I think "something nice you did for a neighbor or a neighbor did for you" would be a great topic for comments here today. As far as open thread off-topic comments, let's put them all in Robyn's morning post here. https://www.wonkette.com/p/happy-national-measure-your-feet
Reading this (most excellent) thread, I think back to my childhood..
My dad was an only child, and his parents and most of the aunts and uncles on that side were very much help out when you can, nothing expected in return (the "charge it to the Polish Priest" I mentioned earlier)..
But my mom's sister married into a family that was quite different, even though she and her husband settled in not a quarter mile away from my paternal grandparents.. That family was totally transactional.. They didn't give unless they got.
.
Looking back, I think I and my sibs learned a lot from that..
We used to have a side gig walking our neighbor's dog while she was at work.
One day, we were walking past the house of another neighbor -- a tiny older woman who spoke accented English -- I'll call her "Susan". She was sitting at a picnic table in her front yard, eating a sandwich. She called Doggo over to her, broke off a piece of her sandwich, and offered it to him. He gobbled it up, and then gave her a kiss on the cheek.
From then on, we got to know "Susan" a little bit. Of course, Doggo would pull us over to her whenever she was in the yard, and we would chat. We would bring her seasonal treats like lemonade or Christmas cookies. The family living next door would look in on her to make sure she was OK, and also park some of their many cars in her driveway, so it looked like somebody was always home. The other parishioners at her church would come over and mow her lawn. It's really less of "something nice we did for a neighbor" and more like, "a neighbor who everybody does nice things for".
One of my favorite stories is when "Susan" was sitting in the front yard with her sister. I showed her a picture on my phone of my sister and I from last time I visited. She and her sister marveled over my sister's admittedly fabulous looks, "So pretty! So pretty!", and then, after a pause, belatedly added, "Oh, yeah, you look OK too."
My story of helping a neighbor happened when I was driving back from a singing telegram wearing a belly dancer outfit. On the side of the highway was a car pulled over, hood up and obviously overheated. The older Black gentleman do what you DO NOT want to do. He opened the radiator and at that moment had hot fluid spray into his face. I pulled over quickly and pour water over his face. Luckily he seemed to be relatively unharmed but probably too soon to tell.
I told him that I could take him anywhere he wanted to go. He then asked me why a young woman pulled over to help a Black man. Especially given how I was dressed. I said that I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. Of course it was because he was hurt and stranded. I hoped that my simple action could erase part of his shitty day.
He then started talking about a recent story in the news about the young black teen who was mentally disabled and his body was found in the trunk of someone who was with a gang of kids who lured him and beat him until he died.
This man in my car was his stepfather who’d been his dad for years and whom loved him so deeply. He started crying and I held his hand.
I’ve always wondered how he was after that and I hoped that my kindness restored in him a little faith that not all people are bad. That there are still kind and caring people out there. Of course there was nothing that I could ever do that could erase the loss of his son who, by his telling, was one of the sweetest people he knew. But, perhaps, for a moment, there was a moment of grace in his life.
I used to regularly shovel my older neighbor’s sidewalk and driveway in my first house, she was a widow; it was no great act, I love to shovel snow. Mr S or I can’t imagine not helping someone in need, if it’s someone short of money in the grocery store or whatever, it’s what you do.
This is a thing my neighbour and I did for each other for years. Our city has a bylaw about "number of hours after snowfall you can let snow sit on the sidewalk". Whoever got out there first always shovelled the other guy's sidewalk.
When I was about 5 months pregnant I cam home from work to about 10" of snow in my driveway. Mr. Snot was working late. So I started shoveling, grumbling the whole time. A few minutes later my neighbor, whose name I barely knew, brought over his snowblower and did our entire driveway. I nearly wept, I was so grateful.
Ok, I'll go:Not last fall, but the previous, I think it was late October or early November, my girlfriend and I were walking along the promenade by the river after a dinner out. It was getting dark, light misty rain, high-30s or low-40s. There were a few people around.
I saw out in the river, two young black kids. Maybe 8 and 10 years old. They had gotten hold of a canoe, and now they were in trouble. They were out in the middle of the river, on a tiny sandbar island, and their canoe had floated off. One kid was wading out into the river to try to retrieve it, he was up to his waist. They were both soaking wet. No lifejackets, no paddles, nuthin'. The other people around us were ignoring them.
