Bondi Bleach said she had the "Epstein files" on her desk and was assessing them as ordered by trump. Now she says the "Epstein files" never existed. These Schrodinger's files have split the MAGA cult asunder. Now you see them--they implicate the Democratic pedo ring. Now you don't--if they existed, they would feature a well-known "playboy" and grabber of the period but they don't because they don't exist.
Yeah, it seems rather fortuitous for a particular dirtbag whose name rhymes with Dump.
But then, why would Epstein keep a list of his scummy patrons? I doubt he was using Quickbooks to keep track of payments, and it probably wasn’t that hard to remember who they were.
We can only speculate, but it would make sense for someone in that position to keep some sort of record for "leverage". Also, as M. says, Pam Bondi herself said she had the list on her desk, so either she was lying then or she's lying now.
He apparently liked to record himself raping these young girls, so I doubt he had any qualms about filming others doing the same. That would be far more damaging than simply keeping their names on a sheet of paper.
As for Bondi, she was lying (as you said). Which is a particularly bad trait to have in one’s Attorney General. She was most likely feeding the conspiracy theorists when she said she had the list on her desk. She also said Epstein victimized “thousands,” when the number is obviously much lower, so she isn’t exactly known for giving concrete facts (again, not a good look for an AG).
I have also heard that Stephen Miller basically runs the DoJ because she’s too busy primping for her next Fox News interview.
It was in the news today. The Department of Justice says there was no such list. Today she tried to say that the Epstein file was on her desk. Now ask yourself why lie when she is on video saying she had the list? Want to explain this, MAGAs? Can you do that without invoking Biden?
She only admitted it after the Justice Department announced there was no such thing as and never had been. The orange stain backed her. Then she tried to say that she meant she had the Epstein file right in front of her. It was a stupid lie since we have seen the video of what she actually said. My question is this. Who in the Justice Department gets fired by the orange stain for pointing out her lie?
I was going to say it’s likely one of the new AI spammer/scammers. I have had a rash of them lately and simply block the number and report the sender as spam.
Ann's response is much kinder than deserved, but she's probably a better person than I am. The first sign of old age is responding to texts from an unknown number. Since you are a public figure, I guess this might be an occupational hazard, but for regular folks, this is a ticket from lonely to broke.
I would agree it's a scammer unless they left a full name, more details about when you met and the conference they're coming to town for so you could verify.
My vote to legalize fireworks in IL comes with a caveat: that the ordinance include strict limits and enforcement of where, when and with whom (i.e., an adult) they can be used.
Problem will continue to be lack of enforcement, whether they remain illegal and unenforced or legal with time/place/manner restrictions and unenforced. Indiana fireworks are VERY popular in my suburb starting a week or two before the 4th and continuing to after Labor Day. This past weekend one (surely perfectly sober and responsible) firework enthusiast took out a transformer. My neighbor two doors down put on a show for his annual party that shook my 2-story brick house. Hard.
I voted yes to selling fireworks in Illinois, but no on liking the neighborhood displays. Illinois could use the revenue (although they might also get a boost out of busting all those Krazy Kaplans customers as they cross back into the state).
I don’t *hate* local fireworks, but I can live without them. I’m not a particular fan of neighbors who think it’s okay to keep setting them off well past midnight.
I made the same votes. It seems silly to miss out on tax revenue with all the surrounding states benefiting from it, but then the dangers of people doing this are real. Maybe same as pot - legalize and regulate better?
Fireworks that go up & burst in many colors are fine, but I want an end to firecrackers, some of those booms from them are way, way too loud. They scare every dog for a mile around, plus one was thrown next to my garage last year & caused stuff to be thrown off of a shelf!
At our 4th of July cookout, someone brought what are called mega-snaps -- like regular snaps but louder. They looked like miniature dynamite sticks, about 1/4" long, and sounded like a gunshot when they hit the ground. I threw the only one that was used, and when it went off everyone jumped. It detonated hard enough that someone two feet away felt the debris hit their leg.
