Here’s how I repurposed my empty tissue box as a plastic grocery bag dispenser in a few easy steps:
Take a plastic shopping bag and stuff it horizontally into the tissue box with the handles sticking out of the slit on top.
Grab another plastic bag and weave it through the handles of the bag sticking out of the box, then stop once it’s about three-quarters the way through.
Stuff both bags into the box, with the handles of the second bag sticking out again like you had before.
Repeat the process until all of the plastic bags are in the box (I was able to fit about 12 bags in mine!)
Gently pull a bag out of the box when you want to use it, just like a regular Kleenex box! Follow steps 1 through 4 to refill when you have more bags to store.
A few things I ran across before lunch, in one post with links. Ollie and I had a good lunch, got a few things done, then took a nice walk on a cooler day when his thick black fur coat is not too heavy for him to be on a jaunt before 7 AM; it was 2 PM.😃
Back to reality, I saw this Reuters story about Iran hacking US FBI, but it was a subscriber only story (I agree-WTF? Why should profit be made on a story like that, when some of the free articles are such dreck…) But, here is a free one:
The vigilante group Handala Hack Team said that it had successfully gained access to Patel’s personal email account.
Then, I know many of us, if we didn’t yawn, noticed the hypocrisy in wrangling for a law that includes banning mail-in voting while on the way to the post-box. If you’re busy, just click through; the money phrase is right there at the top.
The young woman who is running for my district’s US House seat, Katy Tindell, has a website now! I’ve mentioned her, but couldn’t link because all there was was an Act Blue contribution page. But now, she has her own website.
Every one of our states has at least one candidate like this running. Please choose a campaign anywhere (But work from your home district/state first, if you can,) and sign up. Money’s tight everywhere, but give the candidate some time if you want to see them in office. There are many things that need doing, and campaigns are better off with volunteers helping.
And along those lines, check this out, and also check in on your own state legislature, because these laws are coming from a national organization. Also, dig “Independence Day”, which is not at all acknowledged in the Bible; it gets more time than even Christmas or Easter. I do not think “Christian” means what they think it means. Emphases within are mine.
TOPEKA — The Kansas Legislature’s negotiators on education bills deleted a Senate-approved change to state law prohibiting school sports practice and competition on Sundays, Wednesday evenings and multiday periods centered on Easter, Christmas and Independence Day.
The effort to expand on Kansas State High School Activities Association rules for scheduling athletic events, currently concentrated on Dec. 25 and July 4, was led by Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi, R-Wichita. He convinced Senate colleagues to accept his amendment to Senate Bill 515 expanding no-sports days on calendars at public and private schools statewide.
During Senate debate on Blasi’s amendment, questions were raised about his focus on Christian faith traditions. His amendment passed on an unrecorded voice vote of the Senate.
During Senate and House negotiations Monday on SB 515, Wichita Republican Rep. Susan Estes and Wichita Sen. Renee Erickson, who serve as lead negotiators on the Legislature’s education bills, agreed to cast aside Blasi’s broadened moratorium. His amendment was removed from legislation intended to enable homeschool students to join sports at private schools in the way state law permitted them to be part of public school athletics.
Blasi said he was motivated to act on concerns expressed by constituents that school-sponsored sports interrupted periods that ought to be reserved for family or church activities.
Specifically, his amendment would forbid sporting events on Sundays and on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. to midnight from Sept. 1 to April 30. In addition, he sought to apply the prohibition to a four-day window around Easter, but only from 6 p.m. to midnight. A five-day ban at Christmas and a seven-day ban encompassing Independence Day would be part of the new state law.
“This is going to assure we focus on what really keeps communities strong — that is family and faith,” Blasi said.
Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, said she was anxious the Legislature was wading into the KSHSAA rulebook without considering family interests in other religious faiths. Blasi’s amendment didn’t address Islam’s Ramadan, Judaism’s Passover or Rosh Hashanah, Hinduism’s Maha Shivavatri or Buddhism’s Bodhi Day.
“Not any religion was considered,” Blasi said. “This was just a response to constituents.”
Francisco wasn’t convinced of the amendment’s merits.
“My constituents would like me to be as inclusive as possible,” she said.
The amendment left on the cutting room floor by the House and Senate conference committee was defended by several other members of the Senate.
Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, said she was a strong supporter of Blasi’s effort to turn back the clock in Kansas to an era more respectful of faith traditions.
“It’s a sad day that we have to legislate this,” Tyson said. “Years ago, it wasn’t even an issue. It was a standard and acceptable, but here we are.”
Sen. Brad Starnes, R-Riley, said the amendment was crafted to affirm religion as the “bedrock of our country.”