Prime hypothermia and/or drowning situation. I thought about calling 911, but I calculated that by the time EMS showed up, and got set up for a water rescue, it might be too late. It seemed like the kind of situation that could go south very quickly. I shouted to them asking if they needed help, and they responded "yes please!"
Don't create another victim, that's the first rule.
I found a long fallen branch, and was able to fish their canoe back to my side of the river. It was 3/4 full of water. I dumped it out. Found some old rope on a dock, and made it fast. I pushed hard and sent the canoe 20 or 30 yards out to their island. They climbed in, and I pulled them back to land. Secured the canoe, packed them into my car, they gave me directions, and I drove them home.
End of story. I didn't even get wet. I never caught their names, or met their parents, but I very likely saved both their lives that night.
I once saved another soldier when I was in the army. He would have died if I hadn't stumbled on him. It's a nice feeling knowing he's still probably alive.
That reminds me. I once saved a kid from drowning. I was maybe 12 or 13. There was a local swimming hole - had a set of docks, the city supplied a lifeguard, the kind of place you rode your bike to at about 10am, and didn't get home from until after dark.
We went every friggin' day during the summer. Which was prime "kissing under a blanket for hours" season. ;-)
One day, we're on the dock that is permanently affixed to the rocks/beach (as opposed to the temporary dock that the city floated out every summer) and I see a kid thrashing away trying to get back to the solid dock from the floating dock. And said kid is in trouble, and surrounded by dozens of kids jumping off the dock, cannonballing, splashing, yelling, not even noticing the struggling swimmer, etc. As kids do. I look at the lifeguard - who's attention is distracted by other kids jumping off a rock outcropping into the area just outside the lines - a rite of passage we ALL did ... and I just jumped in, grabbed said struggling swimmer and helped them get to the ladder to climb the fixed dock.
I often wonder what ever happened to that kid. Did they grow up to write a great rock song, or marry their high school sweetheart (they couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 at the time).
I got back up on the dock after saving said kid, and said to MY friends, "Did you SEE that, I fucking saved that kid's life!". None of them did. Out of a dozen of us, not a single one even noticed. It was ... and still is ... surreal.
I had taken swimming lessons - and hated them - as a kid. In Canada there used to be a "colour coded" system for the various lessons, that ended with something like "lifeguard 1", "lifeguard 2", etc. I had stopped the year before I got my lifeguard certification.
Our old house was rowhomes so we would mow each others lawns. It was never a big deal since lawns were postage stamps. My next door neighbors were older and I’d mow her lawn and during the snowpocalypse in 2010 I shoveled her driveway. She brought me homemade chicken soup. I didn’t need anything but thought it was nice. A small example.
Our upstairs neighbor is a very nice man. We live up three flights of stairs. Because of my physical "stuff", I order a lot delivered. I can get it up the stairs, but it can be a challenge. Whenever he can, he delivers packages - some are heavy! - right to the door.
With only one leg, and getting around on crutches, picking up the dog's "leavings" (we have a very strict "scoop the poop" law here), can be quite a sight... a sort of flamingo move on my part, and trying very hard to make sure the dog poops next to something I can balance myself against... a tree, close to a wall, etc.
Doesn't always work out that way, and while I was pulling out the poop bag, the security guard at the building across the street walked over, picked it up and took it away himself...
Of course, this is Mexico, where we can always count on the kindness of strangers. I can't count the times trying to reach the lock to open my building door (it's not the most convenient location for me), somebody just coming down the street... even little old ladies... will do it for me. Or carry my shopping bag (try carrying one while using crutches). Or... at one point, where a cop stopped all traffic on a busy street so I didn't have to hump down a block to the light and cross walk.
My store has a regular customer with only one leg. When we are slow and have extra mobility scooters he will use one, if we are busy and have an open one he will not take it in case someone with a greater need needs it. He uses a crutch and shopping cart awkwardly then. When any of us see him we try to help him as much as we can, including someone will shop with him so he can concentrate on just walking and not pushing the cart as well.
My current store manager does not approve of the "waste of labor" but the rest of us do not care what she thinks on this subject.
She honestly is. All the entire staff wanted for Christmas was her transfer out. The signs are there for those of us who have seen this song and dance before. She won't be fired, she's very new,to the company so her salary is low. But she can be transferred somewhere inconvenient for her, or demoted for "more training".
Don't care how it happens, but she honestly deserves it.