Doing it "for the revenue" is why we have sports gambling everywhere and what used to be called slot machines all over, not just in floating casinos. Some day the same argument will lead to legalized prostitution.
And the problem with legalizing a profession that has been practiced for thousands of years is exactly what?? - Legalize and regulate would be a better situation than the current one with the women getting arrested and the Johns getting off scot-free.
The law does not prescribe that johns get off scot-free or that the women must be arrested. There are local enforcement issues with prostitution just as there are with fireworks.
There is legal sex work in most areas of the world. Puritans and Bible thumpers in this country are still living in the 1800’s. I have news for them. Sex outside marriage is taking place all over the country as I write this- whether it be teens, cheating spouses, bosses doing their assistants, or one night stand bar pickups.
I smile at the fireworks question. Illinois has added casinos, discussed legalizing sex workers, added speed cameras, increased right to choose revenues from bordering red states, legalized cannabis, has the lotto paying for 1.7% of school funding in addition to some “special causes” and is a top 3 state on taxing gas.
Needed economic adjustments for losing those annoying 1 percenters, their businesses and their ilk to other states.
Starting to feel like Hill Valley in Back to the Future Part 2!😉
The deadly Texas floods are an example of "small government" in action. The idea that government agencies are meddlesome roadblocks that take money from citizens and waste it without providing anything useful. Reports are that Kerr county officials rejected a flood warning system for years due to cost. I'm afraid that this is just a small preview of the hurricane season that is starting now, after the cuts made to NOAA and NWS.
The Gulf states as well as the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia are the biggest targets of hurricanes, and most of them are solid red states. Not to be an asshole, but I am reminded of a recent phrase I’ve seen a lot — have the day you voted for.
Thank goodness we have people like Ted and K Mason that tell me kindness is still a thing. I also tip as much as I ever have because I know minimum wage is not enough to live on and the amount I would save doesn’t matter that much to me. Also they are doing me a service and well, if I only go out to dinner once a week now I guess I can suck it up and still help someone else pay their bills. I would want people to do the same for me.
I totally agree with you, Amy, as I said in my comments here. Kindness is all around us, but you would never know it to look at what's happening at the federal level. So we must do our part, however small.
While the Canadian could have been sincere, it sounds too much like a scammer to me. Way too persistent in my opinion. Another way to evaluate it is what’s your upside vs. downside if you continue to engage.
Was watching Family Feud one night (I live an exciting life) and they had a fill-in-the-blank: __________ time. I was nigh on offended that no said "Hammer Time."
It's a variant on the one in which a doctor asks an aged patient what day it is. "Wednesday," says the aged patient. "No, it's Thursday" says the doctor. "So am I, let's go to out for a drink," replies the patient.
I’ve gotten several texts from unrecognized numbers in the past week written like texts to a wrong number, including this one from a Florida area code: “I’m traveling to Chicago in September for a holiday, do you have time for the Adler Planetarium?” I don’t know anyone who uses “holiday” to mean “vacation”, so I ignored it.
I occasionally get texts like that and also friend requests on social media from people I do not know and usually have female names and a picture of a young woman. Even Strava which is social media for bicyclists
I get friend requests on social media from people I don’t know and they always have male names and pictures of men. The pig butchers/scammers assume you are heterosexual. Once I even responded to one, stating that I am a lesbian and couldn’t they at least send me some fake female profiles.
OMG, they are all active duty or recently retired military personnel! I do get emails (that go to my spam folder in Gmail) from "Singles near me" who are exclusively female with very large mammary tissue or companies offering to help me enlarge my "manhood."
I like the ones where I get pictures of beautiful young women who are just dying to meet me. While ego boosting, I am aware they are either fake or scams for money. I wonder what would happen if they saw pictures of me, which could be scary.
