He posted that this one is longer than usual; around an hour and ten minutes. (Listening as I set this up.) Of course a person doesn’t have to listen at one go; pause it and return. Or just keep on listening because he’s that good!
First thank you to everyone who donated to Kamyk’s go fund me. He had to start it out at the minimum of $300 due to the rules of the site. The real goal is $1,000 which will allow him to get the game, a secure pack for storing it, and a little left over for a set of earbuds and a few games. Currently he has to have it set for $600 because the rules say he has to set it up in stages. I don’t understand it but he sent me the goals and I put it on the page. The current amount donated is $315. Again thanks to everyone for helping if you can. I understand if you can’t. I can’t until next week when Ron gets paid. This last week we had to put the groceries and medications on the credit card.
Which leads me to the second update I want to share. After I got home from my visit with Suzy Sunshine in which we both decided she couldn’t help me, Ron got a call from his sister. She had fallen and broke her wrist a few days ago. I guess it was bad. So Friday around noon she called and was very upset. Ron said he never saw her this way before. She told him she couldn’t handle the situation of trying to show the home and everything along with the pain in her wrist that she couldn’t use for anything. She wanted him to come to Texas and be with her. It would be for at least a month maybe more and then she would be coming back to Florida in March anyway. In two weeks she will have surgery on the wrist and will need the extra help anyway.
Ron looked at me and I knew what he wanted to ask so I told him it was OK. I understood the bond between him and his sister. I understand he needs to help her in her time of need. I was in a good place, I have the van and it is running well, and we already did the large grocery shopping. I would be OK for a month and half if he needed. So he spent yesterday afternoon packing and left in the car early this morning for Texas. It is about 1,000 miles to where his sister lives. He is going to do it in two days. The good thing is it should give me lots of time to do all the blogging stuff. Hugs
U.S. President Donald Trump has turned Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it(Note: there is a video of this report on the page, if you prefer; click the title just above -A)
By EMMA BURROWS AP european security correspondent January 16, 2026, 12:17 AM
In their words: Greenlanders talk about Trump’s desire to own their Arctic island
(Snippet:)
NUUK, Greenland — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.
The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark’s foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “fundamental disagreement” remains with Trump over the island.
The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and “people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.
Here’s a look at what Greenlanders think:
Trump has dismissed Denmark’s defenses in Greenland, suggesting it’s “two dog sleds.”
By saying that, Trump is “undermining us as a people,” Mari Laursen told AP. (snip-MORE)
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(It’s like another world inside my state, which is sorta nice. -A)
TOPEKA — Union leader Jake Lowen told the hundreds of workers who gathered Wednesday in the first floor rotunda of the Statehouse to look around and take in “the house that labor built.”
He referenced the stonemasons who cut every piece of limestone in the walls. The iron and steel workers who raised the dome, with the help of operating engineers who ran the hoists built by machinists. Plumbers, boilermakers and electricians brought light, heat and water.
Lowen, the executive secretary-treasurer of the Kansas State AFL-CIO, said some of the workers who started building the Statehouse, which took 37 years to construct, never saw it finished. At least seven gave their lives in the process, he said.
“The work was hard and the price was high, and yet they persevered,” he told the crowd that was gathered for an annual “solidarity day” labor rally.
He said the workers were building a Statehouse by day and a movement by night. In 1890, the year they raised the Statehouse dome, workers formed the Kansas State Federation of Labor, he said. (snip-MORE)
I’ve updated the web version of the post, but I wanted to send out an email update too so that readers on the ground in the Twin Cities are aware of the resource.
I’ll republish Governor Walz’s quote for emphasis:
“Tonight, I want to share another way you can help: Witness.
Help us establish a record of exactly what’s happening in our communities.
You have an absolute right to peacefully film ICE agents as they conduct their activities.
So carry your phone with you at all times.
And if you see ICE in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record.
Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans – not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.”
If you are local to the Twin Cities, and feel safe and able, this is a concrete way in which you can help.
to spread brightness in as much space around us as we can, especially if we’re in an area endangered by the Trump enforcement brigades we’re seeing. But even if we’re not, we can extend these actions locally to build community so we’ll be safer when it is our turn.
“We, at Wrecktangle, at all locations for the rest of the weekend, are going to donate one pizza for every single pizza sold, to families and friends that are affected by the increased ICE presence in Minneapolis,” one representative said.
In the caption, they noted that they are “set on volunteers” who would deliver pizza and other goods to people unable to leave home, but added: “We could really use some help raising funds to keep the momentum and keep people safe inside during these disturbing and uncertain times.”
Wrecktangle leaders said they started with $2,000 in donations from family and friends, and figured if they posted their Venmo information, they might be able to double that.