Was able to take out the garbage for my upstairs neighbor who found it too heavy.
And local business people brighten my day, remembering my name, being welcoming, and also posting solidarity posters and the like, marking their businesses as safe havens.
I was in the checkout line at the grocery store, maybe two months after we moved to South FL.
The elderly (and dark skinned) woman ahead of me at the register was fumbling with her debit cards, several got declined, she looked like she was going to cry..
"I got it" I said and ran my card.. she got an amazing look of relief and started thanking me in broken english.. "Not to worry. Have a great day!"
Very white guy behind me then said "That's probably a scam.."
To which I said "I really don't care."
To which the person behind him in line gave me a double thumbs up.
.
My dad (pbuh) in a situation like this would say "Don't worry, I'll just charge it to the Polish Priest"
Yes. On two occasions during the past decade I forked over some $$ to help someone in front of me at the cashier. Both were Hispanic women with multiple kids taking things out of their pile to bring the bill down.
Lol. There was a thing for a while in my city where people would do that in the drive through coffee line. Pay for the order of the people behind them. The backlash when someone WOULDN'T continue the trend made local papers.
Longest string I ever heard about was three full days running.
sending you and tek big hugs because that's what rational, sane, compassionate people do when they see someone else suffering or having a problem. jfc, these nazis are truly depraved and psychopaths.
show some love and understanding, it's not that hard
It's such a humiliating thing for someone. I'd covered the stuff for someone in this situation before. And people behind in the line can often be so cruel about it.
Yes, and when you have little kids with you, it's worse. I remember leaving a store, being unable to pay for a cart full of groceries (SNAP got messed up), and trying to make my kids think it was a big game. You don't get over that. Bless all of you who just help without another thought. You have no idea what it means.
Whenever a fellow retail drone starts bitterly complaining about what someone buys with their SNAP benefits, usually in the backroom but not always, I ( no pun intended) snap back " a kid doesn't deserve a birthday cake?" , " they don't deserve comfort food?" or whatever.
One of my family members gets SNAP. Most of her food budget is paid for by the family; she gets very little, and once a week treats herself to sushi. She's had a tough life. Why doesn't she get to enjoy sushi?
Exactly! It's a very shit move to shame someone for their food choices. She absolutely deserves her sushi. It makes her happy. That is reason enough for her to buy and enjoy it.
I walk to the pool at 7am three mornings a week. Four houses on my block get the newspaper delivered but it never makes it past the sidewalk so I throw it onto their porches. I call it my paper route.
Increasingly, my standard for candidates for high federal office will be: How do you propose to oppose this fuckery, and what steps should be taken to bring the criminals who are perpetrating it to justice?
At this point, it's hard to see how almost anything else matters.
I've said this before, I'm sure I will say it again. I haven't watched the videos, and I ain't gonna. I see enough horrible stuff at work. I trust you Wonkers on this business.
I will crawl over burning coals to work for a candidate who is ready to promise trials for all these fucks, from Miller/Noem/Vance/Trump on down to the Sturmabteilung on the streets.
The woman in pink's video is released. I'm surprised ICE didn't destroy it before she mysteriously hanged herself while in custody.
Full field of view.
He wasn't trying to grab a gun or any of the other narrative bullshit.
One person has the lead-up, where all the man is doing is holding his phone before he's disarmed and now this video. There's no fucking ambiguity whatsoever.
They'll spin, deny, and lie, but there's no ambiguity. There's no angles that you can play in the blind spots of and ad-lib one's own bullshit. It's all there.
The Minnesota man who was killed by federal agents on Saturday has been identified as Alex Pretti, 37, a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.
It’s the second fatal shooting this month in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in addition to another non-fatal shooting, amid a major crackdown in Minnesota by federal agents.
Pretti attended nursing school at the University of Minnesota, where he was also a junior scientist beginning in 2012, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“He wanted to help people,” said Dimitri Drekonja, chief of infectious diseases at the VA hospital and professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, who worked with Pretti at the hospital and on a research project. “He was a super nice, super helpful guy – looked after his patients. I’m just stunned.”
He described Pretti as an “outstanding” nurse and a hard worker, quick with a joke and an “infectious” spirit. “He was such a good dude,” Drekonja told the Guardian. “I just love working with him.”
Michael Pretti, Alex’s father, echoed Drekonja’s assessment, describing his son to the Associated Press as someone who “cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset.”