Yup - you've gotta know your local jargon to detect scammers. I'm in a FB group of nonprofits and someone asked about a possible email scam that referenced a daughter having a summer internship in upstate Illinois among other details. Other respondents focused on the information being asked but I explained the terms for areas of Illinois (northern, southern, central, northwest, Chicago, collar counties, and Chicagoland), saying that it was definitely a scam because there is no such place as 'upstate Illinois.' :-)
Regarding tips, in restaurants where I have been served, I know what the service has been and can tip accordingly. There are many places where I order and pay for my food upfront, and have no idea what the service will be, and it won’t be by a less than minimum wage server.
As a school librarian who worked in both public and private schools for close to 40 years, I'd like to chime in on the debate about parents who don't want their children to read certain books. I've had a number of challenges over the years (including objections to Harry Potter, due to its so-called witchcraft) and I've always followed the recommendations of the national American Library Association, www.ala.org, who has an entire department, the Office for Intellectual Freedom, which is devoted to challenged and banned books such as The Diary of Anne Frank, Fahrenheit 451, and many, many others. In the personal instances I've encountered, I've followed ALA's guidelines for such challenges, and have acquiesced to parent requests, ONLY for their child, but not for every student. For those interested, here is ALA's stance: "The following were the top three reasons cited for challenging materials as reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom:
--the material was considered to be "sexually explicit"
--the material contained "offensive language"
--the materials was "unsuited to any age group"
Although this is a commendable motivation, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA's basic policy concerning access to information) states that, “Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.” Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment."
I love MSI but it is pretty dated in some spots. For instance, the model train exhibit still touts a hugh speed rail line in Illinois that would open in the 2010s!
Agree; MSI exhibits are hit or miss. The thing I feel is important for people to know is that of Chicago's 6 science museums, 4 are actual research institutions with PhD researchers doing actual science research with their collections. Those are Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, and Notebaert Nature Museum. The other two -- MSI and Int'l Museum of Surgical Science (of which I'm a big fan) are not research museums, so more like "science centers" you find in many cities.
I thought that was removed when they updated the train a few years ago? They refurbished it quite a bit. My autistic adult son adores it so we visit it frequently. Son refuses to get anywhere near the Tesla coil though. Terrifies him.
I *HATE* that he bought naming rights. Probably a reaction to still having to share the Kenneth and Anne Griffin Court in the Art Institute with his ex. Had to have something just for himself.
If the server is standing, they get a tip! - I don't imagine that standing for 8 hours at a time, dealing with grumpy customers is a job that brings a lot of joy to the server.
For me the difference is the counter worker is being paid the $15.00 minimum wage (likely more) vs (previous) $2.13 server wage. Servers must have tips to survive, counter workers less so. My son makes $18/hr in a hospital, preparing and taking food trays to patient rooms, picking them up after meals, etc. No one tips him nor should they. He's not paid server wages, he gets an actual wage.
Re: Tipping: Ever since I read Barbara Ehrenreich's superb and still highly relevant book Nickel and Dimed, about the impossibility of living on the minimum wage during the Clinton years, I've tipped much more (not that I was ever a stingy tipper) and to a variety of people, including hotel maids (haven't seen men doing this job yet) plus bartenders, servers, etc; Things are about to get a LOT worse in this country, and I know from personal experience, plus my son's experience as a bartender/server, that tips are hugely important! The service industry workers already can't afford to live in places like Boulder or Sedona---they can only afford outlying areas. If I can make a small difference, I'm going to try.
We usually leave $5/night (even if they don't clean each day). More if we requested service during the stay and got it (extra towels, fresh sheets, clean coffee mugs - in the increasingly rare establishment that still has real mugs)
Tipping is an archaic custom based on noblesse oblige and should be abandoned everywhere. The woman who cleans your hotel room deserves to be paid adequately for her work, but it is irrelevant to the matter at hand, which is tipping. The cleaning lady is an employee who makes it possible for her employer, the hotel, to offer a service to the public and charge for it and by so doing to make a profit. It is the hotel’s obligation to pay her a reasonable wage. The person at the hardware store who cuts a key for you is an employee of the hardware store who makes it possible for the hardware store to offer a service to the public and charge for it and in so doing to make a profit. It is the obligation of the hardware store to pay that employee a reasonable wage. Tipping is a form of dishonest merchandising. It is attractive to merchants because it allows them to suggest to the customer that the cost is less than it really is.
