jimhines

Apologies for the long silence.

I've mostly just been keeping on keeping on, as they say. I'm still regularly going to my mutual aid place, the Food Communists. Their work continues apace, although Monday was fairly quiet, as such things go. By yesterday, the pace had picked back up, but they're closing today and tomorrow due to renovations at the church they work out of. So I have two days completely off! What will I even do with all that time? She asks, looking around at housework she's ignored for almost two months.

I'm still doing the school patrol (M-W) and mosque watching too. Although, at the mosque we have switched to evenings (and every day of the week) during Ramadan at the request of the imam. I have not been standing outside every single night of the week, however. I signed up to be the point person on Fridays and Saturdays, but am otherwise trying to let other people fill the slots. We are getting some help from neighborhoods outside of our own, so it's looking a little less sparse than the last time I reported, by all accounts.

I'm noticing some cautious hope during the school patrol, too. More moms are willing to bring their very little (pre-school aged) ones with them when they come to meet elder siblings at the bus stop. Very heartening. It does feel like the cloud is lifting finally.

I'm starting to be able to write a little bit again, which is lovely.

naomikritzer and I started working on something together that has lit a fire under me. We'll see what, if anything comes of that, but it's been nice to feel inspired again. Hopefully, that will bleed into the Boy. net sequel (and it should. I tend to be like that. Writing anywhere seems to mean writing everywhere. I am, apparently, polyamorous in my wirting style--I have more to give than to just one project!)

We woke up today to dense fog. Shawn was actually telling me that she hoped it would last all day, because she really wants to go for a walk in it s she can pretend we live on heather-strewn moors.

How've you been?

I guess it is Wednesday? I have nothing of note to mention in terms of things I've read. I've been listening to an extremely boring podcast about the Roman Empire--it's exactly my speed right now, but it's run by a university and I have notice a distinct lack of salacious factoids about what the Romans got up to... ah, well. It helps me get to sleep and that's really what I am using it for.

What about you? Listening to or reading anything fun?

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If you have a local Staples, they may be having a clearance sale on them. I picked up a nice Staples-labeled chair for about half-off, took me about half an hour to assemble it. The instructions were excellent: Ikea-like, but included words. ;-) I was a little frustrated in that I didn't find the instructions until I'd pretty much emptied the box, they were in a plastic bag taped with the screw assortment (which is nicely segregated according to what step they are needed for) which was then taped to the box holding the pneumatic cylinder.

MUCH more comfortable than the wood dining table chair that I had been sitting on, it was absolutely horrible for my back! I should clear the floor a bit and slide my PC tower over a little to give the poodle a bit more room to get under the table. It's not a perfect chair, but for $160, it's awfully darn good!

At least at my Staples, they're clearing room to install a Party City, or some other silliness. Personally I think it's a bad idea, but hey, they didn't ask me.

This week's collage feels slightly as though it is edging toward being a little too personal and perhaps embarrassingly sentimental.

Back when I began doing collage, I started with Soulcollage. One of the series of collages that the person who developed Soulcollage suggested that you do, which felt a little odd, almost New Age-y, was to identify an animal that you associated with for each of your seven chakra points.

Well, okay.

I didn't do collages for each of the seven chakras, but I did do one for the heart chakra, identifying the animal I associated with it as a bunny.

In my family, 'bunny' was our endearment. That's what Rob and I called each other, and that is what we called the girls. We associated the word with 'love.'

For a number of years after Rob died, the sight of bunnies was a bit of a mixed blessing. Whenever I saw a rabbit hanging out under the lilac bush he had planted in our backyard, I would smile and say to it, "Say hi to Rob for me."

On the other hand, stepping into a home decoration store before Easter felt almost like an agony, like salt on a raw wound.