“He felt that doing the protesting was a way to express that, you know, his care for others,” the elder Pretti said. [Guardian]
The NBA is starting to cancel games for tonight. I want everything cancelled for the foreseeable future. Boycott boycott boycott. Don't give them a thing except the loud scream of your profound disapproval.
I think "something nice you did for a neighbor or a neighbor did for you" would be a great topic for comments here today. As far as open thread off-topic comments, let's put them all in Robyn's morning post here. https://www.wonkette.com/p/happy-national-measure-your-feet
New people bought the home next to me a few months ago. Before I'd even properly met them, they began bringing my garbage cans in from the curb.
approved!!
Reading this (most excellent) thread, I think back to my childhood..
My dad was an only child, and his parents and most of the aunts and uncles on that side were very much help out when you can, nothing expected in return (the "charge it to the Polish Priest" I mentioned earlier)..
But my mom's sister married into a family that was quite different, even though she and her husband settled in not a quarter mile away from my paternal grandparents.. That family was totally transactional.. They didn't give unless they got.
.
Looking back, I think I and my sibs learned a lot from that..
Tonight we are introducing our friend's 11 year old daughter to the Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller.
Original Blues Bros, right? 😸
Wait, there's a *remake*?
Sort of
It stars Hegseth and is titled :
“The Booze Bros”…
That is just simply superb!
Most excellent choices!
Yyeees!
We used to have a side gig walking our neighbor's dog while she was at work.
One day, we were walking past the house of another neighbor -- a tiny older woman who spoke accented English -- I'll call her "Susan". She was sitting at a picnic table in her front yard, eating a sandwich. She called Doggo over to her, broke off a piece of her sandwich, and offered it to him. He gobbled it up, and then gave her a kiss on the cheek.
From then on, we got to know "Susan" a little bit. Of course, Doggo would pull us over to her whenever she was in the yard, and we would chat. We would bring her seasonal treats like lemonade or Christmas cookies. The family living next door would look in on her to make sure she was OK, and also park some of their many cars in her driveway, so it looked like somebody was always home. The other parishioners at her church would come over and mow her lawn. It's really less of "something nice we did for a neighbor" and more like, "a neighbor who everybody does nice things for".
One of my favorite stories is when "Susan" was sitting in the front yard with her sister. I showed her a picture on my phone of my sister and I from last time I visited. She and her sister marveled over my sister's admittedly fabulous looks, "So pretty! So pretty!", and then, after a pause, belatedly added, "Oh, yeah, you look OK too."
My story of helping a neighbor happened when I was driving back from a singing telegram wearing a belly dancer outfit. On the side of the highway was a car pulled over, hood up and obviously overheated. The older Black gentleman do what you DO NOT want to do. He opened the radiator and at that moment had hot fluid spray into his face. I pulled over quickly and pour water over his face. Luckily he seemed to be relatively unharmed but probably too soon to tell.
I told him that I could take him anywhere he wanted to go. He then asked me why a young woman pulled over to help a Black man. Especially given how I was dressed. I said that I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. Of course it was because he was hurt and stranded. I hoped that my simple action could erase part of his shitty day.
He then started talking about a recent story in the news about the young black teen who was mentally disabled and his body was found in the trunk of someone who was with a gang of kids who lured him and beat him until he died.
This man in my car was his stepfather who’d been his dad for years and whom loved him so deeply. He started crying and I held his hand.
I’ve always wondered how he was after that and I hoped that my kindness restored in him a little faith that not all people are bad. That there are still kind and caring people out there. Of course there was nothing that I could ever do that could erase the loss of his son who, by his telling, was one of the sweetest people he knew. But, perhaps, for a moment, there was a moment of grace in his life.
Love to you, Sherry!
That made me tear up. Bless you for doing that.
Dammit, who cuttin' onions up in here?
This is a good idea, by the way, it helps to lessen the negativity.
I used to regularly shovel my older neighbor’s sidewalk and driveway in my first house, she was a widow; it was no great act, I love to shovel snow. Mr S or I can’t imagine not helping someone in need, if it’s someone short of money in the grocery store or whatever, it’s what you do.