Money given in tips could better be given to some charity of your choice that help the less fortunate.
I agree and liked your statement that people should be paid adequately for their work. That is the ideal, not the reality. Until it IS reality, I'll continue to tip AND also contribute to a variety of charities (growing by the minute, as the Criminal in Chief inserts his grubby fingers into every single aspect of our lives!)
One of the problems with tipping is that it is very non-uniform. In June 2024, the business section of the Washington Post published an interesting table of 9 occupations that involve tipping. For servers at a sit-down restaurant, the percentage of customers who leave a tip declined from 75% in 2021 to 67% in 2024. For hotel housekeepers the decline was from 28% in 2021 to 22% in 2024.
Everyone receives the same service. Everyone should pay the same.
Of course, if you work at a restaurant where customers order alcohol, their bill is much bigger, so tips are much bigger, than at your local diner (although I've definitely seen some servers, or waitresses as they were called back in the day, turn over a ton of tables!)
Perhaps you always inquire of the hotel how much they pay the housekeeping staff?? And if it is $15/hour, you don't tip?!?!?! Because the minimum wage is certainly enough to pay someone to deal with the muck of hotel guests!
I have written to my Congresspersons and my Senators to eliminate the Tipped Wage Minimum. And I know it was based in the racism/sexism dynamics of the southern states. Have you??
K Mason, I write to my Congress people and Senators (all Democrats) weekly, but about things like asking them to----or thanking them for---their fight to oppose the overwhelming number of awful actions by the Criminal in Chief and his regime, from the gutting of the our environmental, health, consumer, etc departments to the blatant corruption and trashing of the Constitution, habeaus corpus, etc; So far, I haven't written to them about this issue.
The worst one is “Non-perishable Manager” because its idea is so fundamentally wrong. As anyone who has seen the fate that befalls the David Bowie character in the 1983 movie “The Hunger”, or the personal ordeal that Kevin McCarthy’s character is damned to endure in The Twilight Zone episode “Long Live Walter Jameson”, immortality is nothing to smile about.
Bondi Bleach said she had the "Epstein files" on her desk and was assessing them as ordered by trump. Now she says the "Epstein files" never existed. These Schrodinger's files have split the MAGA cult asunder. Now you see them--they implicate the Democratic pedo ring. Now you don't--if they existed, they would feature a well-known "playboy" and grabber of the period but they don't because they don't exist.
Yeah, it seems rather fortuitous for a particular dirtbag whose name rhymes with Dump.
But then, why would Epstein keep a list of his scummy patrons? I doubt he was using Quickbooks to keep track of payments, and it probably wasn’t that hard to remember who they were.
We can only speculate, but it would make sense for someone in that position to keep some sort of record for "leverage". Also, as M. says, Pam Bondi herself said she had the list on her desk, so either she was lying then or she's lying now.
He apparently liked to record himself raping these young girls, so I doubt he had any qualms about filming others doing the same. That would be far more damaging than simply keeping their names on a sheet of paper.
As for Bondi, she was lying (as you said). Which is a particularly bad trait to have in one’s Attorney General. She was most likely feeding the conspiracy theorists when she said she had the list on her desk. She also said Epstein victimized “thousands,” when the number is obviously much lower, so she isn’t exactly known for giving concrete facts (again, not a good look for an AG).
I have also heard that Stephen Miller basically runs the DoJ because she’s too busy primping for her next Fox News interview.
Epstein recorded every thing on his island, so the tapes did exist of the fat, demented, deranged fascist traitor raping teen girls.
But what has happened to those tapes is another story.
And the same for his murder in his cell in Brooklyn!
Pam Bondi lie??? Say it ain't so! The Trump minions wouldn't tell us the truth if it benefitted them to do so.