The support exceeded their expectations.
In addition to the collection of non-perishable foods and home essentials, two days later, they announced that they had received over $83,000 in donations.
Along with the donations, the local chain sold 2,291 pizzas between Thursday and Sunday.
During this time, they distributed 600 pizzas, non-perishables, and toiletries to vulnerable families, adding that “we have been working only with volunteers we personally know and trust to ensure the safety of our community.”
But thousands more meals are being made and prepared for free delivery as quickly as possible.
Wrecktangle co-owner Breana Evans told Bring Me The News that nearly every local restaurant in their area has been negatively impacted by the presence of ICE.
“We have staff, coworkers who are directly affected and scared to come to work,” Evans said. “It’s not fair for our friends to be scared to provide for their families and make a living. We know how to make food. So, we said, let’s just start making food.”
The company began donating their 13-inch frozen pizzas privately by connecting with their network of neighboring businesses and organizations. But then they realized the community could expand their efforts even wider.
Trusted volunteers were sent off to deliver free pizzas and meal kits, and others came to the shop to help assemble the goods.
“I think that’s a testament to our community and that there’s more good in the world than this horrible bad that they’re making us go through,” Evans said.
After meeting an immediate need to distribute food, Wrecktangle owners are working to figure out how to best use the funds they raised to help the community.
A screenshot of an Instagram story from Wrecktangle, sharing a weekend total of donated pizzas. Photo courtesy of Wrecktangle/Instagram
“We are working hard with nonprofit organizations to make sure these funds do the most good. We have not yet touched a cent,” they shared on social media. “As soon as we have updates as to specifically where your kindness is going, outside of purchasing food and home products, we will keep you thoroughly updated.”
And on Sunday, to finish out the campaign, Wrecktangle encouraged supporters to spend their money with other local restaurants. For one day only, they accepted emails containing a photo of a receipt from any Minnesota restaurant, and an additional meal was donated on their behalf.
“A lot of our community wants to come back to work, and we need to make sure these restaurants can help support their staff,” Evans said in a social media video. “We need you to be there.”
s of Monday morning, Wrecktangle shared on an Instagram story that they received 176 emailed receipts, which translates to 176 more meals for vulnerable community members.
“This week has spread so much love and friendship,” the company added in an Instagram story. “And we couldn’t be more grateful.”
These past months have been difficult. I was so very shocked to see the death of Renee Good, how chaos and hate seem to be the republican drug of choice, and how horrible it is to consider that we have but begun this 4-year trip through hell. Recently somehow this song found its way into my youtube playlist. All I could think as these young voices invaded my troubled thoughts was what are we leaving for them?
America the Beautiful followed, a song we all know if not by memory then certainly we recognize it when we hear it sung before the football game on Friday Night. “O Beautiful, for Spacious Skies, For Amber Waves of Grain…” proudly sung by the proud and mighty citizens, the mothers and fathers, grandfathers with war wounds and grandmothers who know loss and pain yet hope. It is a calm and flowing song, one that somehow has always given me a peaceful heart for in that long ago poem is a promise of home.
President Kennedy, long ago, asked Americans to consider what they could do for their country. I think many think that is defined as joining the military, and that is certainly one great thing a person can do but there are far more. And, I think it is primarily why tRumpf has sought to destroy the legacy of the Kennedy Presidency by paving over the Rose Garden and defacing the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.
See, I don’t think Kennedy asked us to serve in the military. I think President Kennedy asked us to Love Our Country! Like the song America the Beautiful, he asked us to recognize the beauty of our home, he asked us to treasure it, he asked us to see it not as a resource to be stripped bare but the precious refuge of our grandparents and where our children rest their heads as they dream of their future. I think Kennedy voiced a challenge, a warning and a condemnation that there will come those who seek to strip our precious home like a thief in the night – a conman who lied his way past the door and is filling his pockets.
It is a sadness that so many in this beautiful home we share have determined that they can only hate the others who would hope to enjoy living here. To look upon another’s misery with spite, blaming the wounded for their wounds and glorying in the overflowing pockets of the thieves who seek to steal the silverware is a sickness that I don’t understand. I don’t understand those who say they have love in their heart yet show contempt in their words and actions for others. Especially I can not find understanding for those who claim to love Jesus yet fail in every definition of love that he gives us. Perhaps it is no wonder they are cruel, because surely their hearts are convicted and defensive in their misery as they have given away their love for their country and their Christianity for a red hat.
A photo of Renee Macklin Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier in the day on Wednesday, is taped to a light post near the site where she was killed at 34th Street and Portland Avenue.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Renee Macklin Good’s wife, Becca Good, said that the 37-year-old poet and mother of three was made of sunshine.
“She literally sparkled,” Becca Good said in a statement. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time.”