The objective of the amendment was to clear school calendars so students had more time to pursue religious interests, said Sen. Michael Murphy, R-Sylvia.
“As we move away from that, we do so at our peril,” Murphy said. “It’s time we moved back to some of those traditions that served us well.”
The House-Senate conference committee bundled the stripped down SB 515 and Senate Bill 361 into Senate Bill 382. SB 361 allows foreign exchange students to enroll in their host’s public school district. SB 382 deals with administration of state assessments to K-12 students in virtual schools. As of Tuesday, neither the House nor Senate had voted on the the three-bill deal.
One thing that was not mentioned is the reason Cuba has such poverty is all the US sanctions over 60 years. When Obama lifted sanctions things got much better for Cuba. The Cuban government is not the problem and when there was less sanctions the people were happy with the government. We are the bad guys in this. We, the US government is refusing to let any other country send any supplies because we demand they have a capitalist oligarchy system of government mimicking the US one. How is that working out for us? Cuba has free universal medical. Free education. Do we? But that is the old guy mentality that every country should / must do and be as the US and profit must be king. All this reparation for what was nationalized? Why? US corporations and wealthy land owners were raping the land and hogging the profit and goods. They had a better system if left alone. But again the old red scare from the USSR days. Remember “better off dead than red”? The US must push democracy and oligarchy. Venezuela was the same thing, we did not like that they had a government for the people, a socialist / communist one and they nationalized the oil systems because the profits were not going to the Venezuelan people but to western corporations. Other countries have a right to their own resources. But remember tRump demanding that Ukraine give up half of its mineral rights to the US / tRump family? Hugs
It’s a blog entry by Jenny Lawson, about one of her books. I haven’t been able to open her WP blog for a few weeks, now; I get the page that says it’s an unsafe connection. I either don’t know how, or can’t get a whole post in the WP Reader, but I did get this whole post in email, so I’ll copy & paste it here. Jenny is funny, but this is not good news about Texas and literacy.
This is not what I wanted to write. I wanted to write about how I’m about to go on book tour for my new book in a few days. Instead I am writing about the fact that I was just informed that my first book Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was banned from the high school library of a nearby town I love and visit often.
Honestly, I’m not that upset about my book being banned. I’ve had so many letters from young people who felt they’d been helped by my books but it does have some profanity and so I can understand the reasoning even if I disagree with it. What I am upset about is the stories about how New Braunfels ISD has pulled more that 1,500 books from their school library shelves after the Texas’ Republican-backed book banning law (senate bill 13) passed. The bill ordered all public school libraries to review books for “profane” and “indecent” content and I guess Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was deemed too dangerous for high schoolers.
Weirdly, my book was not on the original list of the 1,500 books triggered for review on March 13 but a week ago it was added to the New Braunfels ISD website as being removed for being “non-compliant”. (I’ve been called worse.) I guess 1,500 books weren’t enough. But then, it’s never enough for book banners.This is going to happen more and more. It used to be a rarer thing…almost a badge of courage to have a book banned. Now? It’s everywhere…this war against books and ideas and people. Reading is how you fall in love with people different from you, and how you develop compassion for them…because if you love them, you want to protect them. But there are some people who don’t want you to love others. They need you to fear them.
Books save lives. They have saved mine. Books are safety nets for so many of us, and right now those nets are being cut.The list of banned books is incredible in length and includes so many that I adore. Equally upsetting is the fact that so many classics that shaped me have been pulled from the shelves and placed into restricted sections where they can only be accessed by students enrolled in Advanced Placement Literature, because God forbid a normal high school student would want to read the works of dangerous writers like *checks the list* Jane Austen and Emily Brontë (whose name they misspelled).
Sometimes it feels like we’re living in A Brave New World (restricted) and that the book burning of Fahrenheit 451 (restricted) is closer than ever, with no Sense and Sensibility (restricted) about what this will cost. It feels like we’re going through The Crucible (restricted) and are caught in a Catch-22 (restricted) where we can’t convince people how terrible it is to ban books because they either don’t know the power of books or they absolutely know it and fear it. It’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (banned) how book banners go out on some kind of A Discovery of Witches (banned) and fight against Acceptance (banned) and of diversity, while we are losing All The Beauty in the World (banned). America is a Beautiful Country (banned) in so many ways, but we will lose so much of that beauty if we don’t make Changes (banned) to cherish and embrace and grow what makes us Educated (banned) and compassionate. The diversity of voices is necessary…it is a reflection of who we are and who we want to be. A plethora of ideas and voices and experiences…This Is What America Looks Like (banned). We can’t just pretend that Everything’s Fine (banned) and that this is just an overreaction of Anxious People (banned). Do you think this is what the founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton (banned) envisioned? I’m going to stop here because I’m sure you can see that this dumb paragraph is WAY TOO EASY TO WRITE because there are so many books they have issues with and you probably get the picture already but y’all….Jane Eyre? The Color Purple? The Odyssey? Crime and Punishment?? THIS IS WHAT WE’RE SAVING TEENAGERS FROM?