It was in the news today. The Department of Justice says there was no such list. Today she tried to say that the Epstein file was on her desk. Now ask yourself why lie when she is on video saying she had the list? Want to explain this, MAGAs? Can you do that without invoking Biden?
She only admitted it after the Justice Department announced there was no such thing as and never had been. The orange stain backed her. Then she tried to say that she meant she had the Epstein file right in front of her. It was a stupid lie since we have seen the video of what she actually said. My question is this. Who in the Justice Department gets fired by the orange stain for pointing out her lie?
it was good to stop texting the "friendly Canadian"... no doubt a scammer.
If they are real, and really need to connect, let them call and leave an old fashioned voice message with clues to their id.
I was going to say it’s likely one of the new AI spammer/scammers. I have had a rash of them lately and simply block the number and report the sender as spam.
Ann's response is much kinder than deserved, but she's probably a better person than I am. The first sign of old age is responding to texts from an unknown number. Since you are a public figure, I guess this might be an occupational hazard, but for regular folks, this is a ticket from lonely to broke.
Yes - 100% scammer!!
I agree. It sounds like the start of a pig butchering scam. There are lonely people who would continue the conversation.
I would agree it's a scammer unless they left a full name, more details about when you met and the conference they're coming to town for so you could verify.
I doubt that the call is even from Quebec, as it is standard practice of scammers to spoof phone numbers.
My vote to legalize fireworks in IL comes with a caveat: that the ordinance include strict limits and enforcement of where, when and with whom (i.e., an adult) they can be used.
Problem will continue to be lack of enforcement, whether they remain illegal and unenforced or legal with time/place/manner restrictions and unenforced. Indiana fireworks are VERY popular in my suburb starting a week or two before the 4th and continuing to after Labor Day. This past weekend one (surely perfectly sober and responsible) firework enthusiast took out a transformer. My neighbor two doors down put on a show for his annual party that shook my 2-story brick house. Hard.
I voted yes to selling fireworks in Illinois, but no on liking the neighborhood displays. Illinois could use the revenue (although they might also get a boost out of busting all those Krazy Kaplans customers as they cross back into the state).
I don’t *hate* local fireworks, but I can live without them. I’m not a particular fan of neighbors who think it’s okay to keep setting them off well past midnight.
I made the same votes. It seems silly to miss out on tax revenue with all the surrounding states benefiting from it, but then the dangers of people doing this are real. Maybe same as pot - legalize and regulate better?
Fireworks that go up & burst in many colors are fine, but I want an end to firecrackers, some of those booms from them are way, way too loud. They scare every dog for a mile around, plus one was thrown next to my garage last year & caused stuff to be thrown off of a shelf!
At our 4th of July cookout, someone brought what are called mega-snaps -- like regular snaps but louder. They looked like miniature dynamite sticks, about 1/4" long, and sounded like a gunshot when they hit the ground. I threw the only one that was used, and when it went off everyone jumped. It detonated hard enough that someone two feet away felt the debris hit their leg.
They scare cats too.
Well, I don't like cats, so I really don't care about them.
I do like kittens, it's a shame they grow up to be cats!
Doing it "for the revenue" is why we have sports gambling everywhere and what used to be called slot machines all over, not just in floating casinos. Some day the same argument will lead to legalized prostitution.
And the problem with legalizing a profession that has been practiced for thousands of years is exactly what?? - Legalize and regulate would be a better situation than the current one with the women getting arrested and the Johns getting off scot-free.
The law does not prescribe that johns get off scot-free or that the women must be arrested. There are local enforcement issues with prostitution just as there are with fireworks.
I'd rather legal sex work than gambling. Let's get sex workers (regardless of gender) mandatory health care and testing.
There is legal sex work in most areas of the world. Puritans and Bible thumpers in this country are still living in the 1800’s. I have news for them. Sex outside marriage is taking place all over the country as I write this- whether it be teens, cheating spouses, bosses doing their assistants, or one night stand bar pickups.