This is a thing my neighbour and I did for each other for years. Our city has a bylaw about "number of hours after snowfall you can let snow sit on the sidewalk". Whoever got out there first always shovelled the other guy's sidewalk.
sounds like Boston
lived on a "terrace" , five houses
the guy two houses down and I both had snow blowers, we took care of the terrace
When I was about 5 months pregnant I cam home from work to about 10" of snow in my driveway. Mr. Snot was working late. So I started shoveling, grumbling the whole time. A few minutes later my neighbor, whose name I barely knew, brought over his snowblower and did our entire driveway. I nearly wept, I was so grateful.
I've got nothing. I cannot speak, or even function.
What we do have is THIS. This place.
I'm pretty sure its become something you hadn't even counted on at the outset.
The best $47 and a sandwich anyone has ever spent.
I love you all.
What do you mean when you say, "THIS" Craig? Sounds like some authentic wisdom...
I thought the "this place" right after would clarify.
Maybe not, I was blind with rage at the moment.
Back Atcha, Bruh,...
For a second i was like "who?...OH! I get it."
Ok, I'll go:Not last fall, but the previous, I think it was late October or early November, my girlfriend and I were walking along the promenade by the river after a dinner out. It was getting dark, light misty rain, high-30s or low-40s. There were a few people around.
I saw out in the river, two young black kids. Maybe 8 and 10 years old. They had gotten hold of a canoe, and now they were in trouble. They were out in the middle of the river, on a tiny sandbar island, and their canoe had floated off. One kid was wading out into the river to try to retrieve it, he was up to his waist. They were both soaking wet. No lifejackets, no paddles, nuthin'. The other people around us were ignoring them.
Prime hypothermia and/or drowning situation. I thought about calling 911, but I calculated that by the time EMS showed up, and got set up for a water rescue, it might be too late. It seemed like the kind of situation that could go south very quickly. I shouted to them asking if they needed help, and they responded "yes please!"
Don't create another victim, that's the first rule.
I found a long fallen branch, and was able to fish their canoe back to my side of the river. It was 3/4 full of water. I dumped it out. Found some old rope on a dock, and made it fast. I pushed hard and sent the canoe 20 or 30 yards out to their island. They climbed in, and I pulled them back to land. Secured the canoe, packed them into my car, they gave me directions, and I drove them home.
End of story. I didn't even get wet. I never caught their names, or met their parents, but I very likely saved both their lives that night.
I once saved another soldier when I was in the army. He would have died if I hadn't stumbled on him. It's a nice feeling knowing he's still probably alive.
That reminds me. I once saved a kid from drowning. I was maybe 12 or 13. There was a local swimming hole - had a set of docks, the city supplied a lifeguard, the kind of place you rode your bike to at about 10am, and didn't get home from until after dark.
We went every friggin' day during the summer. Which was prime "kissing under a blanket for hours" season. ;-)
One day, we're on the dock that is permanently affixed to the rocks/beach (as opposed to the temporary dock that the city floated out every summer) and I see a kid thrashing away trying to get back to the solid dock from the floating dock. And said kid is in trouble, and surrounded by dozens of kids jumping off the dock, cannonballing, splashing, yelling, not even noticing the struggling swimmer, etc. As kids do. I look at the lifeguard - who's attention is distracted by other kids jumping off a rock outcropping into the area just outside the lines - a rite of passage we ALL did ... and I just jumped in, grabbed said struggling swimmer and helped them get to the ladder to climb the fixed dock.
I often wonder what ever happened to that kid. Did they grow up to write a great rock song, or marry their high school sweetheart (they couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 at the time).
I got back up on the dock after saving said kid, and said to MY friends, "Did you SEE that, I fucking saved that kid's life!". None of them did. Out of a dozen of us, not a single one even noticed. It was ... and still is ... surreal.
I had taken swimming lessons - and hated them - as a kid. In Canada there used to be a "colour coded" system for the various lessons, that ended with something like "lifeguard 1", "lifeguard 2", etc. I had stopped the year before I got my lifeguard certification.
Way to go!
❤️❤️❤️
Bless you for your quick and unselfish response. Those kids got very lucky that day.
Hero they needed.
I don't know about that hero biz, but I did the right thing, and I'm glad I was there that night.
The guy they killed was a nurse.
You were one to them...
This is now my favorite story of all time.
That is Big Damn Heroing indeed!
Good man!
From this fellow RN, momma and granny; THANK you.
Our old house was rowhomes so we would mow each others lawns. It was never a big deal since lawns were postage stamps. My next door neighbors were older and I’d mow her lawn and during the snowpocalypse in 2010 I shoveled her driveway. She brought me homemade chicken soup. I didn’t need anything but thought it was nice. A small example.
