I have money and my job is as secure as anyones, but my neighbors getting kidnapped sure doesn't put me in the holiday spending spirit.

I love my two blackout drunk Minnesota sons

My response to anything over the next two weeks

It is okay to feel sad, scared, or upset when bad bills move forward. But don't let yourself get lost in grief. Find community. Lean on care. Stay organized. Keep pushing forward. Our people need hope. Our youth need hope. But everything about our history (and present) tells me to stay hopeful.

Parent-teacher groups shouldn't have to be organizing food drives and delivery so that students families don't get kidnapped by the government.

The Vanity Fair photographer from the Susie Wiles story. Holy. Shit. www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...

I've lived in the MAC zone long enough to be able to gauge the temperature from how the planes sound

“Still Life with Potatoes” by Mike Lynch (1982), seen at the Tweed Museum of Art in Duluth last October.

I never know how to react to the latest news, so let me just say one more time: immigration is good. It helps immigrants and it helps native-born people. It makes the world richer, culturally and financially.

To clarify, the ancient Greeks were very concerned about making money, and were mostly rational interest-maximizers in the way that modern people are; but the point of making money was to live well, not to continue accumulating money.

I read a book on making money in ancient Athens recently (by Michael Leese, it's great), and the Greeks absolutely believed that the endless pursuit of wealth was a serious moral defect and personality issue no different than being a drunk or sexual deviant.

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

Unless you're the state of Minnesota

Our son needing more milk than my wife made was *extremely* traumatic. We still have frozen breastmilk in the freezer and he's 9 (she can't bear throwing it and I'm not going to)

Anyone who has paid a moment of attention to spouses or friends who have gone through nursing and lactation knows how very fucked up it is to shame people for "choosing" formula.

Biggest overspender for 2025: MPD is projected to be 19.5 million over budget. Boosted from $226m to $246m. Biggest underspender: The department of Neighborhood Safety will be nearly $11 million under budget. Over half their $17m budget.

Police Continue Defunding Minneapolis bsky.app/profile/arli...

Aurin Chowdhury rebutting Michael Rainville on his "defund the police" accusation. MPD has done nothing but ramp their budget off the chart. And then overspent that budget by $20 million. "That's the opposite of defunding the police. So let's give it a break."

When my son was a baby he was sick - we had finally gotten him comfortable and asleep. Amazon was piloting its food delivery business (sorry, didn't know the downsides at the time) and delivery was free. My wife and I ate Hola Arepa on our bed. Perhaps the best tasting food in our entire lives.

A second pair of socks has done wonders for my ability to appreciate this weather

Jon Collins is always right in the thick of things. He was there in 2020 and he’s there today. One of the main reasons I tune in to MPR. Anyway, these anti-ICE tactics are working, even in the dead of winter.

Oops.

This is why it is also all pointless. The racists are too late, they aren't going to win. They are just going to cause a lot of suffering in the meantime.

95% of MN Somalis are US citizens. 58% were born in the US. The only reason to target this community with immigration agents is for the sake of racial profiling and harassment - which the US supreme court says is legal now. www.npr.org/2025/09/13/n...

Stole this from the Cedar Cultural Center’s page since they aren’t here. ♥️♥️♥️

Of the 80,000 Somalis who live in the twin cities, only 4000 are non-citizens. And the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of those 4000 non-citizens are NOT undocumented—they are here legally. There is no immigration issue to enforce here. I know racists don't care about this, but these facts do matter

It's starting to get cold - the snow is getting squeaky

North: Reykjavik, Iceland South: Cusco, Peru I was a bit sad when I realized furthest north wasn't in MN. It is the furthest north I've been in the US

just brainstorming but i think a good political slogan would be "genuinely, we should have a taco truck on every corner."

We did a lot of stuff outside, particularly with a group of 4 boys all the same age as my son. We still do get together that same group but not as often. Life tends to get in the way - the advantage of that time was life was basically paused in other ways

Bull's Horn was great tonight

The only antidote - and I do mean the ONLY one - to Trump and Miller's xenophobia is a full-throated defense of immigration and a full-throated attack on the racism and xenophobia currently guiding immigration policy. You can't half-ass this one, you can't Very Reasonable Limits this one.

Turns out I just love carb mush with gravy on top.

See also tariffs and mass deportations

I don't think I've been to five concerts. Meaning, like, professional musicians. I was in band in HS and went to concerts like that.

I like and drink alcohol. My husband works at a place that is primarily a bar. I'm not against alcohol! But in general, consumption of alcohol being down is a positive for society, not a negative.

I'm inclined to agree with people that find Turkey/pie/etc discourse boring. Until I get sucked in... It did occur to me that food arguments are a standard type of small talk in person too.

I've been doing two jobs since June, sure would be nice if they expedited decision making around that

On the bus home from work probably half the people spoke Spanish (some guesses, mostly hearing it) It is so hard for me to understand why that could be considered a bad thing

I am re-reading @marthawells.com Witch King in preparation to start Queen Demon I now picture Basasha as Zohran Mamdani

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

every week we get to friday and i think well maybe next week will not be so weird

Imagine being one of those CEOs or school presidents who bowed down to this weird old man, then realizing he doesn’t like you as much as he likes this guy who didn’t bow at all

Whenever this is mentioned, it is obligatory to post xkcd 2381, in which @gretchenmcc.bsky.social shares forbidden linguistic knowledge with the masses.

Well, one plus to the world burning is my hands are the warmest they've ever been putting away the hoses for the winter

There he goes

Flight Cuts to Be Reduced by Half That’s a headline worth discussing in math class. What does each student think it means? How would they represent with math symbols?

Good morning. Immigrants require housing, yes, but housing requires humans to build, and immigrants are humans.

Financier is not a real job. Anybody described that way is a criminal of some sort.