I smile at the fireworks question. Illinois has added casinos, discussed legalizing sex workers, added speed cameras, increased right to choose revenues from bordering red states, legalized cannabis, has the lotto paying for 1.7% of school funding in addition to some “special causes” and is a top 3 state on taxing gas.
Needed economic adjustments for losing those annoying 1 percenters, their businesses and their ilk to other states.
Starting to feel like Hill Valley in Back to the Future Part 2!😉
The deadly Texas floods are an example of "small government" in action. The idea that government agencies are meddlesome roadblocks that take money from citizens and waste it without providing anything useful. Reports are that Kerr county officials rejected a flood warning system for years due to cost. I'm afraid that this is just a small preview of the hurricane season that is starting now, after the cuts made to NOAA and NWS.
The Gulf states as well as the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia are the biggest targets of hurricanes, and most of them are solid red states. Not to be an asshole, but I am reminded of a recent phrase I’ve seen a lot — have the day you voted for.
Thank goodness we have people like Ted and K Mason that tell me kindness is still a thing. I also tip as much as I ever have because I know minimum wage is not enough to live on and the amount I would save doesn’t matter that much to me. Also they are doing me a service and well, if I only go out to dinner once a week now I guess I can suck it up and still help someone else pay their bills. I would want people to do the same for me.
I totally agree with you, Amy, as I said in my comments here. Kindness is all around us, but you would never know it to look at what's happening at the federal level. So we must do our part, however small.
While the Canadian could have been sincere, it sounds too much like a scammer to me. Way too persistent in my opinion. Another way to evaluate it is what’s your upside vs. downside if you continue to engage.
I don't get the Age-Enry one at all!
When the doctor asks "Age?" the patient hears it as "H" and helpfully finishes the spelling of his name.
That one really sucks!
I was one of the 8% who voted for that one.
I was one of the few that voted for Hammer pants.
I didn’t understand that one.
Atrocious alleged rapper MC Hammer wore that ludicrous type of pants.
Was watching Family Feud one night (I live an exciting life) and they had a fill-in-the-blank: __________ time. I was nigh on offended that no said "Hammer Time."
I feel sorry for you!
Probably because you were one of the few who 'got it'...
It's a variant on the one in which a doctor asks an aged patient what day it is. "Wednesday," says the aged patient. "No, it's Thursday" says the doctor. "So am I, let's go to out for a drink," replies the patient.
That one really does suck. It doesn’t even make sense. It only would if the doctor said “I’m” Thursday, which of course, he never would.
The complete joke is three elderly ladies walking:
#1: “My, windy, isn’t it?
#2: “No, it’s Thursday!”
#3: “So am I—let’s get a drink.”
I thought it had something to do with the old song, "I'm Enery the Eighth I am/Enery the 8th I am I am..."
It does. Same Cockney dialect.
I’ve gotten several texts from unrecognized numbers in the past week written like texts to a wrong number, including this one from a Florida area code: “I’m traveling to Chicago in September for a holiday, do you have time for the Adler Planetarium?” I don’t know anyone who uses “holiday” to mean “vacation”, so I ignored it.
"holiday" is what the British call a vacation.
I’m aware. But, I don’t know any British people who would be texting me.
Limey grifters.
Scammers?
I occasionally get texts like that and also friend requests on social media from people I do not know and usually have female names and a picture of a young woman. Even Strava which is social media for bicyclists
I get friend requests on social media from people I don’t know and they always have male names and pictures of men. The pig butchers/scammers assume you are heterosexual. Once I even responded to one, stating that I am a lesbian and couldn’t they at least send me some fake female profiles.
Now they have more data on you. Will be interesting to see if it gets injested into the scammer data world and changes the scams you get
It hasn’t changed them. Still get fake profiles from good looking mature men, lots of physicians and military men. :-(
OMG, they are all active duty or recently retired military personnel! I do get emails (that go to my spam folder in Gmail) from "Singles near me" who are exclusively female with very large mammary tissue or companies offering to help me enlarge my "manhood."
