Pretty Cool!

Ypsilanti, named for a Greek Freedom Fighter against Tyranny, Rallies against Trump on “No Kings” Day

Juan Cole 10/19/2025

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the 1820s Greece waged a successful war of independence against an authoritarian king, the Ottoman Emperor Mahmoud II. The American public, enthralled with this saga of a quest for liberty, idolized the revolutionaries, who were led for a few years by Demetrios Ypsilantis. They took his name for the name of their town, Ypsilanti. The people here therefore have a very long history of despising tyrants, and they demonstrated it again on Saturday.

Some 3,500 demonstrators came out for a march against Trump policies on No Kings Day, October 18 in Ypsilanti, Michigan, according to Lilly Kujawski. People chanted “What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like!” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go.”

Ypsilanti is a majority white, predominantly Democratic town of about 20,000 residents in the southeast corner of the state, with several factories (including the Rawsonville Ford plant) and Eastern Michigan University, with its WEMU NPR jazz station.

As a blue collar town, it shows that the slight swing to Trump among working class families nationally did not happen everywhere. Trump’s workers often don’t have a high school degree or are evangelicals. In 2024, he “lost majorities of blue-collar blacks, Latinos, and non-evangelical whites,” according to Brookings. The roughly one quarter of the residents in the town who are of African-American heritage suffer from the openly racist discrimination of Trump’s minions.

Trump policies favoring the rich fat cats and harming blue collar workers hurt Ypsilanti residents. His tariffs will raise the cost of the things they buy. His attack on their health care will put up their doctor and hospital costs. For those between jobs, the cuts to SNAP, medicaid and other benefits hurt.

When Demetrios Ypsilantis mounted his rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, among his goals were a rule of law and a constitutional order. The Ottoman Empire was an absolute monarchy that in the 1820s had no constitution, no legislature, and the judges in which were Muslim clerics appointed by and paid by the state, so that they had no independence of the sultan.

The French political philosopher Montesquieu (d. 1755) had laid out the problem in his Spirit of the Laws, which deeply influenced the American Founding Fathers. He wrote,

“There would be an end of everything, were the same man or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.

Most kingdoms in Europe enjoy a moderate government because the prince who is invested with the two first powers leaves the third to his subjects. In Turkey, where these three powers are united in the Sultan’s person, the subjects groan under the most dreadful oppression.”

“Insect Picker”

Velvety Black-Tyrant

1st Labor Union Formed in the American Colonies, & The Persons Case Is Decided In Canada in Peace & Justice History for No Kings Day:

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october18

Pertinent Info, Good Advice

as the temperature is way high these days.

Free Advice For This Weekend

PEOPLE ARE F*CKING FED UP WITH ICE

The video below is about ICE and their illegal detention of people. In this one ICE rushes out of their compound to snatch a protestor off the PUBLIC sidewalk and drag him back into their compound to then charge him with trespass. It is pure harassment of a member of the public exercising their right to protest peacefully. Now he has to find a lawyer and pay for a defense, he was booked with an arrest record now. When he did not commit a crime other than insult the NAZI thugs breaking the laws in the US. Also another part of the video shows a woman leaving a court stands up to ICE thugs and cusses them out. They order her to leave and tell her if she doesn’t leave a public space they will arrest her. They threaten to beat her. One last point, in that big Chicago building raid they found only one person who may be a gang member but even that is in doubt. Hugs

U.N. World Food Day

is today in Peace & Justice History. Feeding people is my main “thing,” so I’m featuring it today. There is so very much that has happened on October 16, and it can all be seen on this page.

October 16th every year

United Nations’ World Food Day is recognized every year.

About the annual day of hunger awareness , also, the Home Page.

Another Bit From Jenny Lawson!

(I love the top piece, but after reading the story, I also love the second one! Wouldn’t they be great to color? -A.)

Another project I will start and probably never finish, but will enjoy until I forget to do it again. by Jenny Lawson (thebloggess) Read on Substack

Hello love!

It is spooky season and so I’ve been doodling dark little things. Last year I started writing and illustrating an eerie little children’s book that I will almost certainly never finish because I am the queen of distraction. I have a true crime story about my family I’ve written but has never published. I’m working on another weird project now about invisible women that I suspect will never find a publisher but is a passion project I can’t let go of. And then this week I started doodling and found myself accidentally making an alphabet book for dark children.

Will any of these projects ever get further than being shared with friends like you and then packed into a box for my maybe-grandchildren to be baffled by when I am gone? Doubtful. But still, I create. And I hope you do too. Because there is such delight in seeing something strange come out of your head and become real, even if no one ever sees it but you.

