Poor fragile, unhappy ego! Very destructive behavior. Probably had a bad childhood.
"Trump is destroying the entire White House East Wing"
"Majority of Americans oppose Trump's White House demolition"
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5569341-trump-white-house-ballroom-disapproval/
I really think this country's people and pets deserve so much better, and so do others!
"Chicagoans band together against ICE, using tamales and whistles
An MMA gym, pet shelters and volunteer grocery patrols are part of the community effort to thwart a federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants"
By Kim Bellware, Ben Strauss and María Luisa Paúl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/23/ice-chicago-resistance-immigrants/
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
They are spellbinding!
I think it would be amazing to see a version of Laura and Rose's story, as mother and daughter, and as collaborators, on screen. Including Rose's world travels, and Laura's travels to see Rose in San Francisco, too. They created a series of classic books together in spite of a sometimes very contentious relationship, books which are still beloved.
There's a great love of nature in these books.
"Little House on the Prairie"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_House_on_the_Prairie
Another book series that showcases a great love of nature are those by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
It would be awesome to see L.M. Montgomery's life on screen (creator of Anne of Green Gables and the lesser known Emily of New Moon and others.) Another author whose life was hard, but she created those incredibly optimistic books for children that still appeal to many of all ages today.
People do wonder what what their great-grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers experiences were, and what they can learn from them.
I really think this country deserves so much better.
I hope it doesn't get as bad for us as it got for the people who lived during the Great Depression.
They needed it.
"Here was the book no depression could stop."
~ Virginia Kirkus (of the Kirkus Reviews) on reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's manuscript.
Quoted in Chapter 10 (?) that's what my screen says of
"Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder" by Caroline Fraser | Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33911349-prairie-fires
"In January 1933—the same month the Ford Motor Company laid off 100,000 workers and a record 242 U.S. banks failed—Virginia Kirkus started a business, the Virginia Kirkus Bookshop Service, that she was advised to file under 'Pipe Dreams' by 24 of the 25 people she asked for advice. 'If I had to sell the Service to regular bookstores by mail, I’d fast and pray for a few days (because I think it is a damn tough job),' one friend replied to her. 'Virginia, selling gold bricks by mail would be much easier.'”
I was warned, though.
They gave me "Old Home Town" by Rose Wilder Lane to read when I had the chickenpox and now I have a little scar and I think about how book was just too old for me back then, but they never were good about judging what was too old for me to read. And I had to read it! No one made me. I just had to make myself do it. I can't get rid of that book, but I'm always a little scared to open it again. Maybe I will, though.
"Old Home Town" by Rose Wilder Lane | Goodreads
I'm on Chapter 10? of the "Prairie Fires" audio book and it's good.
Do not pine for the olden days!
"Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder" by Caroline Fraser | Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33911349-prairie-fires
I am almost embarrassingly astounded by the setbacks and poverty Laura's family (parents, sisters, etc.) endured. Before and around the time of the Great Depression.
It's just that the books and those family-friendly videos about the Little House museums are all so determinedly cozy and cheerful about their experiences, comparatively. And that's part of their charm. But my goodness.
They are works of art. She was an artist. Garth Williams's illustrations, too. Such an artist.
I'm about to go look at some Grandma Moses paintings to myself feel better.
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