I like the ones where I get pictures of beautiful young women who are just dying to meet me. While ego boosting, I am aware they are either fake or scams for money. I wonder what would happen if they saw pictures of me, which could be scary.
Yup - you've gotta know your local jargon to detect scammers. I'm in a FB group of nonprofits and someone asked about a possible email scam that referenced a daughter having a summer internship in upstate Illinois among other details. Other respondents focused on the information being asked but I explained the terms for areas of Illinois (northern, southern, central, northwest, Chicago, collar counties, and Chicagoland), saying that it was definitely a scam because there is no such place as 'upstate Illinois.' :-)
Though there certainly is the term "Downstate" to mean everything south of I-80.
Regarding tips, in restaurants where I have been served, I know what the service has been and can tip accordingly. There are many places where I order and pay for my food upfront, and have no idea what the service will be, and it won’t be by a less than minimum wage server.
As a school librarian who worked in both public and private schools for close to 40 years, I'd like to chime in on the debate about parents who don't want their children to read certain books. I've had a number of challenges over the years (including objections to Harry Potter, due to its so-called witchcraft) and I've always followed the recommendations of the national American Library Association, www.ala.org, who has an entire department, the Office for Intellectual Freedom, which is devoted to challenged and banned books such as The Diary of Anne Frank, Fahrenheit 451, and many, many others. In the personal instances I've encountered, I've followed ALA's guidelines for such challenges, and have acquiesced to parent requests, ONLY for their child, but not for every student. For those interested, here is ALA's stance: "The following were the top three reasons cited for challenging materials as reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom:
--the material was considered to be "sexually explicit"
--the material contained "offensive language"
--the materials was "unsuited to any age group"
Although this is a commendable motivation, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA's basic policy concerning access to information) states that, “Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.” Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment."
What do you have against the MSI?
Personally, it brings back good memories, because my grandparents lived 3 blocks from there and we’d walk from their apartment in the late 1960s.
I love MSI but it is pretty dated in some spots. For instance, the model train exhibit still touts a hugh speed rail line in Illinois that would open in the 2010s!
Agree; MSI exhibits are hit or miss. The thing I feel is important for people to know is that of Chicago's 6 science museums, 4 are actual research institutions with PhD researchers doing actual science research with their collections. Those are Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, and Notebaert Nature Museum. The other two -- MSI and Int'l Museum of Surgical Science (of which I'm a big fan) are not research museums, so more like "science centers" you find in many cities.
I thought that was removed when they updated the train a few years ago? They refurbished it quite a bit. My autistic adult son adores it so we visit it frequently. Son refuses to get anywhere near the Tesla coil though. Terrifies him.
I bet it's because of Ken Griffin.
I *HATE* that he bought naming rights. Probably a reaction to still having to share the Kenneth and Anne Griffin Court in the Art Institute with his ex. Had to have something just for himself.
At least a second storied Chicago cultural attraction got a big donation out of his need for public recognition!
That was it for sure!
For counter service where the tip is requested before I get the food or beverage, I'm invoking this simple rule: If I'm standing, I'm not tipping.
A simple rule with counter servers: You are not waiting on me, I am waiting on you.
If the server is standing, they get a tip! - I don't imagine that standing for 8 hours at a time, dealing with grumpy customers is a job that brings a lot of joy to the server.
For me the difference is the counter worker is being paid the $15.00 minimum wage (likely more) vs (previous) $2.13 server wage. Servers must have tips to survive, counter workers less so. My son makes $18/hr in a hospital, preparing and taking food trays to patient rooms, picking them up after meals, etc. No one tips him nor should they. He's not paid server wages, he gets an actual wage.
the text from the "friendly Canadian" sounds a lot like the DMs I used to get from Asian women on Twitter who wanted to talk about cryptocurrency.
Ignore, block, report. Whatever you have time for.
