Good grief!

Today should be your 38th birthday.. When you lose your son you lose more than a child you lose a piece of your heart and your joy. Life is forever altered, and nothing can ever fill that space. Yet in my soul, he remains, my precious boy, forever loved. His laughter, his smile, and his love are woven into who I am. My love for him will never fade. Yor are my pride and my joy - you've made a change that cannot be broken..

Alex's mom on his 38th birthday.

I will think of this post every time a kid checks out a Kelly Barnhill book. I will be thinking about this a lot.

A Nationwide Book Ban Bill Has Been Introduced in the House of Representatives Hours after the State of the Union address, House republicans introduced legislation banning LGBTQ+ books from public schools nationwide.

A nationwide book ban bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives. Here's what you need to know about HR7661, including who is behind it, the history behind such bills, and what you need to do to stop it.

bookriot.com/hr7661-book-...

it's 2016: north carolina introduces a bill to ban trans people from using bathrooms safely. there's a national outcry; companies withdraw business up to and including the NCAA cancelling a publicized game. the bill fails.

it's 2026: kansas passes a law nullifying trans people's licenses. crickets.

California skiers got a wild surprise on the slopes...🐻⛷️ On February 18, three fast-moving bears were spotted racing across the runs at Northstar California Resort near Lake Tahoe, and one skier caught the close encounter on camera.

Who the hell is getting carded to check out Rumpelstiltskin?

Not sure if he is signaling to Nazis or he’s this stupid.

The Disastrous First Year of RFK Jr. The damage the HHS secretary has done to science and public health is appalling—and it could have been avoided.

Jill D Lawrence: "It is beyond comprehension that the Senate confirmed this man to oversee America’s health. The risks are so immediate and constant that it can be difficult to keep track of them all." We can still try.

New Social Security card? What is this nonsense he’s spouting? Good grief! He’s either an idiot or a liar. … Why not both?!

They assaulted and injured a person, damaged a car, and then left. That’s not legal‼️

📷: Schulz, 1999. Photo by Holger Keifel.

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Planned and created weeks in advance, the strip served as a bittersweet farewell—just hours before its publication, Charles M. Schulz died peacefully at his home in Santa Rosa, California, at the age of 77.⁠

💛 His legacy lives on through his fans and the universal love of Peanuts.⁠

Today marks 26 years since the final Peanuts Sunday comic strip, seen here, appeared in newspapers on February 13, 2000.⁠

2026 Children’s Book Week Poster by Grace Lin Revealed buff.ly/fShgzx2

image from today's hearing

Epstein survivors raise their hands to signal they've been ignored by Trump's DOJ as AG Pam Bondi refuses to look at them

(Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty)

This one is in Longfellow

Page 1 of a child’s handwritten letter, written in pencil in Spanish. Colorful doodles of a rainbow and hearts are found throughout the page. Translation: “I am Maria Antonia Guerra Montoya and I have been 113 days in detention I miss my friends and I feel they are going to forget me. I am bored here. I already miss my country and my house, I came on vacation for 10 Days and they took me into an ice office an officer interrogated me 2 hours without my mom, I was traveling with flight attendant because my mom lives in new york, they only wanted to arrest my mom, because my mom didn’t have documents to live in U.S.A., I always traveled with my tourist visa but ice used me to catch my mom and now I am in a jail and I am sad and I have fainted 2 times here inside. When I arrived every night I cried and now I don’t sleep well, I felt that being here was my fault and I only wanted to be on vacation like a normal family.”

Page 2 of a child’s handwritten letter, written in pencil in Spanish. Translation: “They don’t give me my diet I am vegetarian, I don’t eat well, there is no good education and I miss my best friend julieta and my grandmother and my school I already want to get to my house. Me in dilei [Dilley] am not happy please get me out of here to colombia.” Below the text is a drawing of the girl and her mother in the government-issued gray sweatsuits of the detention center.

6/ “When I arrived every night I cried and now I don’t sleep well, I felt that being here was my fault and I only wanted to be on vacation like a normal family.”

9-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra Montoya, detained on her way to Disney World, spent 113+ days at Dilley.

Page 1 of a child’s handwritten letter, written in Spanish in a cursive script. Translation: “Hello I am Ender and I am 12 years old, I have been at this center  for 2 months. I arrived here for an immigration appointment and I don’t think they should grab immigrants who are innocent, like instead of grabbing criminals because I mean they prefer to lock up children than look for people who really shouldn’t be in the U.S. They told me I could only be here 21 days but I have already spent more than 60 days waking up eating the same repetitive meals, going outside and that the majority of guards never pay attention to people, eating dinner  always the same as the day before, seeing people cry every day for the same reasons, trying to sleep in that horrible uncomfortable bed, going to the doctor and that the only thing they tell you is to drink more water and the worst thing is that it seems like the water is what makes people sick here…”

Page 2 of a child’s handwritten letter, written in Spanish in a cursive script. Translation: “…going to wait for the bad answers from the judges, hearing the bad news from people who no longer have hope, having to share a room with minimum 3 families, and all that so they send us back to our countries.” Below the text is a drawing in pen of three women, titled “My family” and labeled with “Mama,” “Sister,” and “me” in Spanish.

5/ “I have already spent more than 60 days waking up eating the same repetitive meals…going to the doctor and that the only thing they tell you is to drink more water and the worst thing is that it seems like the water is what makes people sick here…”

From 12-year-old Ender, detained 60+ days

There is a major political organization allied with the president that got so mad a Latino artist was tapped to play at the Super Bowl they made a whole alternative show. We should all take a moment to reflect on that. It is so blatantly racist.

if I can use this clogged toilet to make you a meal in 5 seconds, and you are going to use an entire kitchen and take all day on making a meal by hand, whose meal do you think people will want to eat, checkmate luddite

whoever runs on giving the entire ice budget to the muppet show gets my vote

Ways to Donate | The Bond Between Donations allow us to save more animals! Learn more about ways you can donate to The Bond Between.

If you’d like to help Twin Cities’ pets stay fed and safe during the federal government’s terror campaign, please throw a few bucks to The Bond Between. Tell them Petra sent you.

www.thebondbetween.org/donate

They say “But you LIKED this art when you didn’t know it was AI!” like it’s some kind of gotcha.

We liked the original artist upon whose stolen work the machine was trained. Kindly point us in their direction.

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue

"AI is a tool of fascism" really needs to start being one of the primary talking points

❤️

"You raise your voice, I erase your voice."

ICE in Minneapolis are erasing your rights.
Please share our new video of what's happening in our city. youtu.be/W1dyNcRGRXY

Walz: I think Kristi Noem probably should go back to South Dakota, not have any dogs, and just kind of ride things out

On NPR on Friday, there was a story of a 4-year-old--an American citizen--who hasn't left her house since early December, not even to play in the yard. And her 8-year-old brother recently stopped going to school, too. Their father is undocumented, and the family doesn't want to risk him being taken.