So what can you do? You can buy books that are being targeted, especially those written by the LGBTQ+ authors or authors of color because they are being targeted the most. Supporting those authors tells publishing to keep producing those books because they are needed. Publishers will lose money if libraries become afraid to purchase books and so we need to make sure that they know the audience is there and greedy for diverse voices. Get a library card and start checking out those books and more, to prove to the government that libraries need funding and that people care about reading. Read to your children. Read in front of your children. Talk online about the books that you love so that your passion ignites others. If you’re a parent you can get involved with your school to make sure this doesn’t happen in your school and you can protest it if it happens. You can vote out the people who seem to be obsessed with freedom, but mainly when it’s their freedom to take away yours and your children’s. You can run against school board members who are book banners and show up at the meetings. You can keep updated by following organizations like PEN AMERICA, or the Texas Freedom to Read Project or Authors Against Book Bans.
*deep breath*
This is probably filled with typos and is not really the sort of thing that I should be writing the day before I leave to start my book tour but it’s important. When books and thoughts and people are suppressed, we all lose. Keep fighting the good fight, friends. It’s worth it.
Fifty years prior to rumors of fascism circling President Trump, activist and philosopher Angela Davis made a spooky prediction about dictatorship in the U.S.
President Donald Trump’s administration continues to stand on shaky ground amid bombshell resignations and rumors of a dictatorship brewing. But in the midst of these unprecedented times, one Black political activist’s warning could offer a shocking reality for Americans… even if the message came 55 years earlier.
Trump’s return to the White House was met with fierce criticism from leaders like former Vice President Kamala Harris and his own former chief of staff, John Kelly, who explicitly declared that Trump fits “into the general definition of fascist.” But while terms like “fascist” and “dictator” have found a comfortable place in American politics today, activists like Angela Davis were among the loudest opponents of fascism nearly six decades ago.
By the 1970s, the Cold War against the Soviet Union revamped fears of a possible fascist regime in the States– notably from many Black Panthers. While awaiting trial for murder, Davis spoke with filmmaker Peter Davis about the likelihood that America would be ruled by a dictator.
“We are closer to fascism than we’ve ever been before,” Davis said from a California prison in 1971. But while the political activist stopped short of declaring fascism had officially made its mark in the U.S. then, her scary prediction has arguably taken a new light in 2026. (SNIP-click the title to read the rest; it’s not at all long)
Emily Gregory defeats Republican Jon Maples in district that is home to US president’s Palm Beach estate
Democrats managed to flip a seat in the Florida state house in the district that is home to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
Emily Gregory, a Democrat, defeated Republican Jon Maples, who had an endorsement from the US president, in the special election in Florida’s 87th state house district. The Associated Press called the race on Tuesday evening, with Gregory, a public health expert and small business owner, leading by more than 2 percentage points.
The Republican who previously held the seat had won by 19 percentage points in 2024.
Trump voted in the race via mail-in ballot, despite criticizing the practice as “mail-in cheating” during an event in Tennessee this week. The president has long attacked voting by mail, describing it as a scam and arguing it creates fraud in elections. He still opted to vote by mail in the race although he was recently in Palm Beach, where early in-person voting was under way until Sunday.
The president had urged voters to back Maples, a financial adviser who describes himself as an “America-First patriot”. Maples had faced scrutiny in recent weeks over allegations that he did not live in the district in which he was running, claims that he denied.
Democrats have said that Gregory’s win shows voters frustrated over rising costs are moving away from Trump and the Republican party.
“Mar-a-Lago just flipped red to blue, which should have Republicans sweating the midterms,” Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said on social media. “A Trump +11 district in his own backyard shouldn’t be in play for Democrats, but tonight proves Republicans are vulnerable everywhere.”
State Democrats have flipped 29 districts since Trump’s election, Williams said.
314 Action, a political committee that works to get Democratic scientists elected to office, had endorsed Gregory and praised her win, writing in a statement that “a Stem wave is coming”.
“Emily won because Floridians trust her to make decisions based on evidence not ideology,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, the group’s president. “She’s bringing science back to the state house and heading to the [state] capitol on a mission to lower costs, restore healthcare and bring down the temperature in Tallahassee.”
By thebloggess on March 25, 2026
Scottie's Playtime 