Re: Tipping: Ever since I read Barbara Ehrenreich's superb and still highly relevant book Nickel and Dimed, about the impossibility of living on the minimum wage during the Clinton years, I've tipped much more (not that I was ever a stingy tipper) and to a variety of people, including hotel maids (haven't seen men doing this job yet) plus bartenders, servers, etc; Things are about to get a LOT worse in this country, and I know from personal experience, plus my son's experience as a bartender/server, that tips are hugely important! The service industry workers already can't afford to live in places like Boulder or Sedona---they can only afford outlying areas. If I can make a small difference, I'm going to try.
we''ve started leaving $5-20 at our hotel room (depending on length of stay) for the cleaning lady.
Yes, that's the range that I leave as well, Michael M!
We usually leave $5/night (even if they don't clean each day). More if we requested service during the stay and got it (extra towels, fresh sheets, clean coffee mugs - in the increasingly rare establishment that still has real mugs)
We have, since the Pandemic of 2020.
Tipping is an archaic custom based on noblesse oblige and should be abandoned everywhere. The woman who cleans your hotel room deserves to be paid adequately for her work, but it is irrelevant to the matter at hand, which is tipping. The cleaning lady is an employee who makes it possible for her employer, the hotel, to offer a service to the public and charge for it and by so doing to make a profit. It is the hotel’s obligation to pay her a reasonable wage. The person at the hardware store who cuts a key for you is an employee of the hardware store who makes it possible for the hardware store to offer a service to the public and charge for it and in so doing to make a profit. It is the obligation of the hardware store to pay that employee a reasonable wage. Tipping is a form of dishonest merchandising. It is attractive to merchants because it allows them to suggest to the customer that the cost is less than it really is.
Money given in tips could better be given to some charity of your choice that help the less fortunate.
I agree and liked your statement that people should be paid adequately for their work. That is the ideal, not the reality. Until it IS reality, I'll continue to tip AND also contribute to a variety of charities (growing by the minute, as the Criminal in Chief inserts his grubby fingers into every single aspect of our lives!)
One of the problems with tipping is that it is very non-uniform. In June 2024, the business section of the Washington Post published an interesting table of 9 occupations that involve tipping. For servers at a sit-down restaurant, the percentage of customers who leave a tip declined from 75% in 2021 to 67% in 2024. For hotel housekeepers the decline was from 28% in 2021 to 22% in 2024.
Everyone receives the same service. Everyone should pay the same.
Of course, if you work at a restaurant where customers order alcohol, their bill is much bigger, so tips are much bigger, than at your local diner (although I've definitely seen some servers, or waitresses as they were called back in the day, turn over a ton of tables!)
Perhaps you always inquire of the hotel how much they pay the housekeeping staff?? And if it is $15/hour, you don't tip?!?!?! Because the minimum wage is certainly enough to pay someone to deal with the muck of hotel guests!
I have written to my Congresspersons and my Senators to eliminate the Tipped Wage Minimum. And I know it was based in the racism/sexism dynamics of the southern states. Have you??
K Mason, I write to my Congress people and Senators (all Democrats) weekly, but about things like asking them to----or thanking them for---their fight to oppose the overwhelming number of awful actions by the Criminal in Chief and his regime, from the gutting of the our environmental, health, consumer, etc departments to the blatant corruption and trashing of the Constitution, habeaus corpus, etc; So far, I haven't written to them about this issue.
I didn’t get the “Hammer Time” joke.
The worst one is “Non-perishable Manager” because its idea is so fundamentally wrong. As anyone who has seen the fate that befalls the David Bowie character in the 1983 movie “The Hunger”, or the personal ordeal that Kevin McCarthy’s character is damned to endure in The Twilight Zone episode “Long Live Walter Jameson”, immortality is nothing to smile about.
Hammer Time is a reference to MC Hammer, who wore those kinds of ballooning pants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_pants
Honestly, not a great batch of visual quips this week
We called them "load pants" in college in the 1980s. We were more crude than clever back then.
Actually, I liked the majority of them!
So you're the one & only!