But lately, perhaps because I've been living alone and missing my girls and missing Rob, and perhaps because the awfulness of the world has added so much stress, I've been adding bunnies to my bedroom. Art postcards on a closet door. The little dishes I keep on my bedside table, where I put my bedtime pill, or my hair ties. A small pottery rabbit peeking out from a plant pot. The mug where I put the water I drink at night.

On the one hand, this feels almost a little childish. Yet, they've been a comforting reminder, that although I may live alone, I am still loved.

Image description: Background: a wooden door covered with art postcards featuring bunnies. A metal cone with forsythias hangs by a yellow ribbon from the door handle. Overlaid over the door are pictures of various decorative bunnies: a straw bunny, lower right corner, a pottery bunny peeking out of a planter of succulents, a couple of small dishes with bunnies inside, and a mug decorated with bunnies.

Bunnies

8 Bunnies

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Current Mood: loved

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The numbers are very indicative in multiple studies, but the mechanism is unclear.

The current vaccine is two-fold. There's the direct chicken pox vaccine to suppress that particular disease. A second adjuvant is designed to stimulate the immune system to provide a vigorous response if the chicken pox reactivates. It's believed that this adjuvant is acting as a strong anti-inflammatory and this might be reducing people contracting dementia.

The papers cited, from across several countries, all show interesting numbers. I'd like to see a meta-study to try to establish stronger numbers. Interestingly, women show the most benefit from this effect, but also are more likely to contract shingles and are more likely to develop dementia.

I saw another article recently that talked about people who get cancer rarely develop dementia, though I didn't dig into that one as I've had several relatives and friends with both, and it hit a little too close to home.

As always, no vaccine is absolute proof against a disease, these studies show a 5-20%+ reduction in the chance of developing dementia, not absolute resistance. Still, that's encouraging, and if the mechanism can be understood, it could lead to the development of a vaccine to further improve resistance against dementia.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/could-a-vaccine-prevent-dementia-shingles-shot-data-only-getting-stronger/

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medical news

Naomi has licensed her work and it has borne fruit. A tabletop RPG has been produced by Magpie Games and has been released on Kickstarter. And is now fully funded! The campaign has 30 days to go, over 800 backers, and the $50,000 goal has exceeded $111,000!

You can get the digital-only edition for $29.

As a quick description, think the campaign against Napoleon - with dragons. Mainly from the British side. There's a good description on the KS page. The dragons speak and are very intelligent. There are several books in the series, I don't know how many as I kind of fell off the wagon.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magpiegames/temeraire-the-roleplaying-game/

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kickstarter,
rpg

Ramadan has just started and my Signal group is having trouble finding enough protectors to fill evening slots. My Food Communists are talking about a $40,000 shortfall that may end their ability to feed people in hiding. March 1 is looming for people who haven't been able to pay rent and are facing evictions. Yet, local politicians are declaring victory and telling people it's time to "go shopping."

Meanwhile, ICE is still being tracked throughout Saint Paul (and presumably Minneapolis, but I don't have access to those Rapid Response groups). Reports that I've seen seem to indicate that the majority of the activity has moved out to the less well organized smaller towns and suburbs. Though the "sexy" part of the resistance--the gas in the streets, the violent confrontations--has dried up, the danger to our immigrant communities is far from over. There is zero sense that ICE is actually leaving. They have switched to quieter, more subtle tactics. They've gone further afield. But make no mistake, they are very much still here.

Last night I went to a Singing Resistance meeting for an action that took place this morning. I managed to miss this morning's action because my GPS decided that it wanted to autocorrect Street to Avenue! VERY DIFFERENT, GPS! In fact, a very important distinction!!! So, I ended up getting lost in downtown Minneapolis long enough to miss the gathering time. But, what was interesting to me is that these Singing Actions have, in the past, brought thousands of people into the streets. Famously, they sang songs encouraging ICE agents to defect outside of some of the hotels hosting them. The action today was for rent relief and trying to get the city officials to consider a temporary rent moritorium, something they were very willing to do during COVID, but which they seem less willing to do for Black and brown folks (shocking, I know!) At any rate, I went to the pre-planning/song rehersal last night with

rachelmanija who is visiting right now and... it wasn't an empty church, but it also wasn't standing room only. The organizers kept saying, "I think more people will join us tomorrow." Well, I wasn't able to. I sure hope other people did. Otherwise, it's going to be pretty sparse. They will not fill City Hall, like they hoped.

