✋ There are lots of good reasons not to, obviously, ranging from the environmental through the ethical and on into the deeply philosophical, but like also I just have some basic fucking self-respect?

Gender is a performance and I'm a midsized community theater's deeply earnest but very modestly voiced Gilbert & Sullivan annual.

Football Chant Therapy For Men (With @misterabk.bsky.social @bigdirtyfry.bsky.social @seanburkeshow.bsky.social @samlakecomedy.bsky.social @wsebag.bsky.social @bjalborough.bsky.social @cbthorburn.bsky.social and Chris Weir) www.youtube.com/shorts/V20uv...

Leaning out the window to shout your order in the clown's crotch, the 70s were just a wild time.

I dunno, this could be pretty solid. I feel like the Kardashians have got to have some things to say about creating a monster that despises and destroys its maker, you know?

You know what people from Chicago love? Being told that something they've called by the same name decades has a new name, now. Always goes over great here.

Pair of Bell 429 helicopters circling Edgewater near Foster/Broadway right now, according to Flightradar24. The one with a registration number is ID'd as Cook County Sheriff's office, and the other is N/A.

Occupation is when the armed invaders insist they’re there on your behalf. Conquest is when you agree. Chicago is occupied, but I take heart that we will never, never be conquered.

Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry

This is the time of year when I give a lot of budget talks around Chicago, and after the first flurry of them I can say: most people in the room are not usually radical abolitionists, but a non-zero number this year ARE people who know what tear gas smells like, and who maybe didn't know last year.

This is the time of year when I give a lot of budget talks around Chicago, and after the first flurry of them I can say: most people in the room are not usually radical abolitionists, but a non-zero number this year ARE people who know what tear gas smells like, and who maybe didn't know last year.

If you are someone who works anywhere near electoral politics and are trying to figure out how much of an outlier New York City is, it might be worth recalling that more people live in that single city than in 44 of our 50 states. Things that are popular in NYC are popular with a LOT of people.

Occupation is when the armed invaders insist they’re there on your behalf. Conquest is when you agree. Chicago is occupied, but I take heart that we will never, never be conquered.

Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back! Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary. Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest! #MundaneHalloween

Oh this came in my reader and I Am Crying 😭😭😭 Wikipedia > LLMs

Were the LOTRs movies the last time someone who’d participated in a world war acted in movie about dealing with world war trauma?

Get in the control group, Shinji.

Say what you will about the Church of Rome, there’s no denying that Catholicism has inspired some of history’s most iconic art and culture.

DHS still can’t or won’t say what they did with the two U.S. citizens they detained on 9/30 and called CPD to request a vehicle for. They first sent a statement about the South Shore raid—an entirely different incident—and when I asked again they sent this deeply unserious response.

It’s weird looking at old James Bond books and movie posters and realizing that the whole “Double O” and “License to Kill” stuff made for a thrilling action premise because the default assumption at the time was NOT that any law enforcement agent can of course kill you and face no consequences.

Chicagoans continue to run out of their homes to confront ICE, guard schools and churches, buy out street vendors so they can stay home, and grocery-shop for vulnerable families. The people are what makes us a sanctuary city. Whenever I start to despair, I try to remember that

“Gideon the Ninth,” Muir, 2019

As a Very Large Human it is hard for me to not be moved by Frankenstein movies, which from the archly Gothic (looking at you, Guillermo) to the slapstick silly (Abbot & Costello, etc.) are all eventually about a very big boy being sad because people are afraid of him.

Thor's helmet should emote like Asterix's, my only deeply held superhero opinion

"$83 million of the roughly $193 million in transportation taxes collected last year by the collar counties around Cook was spent on cops and courts." Absolutely wild. illinoisanswers.org/2025/10/28/l...

If you’ve been to a city council meeting in Chicago lately and wondered whether the very vocal Trump supporters at public comment were an organized political advocacy group, the answer is apparently yes…but “organized” is more of a technical term than a descriptive one, in this particular case.

This racing sweater for the National School Boy's Inter-City Ice Skating Championship of 1922 goes hard af. 11/10. Would wear. 📸 CHM, Costume & Textiles Collection

I think Bluesky might have the best community culture of all platforms right now

Genuinely concerned for some people’s Wicked Pt. 2 letdown next month, because, like…you remember all those songs you love are from Act 1, right? Like ALL of them. It’s all downhill (and reprises) from here, fans.

Public comment has never exactly been City Council’s top priority, but this thing with reconvening hearings (midyear, budget, etc.) where the chair gavels in and runs public comment for an otherwise-empty room, and the rest of the alderpersons show up after, is…not a great look.

I know that there are people outside Chicago who are paying attention and seeing these videos but there are no words for how it feels when the videos show everyday places in your neighborhood, places that are part of your routine. The sense of violation is profound.

People have been awful for a long time, and Chicago has been awesome for a long time, too.

Mayor Johnson's proposed 2026 budget is out, and BGA Policy has the highlights for you! Basic, top-level changes: - Appropriations are down -2.6% overall, the first year-over-year decline since 2023 - Positions/FTEs are down -1.2%, the second year in a row of declining budgeted city workforce

It’s budget season in Chicago, and that means it’s time for BGA Policy’s popular Budget Snapshots: your go-to, day-by-day guide to each department’s proposed budget. Learn more and sign up here: www.bettergov.org/city-of-chic...

New piece today looking at some actuals data: city departments have mostly come in well under budget in recent years, with the significant exception of the Chicago Police Department. In 2024, CPD's non-grant overspend alone was larger than the non-grant budget of 32 of the city's 39 departments.

New piece today looking at some actuals data: city departments have mostly come in well under budget in recent years, with the significant exception of the Chicago Police Department. In 2024, CPD's non-grant overspend alone was larger than the non-grant budget of 32 of the city's 39 departments.

I keep seeing Sondra Radvanovsky playing women in very obvious triads with amazing girlfriends and dirtbag boyfriends, and I know that’s not actually what the operas are about but it’s not NOT what the operas are about.

Performatively reading in the cafe, but wearing white gloves so I'm still venerating the Book As Object, with a t-shirt saying "I know archivists don't wear gloves" so people know the gloves are performative.

I love having a thing of giardinera in the fridge as much as the next Chicagoan, but it has come to my attention that some of y’all are scooping that with a spoon, and that is wild to me. Use a fork and let the oil drain!

“Haribo declined to comment when approached by the BBC.” YOU DON’T SAY.

I for one would like to know more about Big Jo (“Votes for the Superior Sex!”) of the Girls’ Nut Club, and her friend Gladys with hair like waving grain in summer’s golden light.

“the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"

[haunted by the looming threat of fascism] we needed this rain

FRIDAY: CPD denies my FOIA for bodycam footage from 7500 South Shore because footage is only flagged if, among other things, an arrest was made. SUNDAY: CPD spox acknowledges that they made at least one arrest at 7500 South Shore in an on-the-record statement provided for this story.

🧵 A deep dive into guaranteed funding floors for three Chicago oversight agencies -- Office of Inspector General, Civilian Office of Police Accountability, and Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability -- found actual departmental budgets well short of the minimums.

“Going Postal,” Pratchett, 2004

A thing I think it’s important for USians not in currently-occupied cities to grasp is that the normal and everyday goes on alongside the violent and unprecedented. In Chicago right now you can be forced off teargas-soaked streets in the morning and have a peaceful evening picnic on the lake.

"you seem equally mad about autocorrect and cops tonight keez" anybody who's followed me for any amount of time knows I can be mad at lots of things at once it's just. you know. funnier to be mad at autocorrect