Our upstairs neighbor is a very nice man. We live up three flights of stairs. Because of my physical "stuff", I order a lot delivered. I can get it up the stairs, but it can be a challenge. Whenever he can, he delivers packages - some are heavy! - right to the door.
With only one leg, and getting around on crutches, picking up the dog's "leavings" (we have a very strict "scoop the poop" law here), can be quite a sight... a sort of flamingo move on my part, and trying very hard to make sure the dog poops next to something I can balance myself against... a tree, close to a wall, etc.
Doesn't always work out that way, and while I was pulling out the poop bag, the security guard at the building across the street walked over, picked it up and took it away himself...
Of course, this is Mexico, where we can always count on the kindness of strangers. I can't count the times trying to reach the lock to open my building door (it's not the most convenient location for me), somebody just coming down the street... even little old ladies... will do it for me. Or carry my shopping bag (try carrying one while using crutches). Or... at one point, where a cop stopped all traffic on a busy street so I didn't have to hump down a block to the light and cross walk.
My store has a regular customer with only one leg. When we are slow and have extra mobility scooters he will use one, if we are busy and have an open one he will not take it in case someone with a greater need needs it. He uses a crutch and shopping cart awkwardly then. When any of us see him we try to help him as much as we can, including someone will shop with him so he can concentrate on just walking and not pushing the cart as well.
My current store manager does not approve of the "waste of labor" but the rest of us do not care what she thinks on this subject.
Good for you.
And may I say, your current store manager sounds like a waste of oxygen.
She honestly is. All the entire staff wanted for Christmas was her transfer out. The signs are there for those of us who have seen this song and dance before. She won't be fired, she's very new,to the company so her salary is low. But she can be transferred somewhere inconvenient for her, or demoted for "more training".
Don't care how it happens, but she honestly deserves it.
You may enjoy this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS1sVhnZ2OA
Was able to take out the garbage for my upstairs neighbor who found it too heavy.
And local business people brighten my day, remembering my name, being welcoming, and also posting solidarity posters and the like, marking their businesses as safe havens.
"Mr Anderson...one of you takes out the garbage for your landlady..."
I was in the checkout line at the grocery store, maybe two months after we moved to South FL.
The elderly (and dark skinned) woman ahead of me at the register was fumbling with her debit cards, several got declined, she looked like she was going to cry..
"I got it" I said and ran my card.. she got an amazing look of relief and started thanking me in broken english.. "Not to worry. Have a great day!"
Very white guy behind me then said "That's probably a scam.."
To which I said "I really don't care."
To which the person behind him in line gave me a double thumbs up.
.
My dad (pbuh) in a situation like this would say "Don't worry, I'll just charge it to the Polish Priest"
I have done this in the supermarket as well.
All I ever asked was that people pay it forward when and if they could.
Yes. On two occasions during the past decade I forked over some $$ to help someone in front of me at the cashier. Both were Hispanic women with multiple kids taking things out of their pile to bring the bill down.
Lol. There was a thing for a while in my city where people would do that in the drive through coffee line. Pay for the order of the people behind them. The backlash when someone WOULDN'T continue the trend made local papers.
Longest string I ever heard about was three full days running.
sending you and tek big hugs because that's what rational, sane, compassionate people do when they see someone else suffering or having a problem. jfc, these nazis are truly depraved and psychopaths.
show some love and understanding, it's not that hard
Absolutely, comrade.
THIS, Tek! <3
Those of us who have had cards declined at the checkout, especially during very bad times, send you all the hugs.
It's such a humiliating thing for someone. I'd covered the stuff for someone in this situation before. And people behind in the line can often be so cruel about it.
Yes, and when you have little kids with you, it's worse. I remember leaving a store, being unable to pay for a cart full of groceries (SNAP got messed up), and trying to make my kids think it was a big game. You don't get over that. Bless all of you who just help without another thought. You have no idea what it means.
Whenever a fellow retail drone starts bitterly complaining about what someone buys with their SNAP benefits, usually in the backroom but not always, I ( no pun intended) snap back " a kid doesn't deserve a birthday cake?" , " they don't deserve comfort food?" or whatever.
One of my family members gets SNAP. Most of her food budget is paid for by the family; she gets very little, and once a week treats herself to sushi. She's had a tough life. Why doesn't she get to enjoy sushi?