But, this seems to be part of a trend. I'd noticed the day after it was announced that ICE was pulling out, my Food Communists was almost ghostly. Plenty of bags of groceries still needed filling, but the number of volunteers that showed up to do the work was less than half of the normal amount. More people have showed up since, but we are nowhere near our previous number. It seems to be the regulars and the die-hards again--although thankfully the Veterans for Peace are still guarding the doors for us.

I ran into some neighbors yesterday when I was walking home from the Communists and they were returning from a daily protest. They also noticed a significant lack of bodies. People were still there, but the crowd was thinner. It's worrying because we are all still very much holding our breaths.

I guess people are buying into the idea that we won and that it's all over. I mean, I would very much like that to be true? I'm just not sure it is and it's disheartening to see that the energy could not, in fact, be maintained. Maybe people are just taking a breather. I hope that's the case.

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That's right, the highest court in the land blocked the tariffs in a 6-3 decision. Opposing the decision were - take a big guess - Alito, Thomas, and Kavanaugh.

There were a few problems. HIS use of tariffs were predicated on using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which a lower court declared did not give him the power to impose tariffs. Specifically, the law that created the act did not include the words "tariffs" or "duties" and that those powers did indeed lie in the House of Representatives and their specific control of the country's purse strings.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the ruling. From the NBC article: "The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration and scope," Roberts wrote. But the Trump administration "points to no statute" in which Congress has previously said that the language in IEEPA could apply to tariffs, he added.

As such, "we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs," Roberts wrote.

The 1977 IEEPA has never been previously invoked, so there is no historical precedent to draw from.

To try and throw a bone to the President's supporters, Gorsuch said this:

For those who think it important for the Nation to impose more tariffs, I understand that today’s decision will be disappointing. All I can offer them is that most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people (including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs) are funneled through the legislative process for a reason. Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the Nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man. There, deliberation tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions. And because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure, allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways they cannot when the rules shift from day to day."

Now, I think this is a fine thing to say. But I wonder how many of his followers will be able to parse the meaning of it?

In response to the ruling, a hissy fit was thrown, a certain toddler was heard saying that 'I don't need the IEEPA!' and set all tariffs to 10%, which is a great reduction for lots of countries and an increase for some.

Also from the NBC article: "The decision does not affect all of Trump's tariffs, leaving in place ones he imposed on steel and aluminum using different laws, for example. But it upends his tariffs in two categories. One is country-by-country or “reciprocal” tariffs, which range from 34% for China to a 10% baseline for the rest of the world. The other is a 25% tariff Trump imposed on some goods from Canada, China and Mexico for what the administration said was their failure to curb the flow of fentanyl."

It looks like the $175 billion that has been paid by importers could be subject to refunds, we'll see what happens. It's going to be a huge mess trying to pry that money out of the Treasury, regardless.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/supreme-court-blocks-trumps-emergency-tariffs-billions-in-refunds-may-be-owed/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-strikes-trumps-tariffs-major-blow-president-rcna244827

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-tells-trump-no-on-tariff-power-grab_n_6925ab7ae4b063285310b10f

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I drove to Needles and Skein this week and bought a red Melt the Ice hat. For those of you not aware of this news story: a knitting shop in St. Louis Park did some brainstorming about what they might do to respond to the ICE Metro Surge in the twin cities. One of the employees, Paul Neary, read about the history of red hats that were knitted in Norway in World War II to signal resistence to the Nazis. They became so popular that the Nazis actually outlawed the wearing of red knitted hats.