But behind that light was a well of deep values that Macklin Good lived by, including a conviction that every person — regardless of “where you come from or what you look like” — deserves compassion and kindness.
“Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole,” Good said.
Those were the values that brought the Goods to stop during an ICE operation in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Though they were relatively new in town, Becca Good said they wanted to support their neighbors.
“We had whistles,” she said. “They had guns.”
An offering at the memorial for Renee Good in Minneapolis on Friday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Bystander videos show a federal agent grabbing the handle of Good’s car and demanding she open the door. As she begins to pull away, footage shows another officer — since identified as Jonathan Ross — pointing his gun at her and firing through the windshield of the car.
A video taken by Ross that began circulating Friday also shows Macklin Good saying to the agent, “That’s fine dude. I’m not mad at you.”
The Trump administration has cast Macklin Good as a “domestic terrorist” who tried to run over federal agents, though that is not supported by eyewitness accounts or footage from the scene.
Her presence made ‘folks feel good’
Macklin Good was born in Colorado Springs as Renee Nicole Ganger. She graduated from Old Dominion University in Virginia in her early 30s, with a degree in English. In 2020, she won a prize from the Academy of American Poets for a poem called “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
MPR newscaster and poet Emily Bright reads Renee Macklin Good’s poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
While at Old Dominion University, she took a fiction workshop with associate professor Kent Wascom. That class with Macklin Good was the first class he taught there.
He said he could still clearly remember how her warmth and positivity shaped the experience for everyone as they shared their own writing with the class.
“She was incredibly warm with her peers, generous with their work, and was just a bright and engaging presence that made folks feel good,” he said. “When the temptation to offer a biting critique might have fallen on another student, she was there with something kind to say, something positive to say about the work or something insightful that might be helpful.”
He said at the time that she was taking his class, she was pregnant with her son. It was the early days of the pandemic too, and despite all she was balancing, she stood out in how she continued to uplift others, even remotely.
News crews film near the memorial for Renee Good on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis on Friday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Along with her son, who is now six years old, she was also a mother to two other older children. Her wife described them as “extraordinary children” and said the youngest had already lost his father.
The Minnesota Star Tribune quoted Macklin Good’s mother Donna Ganger, who described her as “extremely compassionate.”
“She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate,” she said.
Macklin Good and Becca Good had moved recently to Minneapolis, in search of a new home.
When Macklin Good, her wife and their six-year-old son road-tripped to Minnesota for the chance to make a better life, the couple held hands the entire car ride, Becca Good said. Their son made drawings on the windows as the miles stretched on toward Minneapolis.
When they arrived, they found a vibrant and welcoming community and a “strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other.” Becca Good said she finally found peace and safe harbor.
But “that has been taken from me forever.”
A woman prays the rosary during a vigil for Renee Good, a woman who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier in the day on Wednesday.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
Each night since Macklin Good was killed, thousands of people have shown up to protest ICE and hold candles in support for Macklin Good and her family, locally and in other cities. Online, a GoFundMe that aimed to raise $50,000 in support of the family, has surpassed $1.5 million and has since closed.
The support has come in from out of state and out of the country.
“I’m sorry that you lost your life so senselessly simply because you were brave enough to stand up for your neighbors,” one donation read. “Please rest in peace knowing that we will take it from here. Tyranny will not stand, Good will prevail.”
“Renee, your death weighs heavily on my heart. You stood up for your neighbors and for immigrants like me, a Somali who knows how much that protection matters. I am heartbroken for your children, who must now live without you,” another read.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss, we all know the truth and I hope you get justice,” read another.
Becca Good expressed gratitude for the wave of support and called for honoring Macklin Good by living her values and coming together “to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.”
“The kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind,” Becca Good said.
“In fact, kindness radiated out of her.”
Here’s the full statement from Becca Good:
First, I want to extend my gratitude to all the people who have reached out from across the country and around the world to support our family.
This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her.
Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.
Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.
Like people have done across place and time, we moved to make a better life for ourselves. We chose Minnesota to make our home. Our whole extended road trip here, we held hands in the car while our son drew all over the windows to pass the time and the miles.
What we found when we got here was a vibrant and welcoming community, we made friends and spread joy. And while any place we were together was home, there was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.
We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.
On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.
Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.
We thank you for the privacy you are granting our family as we grieve. We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.
Food reviews, other interesting bits from Australian travel Josh took. Of course protect your screen and keyboard in prep for those little unexpected reactions/remarks he makes while telling a story!
and may the upcoming year be kind to us all. I think Barry already has some 2026 experience, even, so we do know it’s coming! 😀 I second Frazz’s Motion, and hope to see everyone around!
Scottie's Playtime 