Exactly! It's a very shit move to shame someone for their food choices. She absolutely deserves her sushi. It makes her happy. That is reason enough for her to buy and enjoy it.
My bride did that a couple of weeks back at a grocery here in Seattle. Amazing, not everyone in this city has a heavy six-figure annual salary.
<3 Mrs. weejee <3
I walk to the pool at 7am three mornings a week. Four houses on my block get the newspaper delivered but it never makes it past the sidewalk so I throw it onto their porches. I call it my paper route.
Increasingly, my standard for candidates for high federal office will be: How do you propose to oppose this fuckery, and what steps should be taken to bring the criminals who are perpetrating it to justice?
At this point, it's hard to see how almost anything else matters.
I've said this before, I'm sure I will say it again. I haven't watched the videos, and I ain't gonna. I see enough horrible stuff at work. I trust you Wonkers on this business.
I'm with you.
I will crawl over burning coals to work for a candidate who is ready to promise trials for all these fucks, from Miller/Noem/Vance/Trump on down to the Sturmabteilung on the streets.
The woman in pink's video is released. I'm surprised ICE didn't destroy it before she mysteriously hanged herself while in custody.
Full field of view.
He wasn't trying to grab a gun or any of the other narrative bullshit.
One person has the lead-up, where all the man is doing is holding his phone before he's disarmed and now this video. There's no fucking ambiguity whatsoever.
They'll spin, deny, and lie, but there's no ambiguity. There's no angles that you can play in the blind spots of and ad-lib one's own bullshit. It's all there.
He was *thinking* bad thoughts about ICE. They could tell.
Morning Kittens https://bsky.app/profile/democratcats.bsky.social/post/3md3puauxgc2w
The Minnesota man who was killed by federal agents on Saturday has been identified as Alex Pretti, 37, a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.
It’s the second fatal shooting this month in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in addition to another non-fatal shooting, amid a major crackdown in Minnesota by federal agents.
Pretti attended nursing school at the University of Minnesota, where he was also a junior scientist beginning in 2012, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“He wanted to help people,” said Dimitri Drekonja, chief of infectious diseases at the VA hospital and professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, who worked with Pretti at the hospital and on a research project. “He was a super nice, super helpful guy – looked after his patients. I’m just stunned.”
He described Pretti as an “outstanding” nurse and a hard worker, quick with a joke and an “infectious” spirit. “He was such a good dude,” Drekonja told the Guardian. “I just love working with him.”
Michael Pretti, Alex’s father, echoed Drekonja’s assessment, describing his son to the Associated Press as someone who “cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset.”
“He felt that doing the protesting was a way to express that, you know, his care for others,” the elder Pretti said. [Guardian]
A registered nurse.
I had to read that twice.
So. How much longer are we going to put up with this?
"𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱; 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗽𝗼𝗻, 𝗯𝘂𝘁, 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘄𝗮𝗿, 𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲."
~ Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington Militia; Lexington, Massachusetts; April 19, 1775
this FUCKING planet, maaaaaan:/
and yr
smoking lamp
is furiously ablaze in a fire of cleansing righteousness for fuck's SAKE!! AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!
The precipice is upon us.
The 9 most terrifying words in the English language.
“We’re ICE and we’re here to make you safe.”
It's disrespectful and inflammatory to compare ICE to the Gestapo.
It's not like ICE is breaking down people's doors without warrants, masking their true identities, or beating and murdering people in the streets.
I mean, that was pretty much what Vance said yesterday, except he expected people to believe it. And the cult will.
Raising this toolkit up for those of us who will soon be in the barrel if our friends in Minneapolis fall:
Rapid Response Networks in the Twin Cities
A Guide to an Updated Model
2026-01-15
https://crimethinc.com/2026/01/15/rapid-response-networks-in-the-twin-cities-a-guide-to-an-updated-model
It's best to prepare.
The NBA is starting to cancel games for tonight. I want everything cancelled for the foreseeable future. Boycott boycott boycott. Don't give them a thing except the loud scream of your profound disapproval.
But! BTS is coming here on tour and will rescue the economy!!!!!!!!!
What are the odds Alex Pretti's VA hospital colleagues who post social media tributes will face workplace retribution from the regime?
Mrs. Betty Bowers
@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social
ICE isn't law enforcement without training; ICE is white nationalism with guns.
1:25 PM · Jan 24, 2026
☝️☝️ ☝️