So the shop posted a pattern on the knitting website Ravelry, charging $5.00 for the download.

On the day that I went to the shop, they had raised $750,000.00 through the sale of the pattern, which they are donating entirely to charities to help people caught up in this extraordinary situation. People all over the world have downloaded it. The wall behind the cash register was full of letters from people who had knitted the hat and sent it to the store. I was able to buy a hat for $30.00 that someone had knitted and sent in.

While scrolling through some news feeds about this, I saw this Instagram post from a man who has a knit hat company in Norway who was talking about this story, and about the initiative to encourage people to wear their Melt the Ice patterned hats on February 26, which is the anniversary of the date that the Nazis attempted to outlaw the red hats. In the course of his commentary, he mentioned a Norwegian word that struck me as a very appropriate title for my collage this week: Menneskeverd, which refers to the fundamental, intrinsic value of every human being simply by virtue of being human.

That is what we are fighting for, here in Minnesota.

I thought about ICE, and icebergs, and how what you see is only a small part of what is hidden underneath. I mentioned when I did my post last week that I'm doing work that I can't talk about. We are ALL doing work that we can't talk about, here in Minnesota, much of it on the encrypted app Signal. The administration is rumbling about trying to outlaw the totally constitutionally protected actions we are taking to deal with this siege, threatening to subpoena media companies to identify people who dare to criticize ICE. I have wondered about the safety of my blog here, in this little corner of the internet where I have been posting for close to twenty years.

Well. Doing what we are doing requires bravery, because you see, even though the administration argues against empathy and threatens those of us who show it, we believe in the fundamental, intrinsic value of every human being simply by virtue of being human.

Edited to add: a comment I saw elsewhere: if we are no longer in the land of the free, at least we must be the home of the brave.

Image description: An iceberg floats in water. The view shows both the part of the iceberg above and below the water. The ice berg is topped by a red 'Melt the Ice' hat. Above the water surface is black text listing things being done openly: Rent relief, The Salt Cure, Diaper drives, Donating miles, t-shirts, 3D printed whistles, GoFundMe, Rebel Loon tattoes, signs on telephone poles, too many businesses to list, Safe Haven, Concerts. Below the water surface is a Signal app logo and text in white of things done in secret: rides for immigrants, grocery delivery, the People's Laundry, school patrols, neighborhood patrols, Rapid Response, Can I get a plate check?, donate breast milk, we need a translator, Dispatch.

Menneskeverd

7 Menneskeverd

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Current Mood: determined

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This is the difference between the current administration in the USA and the rest of the world: this admin won't prosecute people who declare loyalty to the current junta.

Andrew was taken into custody early Thursday and held for 12 hours for questioning, then released. According to the latest release of The Trump-Epstein Files, Andrew gave confidential information to Epstein that was available to the Royal Family. There are also allegations that he made arrangements with Epstein to have a woman trafficked to the UK for him to have sex with.

While Andrew was stripped of his royal titles, he is still in the Royal Line of Succession, at #8. The UK would have to pass a law to remove him from that position. The King and rest of the royal family were not given advance notice of his arrest. Today is Andrew's 66th birthday.

He is the first royal in almost 400 years to be arrested and accused of a crime. Other royals have been accused of civil fines, such as speeding.

Virginia Giuffre sued Andrew in 2015, alleging that he raped her on three occasions when she was a teen. She took her own life last year. Her family welcomed news of the arrest.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/former-prince-andrew-arrested_n_6996e21de4b0cc086c708735

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trump-epstein files

What month is it, anyway?

If you're in the USA and needing a new office/computer chair....

2026 52 Card Project: Week 8: Bunnies

The shingles vaccine may help prevent dementia

Naomi Novik's Temeraire stories get the Kickstarter TTRPG treatment!

Turning Away

The Supreme Court blocks the "Emergency" Tariffs!

2026 52 Card Project: Week 7: Menneskeverd

Former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested in connection to the Trump-Epstein Files

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