The doodle above this sentence came with a story in my head about a monster named Fred who was sad that none of the tiny beings ever built a hat on him. I wanted to find a way to show him licking the little boat but every time I tried to draw a tongue coming up from the water it looked like a penis and that’s not really the story I wanted to tell (but is one I’d read) so instead I’m imagining that his tongue is under the water and is keeping the little boat afloat because the man inside doesn’t realize there’s a hole in the bottom of his boat. He floats along…keeping his eyes peeled for sea monsters…unaware that he’s only alive because of one. There’s a story there. Maybe one day I’ll write it.

But not today because today I’m doing final-final-final edits on my new book (did you know that you have to do edits over and over with different types of editors?) and I’m STILL finding stuff to fix. I’m so worried about this book. It’s so different from anything I’ve written before. I hope it finds a safe harbor, with people who will love it even though it is so very strange. But no matter what, I’m giving myself a high-five for finally (almost) finishing a project. Celebrate those wins, y’all.

Hugs,

From Charlotte On Sunday, Today-

Fun times with accidental noises, and I like the way she thinks for her birthday fundraiser!

Sounds I Still Make in My 30s by Charlotte Clymer

Last lap. Read on Substack

Today is my birthday.

This morning, I was in the backseat of an Uber ride and absentmindedly playing with my lips in the quiet way it’s socially acceptable for grown adults to do (or, perhaps, that’s me rationalizing) when, to my surprise, I accidentally forced too much air through the aperture of my mouth, creating a sound that could understandably be perceived by the driver as a fart.

Mildly panicked, I leapt into action by recreating the sound a few more times in quick succession in order to non-verbally (?) communicate to the driver:

Haha, see? That totally wasn’t what you thought it was! I accidentally made that sound with my lips! I’m now doing it again two or three more times to show that it’s just me playing with my mouth and not doing something very rude right behind you! Actually, making that sound is rude, too — look, I promise I am not blasting ass in the backseat of your car, okay?!

I am 39-years-old today. It’s my final year in this decade. It’s been a doozy.

I turned 30 a little over three weeks before the 2016 election. (I know. We won’t get into that because you already get it.)

All my life, I’ve heard of folks in their late-30s just dreading the big FOUR ZERO, and it’s not my place to judge them. I’m sure they had their reasons.

But me? I’m so ready for my 40s. If I could snap my fingers and make it happen now, I would have turned 40 today. Maybe I’ll just lie and say I’m 40 moving forward.

Being in your 40s sounds awesome. Being in your 50s and 60s sounds even better. I wanna fast-forward and get there already. I want the accumulated wisdom and experience and memories right now. I want that whole toolbox immediately.

Sadly, I cannot have it immediately. That is earned. I must brave the final year of my 30s in our oh-so-stable world to get a little closer to the benefits of being older and wiser.

To that end, I’m gonna make this a great Year 39. I plan to treat it like a final dress rehearsal for the second half of my life.

I’d like y’all to help me get things off to a great start.

Every year, for the past decade, I’ve hosted a birthday fundraiser for my favorite organization Running Start, a non-profit that trains young women in high school and college to run for office someday.

These programs are wide-ranging: from one-day workshops on college campuses (Elect Her) to congressional fellowships to the HBCU Women’s Leadership Summit, thousands of young women have been equipped with necessary skills to go on and do great things in politics, law, advocacy, and media.

I’ve served on the Board of Running Start since 2021, working harmoniously alongside my colleagues—Democrats and Republicans and independents—to ensure the next generation of young women get an exceptional head start toward leading our country someday.

In that time, I have seen a huge, diverse network of alums directly benefit from these programs and then watch as their campuses and communities benefit from them, too.

So, I am kindly asking y’all to help me celebrate my birthday by making a modest donation to Running Start: https://www.runningstart.org/charlotte

And believe me, I get it, everyone and their mother and their cousin is hitting y’all up for money right now — for that campaign or that non-profit or that candidate or that cause and on and on.

Thus, I am grateful for the consideration. It means a lot. I am thankful.

As always, those making very generous donations ($250 or more) should know you’ll be getting a phone call from me to thank you for your generosity, and if you really wanna go above and beyond ($1000 or more), that’ll mean coffee over zoom OR me treating you to lunch here in D.C. (or wherever you live if we can make it happen — no kidding, we will find a way.)

But also: everyone donating will get a personal email from me thanking them because every donation, no matter how much, means something to me and the young women who benefit from Running Start’s programs.

In the meantime, please wish me luck on this final lap of my 30s, and if you could offer up a prayer that I’ll avoid embarrassing sounds in cars, I’d appreciate that, too.