Category: Local / Living

No Kings Rally – Denver – October 18, 2025

Overheard in Denver – Sunday, October 12, 2025

“What do you mean by, you hate all that?”

Guy downtown – wearing airpods, pulling a suitcase.

Hundreds of Thousands Demonstrate – March for Palestine

In the Netherlands, an estimated 250,000 people, most dressed in red, gathered in Amsterdam to press the government to take tougher action against Israel.

Sunday’s protest and march through the Dutch capital comes less than four weeks before national elections. Two “Red Line” demonstrations in The Hague earlier this year also drew tens of thousands of people.

After packing the central Museum Square, the protesters walked through the city center, holding Palestinian flags and peace emblems. One placard read, “Ashamed of the government.”

Sunday’s demonstrations came a day after hundreds of thousands marched in Rome, Barcelona and Madrid in a show of growing international outrage at Israel’s two-year military campaign in Gaza. Smaller rallies took place in Paris, Lisbon, Athens and Skopje, North Macedonia, and in London and Manchester.

Hundreds of thousands march across Europe in support of Palestinians

New York City Bar Association on Unlawful Attacks on Venezuelan Vessels

This September, President Donald J. Trump ordered U. S. military strikes against three private Venezuelan-flagged vessels on the high seas, killing at least 17 individuals and severely damaging or sinking those vessels. A fourth attack, which killed at least four more people, was carried out on October 3. None of these attacks was authorized under U.S. law and, as explained below, each of them appears to be an unlawful summary execution prohibited by both U.S. and international law. Although the President has, without proof, characterized the victims as “terrorists” and drug traffickers, that claim, even if true, provides no justification for these unlawful executions. Even if, as recently reported, the President has communicated to Congress that he has “determined” that the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, absent congressional authorization of these military actions, they remain unlawful…

Because the recent attacks on Venezuelan vessels and their crews were unauthorized by U.S. law and in violation of binding international law, they were illegal summary executions – murders. It is imperative that Congress act promptly, as pending legislation proposes, to make clear to the President and the nation that the President’s threat of similar attacks on Venezuelan vessels (and on Venezuela itself) are unlawful and must not be repeated. Only by doing so can Congress bring our nation into compliance with the Constitution and international law, reduce the risk of hostilities with neighboring countries and assure that similar abuses of Presidential power do not expand to American shores.

https://www.nycbar.org/press-releases/unlawful-attacks-on-venezuelan-vessels/

Random Pics – Chicago – September, 2025

Text – “Nothing is worth more than this day. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe”

Proposition MM – School Meals

Surely we can all agree on this one?
byu/randytc18 inDenver

Darkstar197
As a beneficiary of reduced or free school lunch for most of my childhood and someone who hasn’t needed government subsidies since i graduated college.. I feel obligated to ensure the future generations never have to be food insecure. Yes from me.

MarionberryFew7660
I have no kids and, at 47 years old, will never have them. I still vote yes for every positive child-related proposition because I’m not a heartless degenerate

Ballotpedia:
Colorado Proposition MM, Tax Deductions and Revenue for School Meals Measure (2025)

The Colorado Tax Deductions and Revenue for School Meals Measure is on the ballot in Colorado as a legislatively referred state statute on November 4, 2025.

A “yes” vote supports lowering the state income tax deduction limits for taxpayers earning $300,000 or more from $12,000 to $1,000 for single filers and from $16,000 to $2,000 for joint filers, generating an additional $95 million annually for the Healthy School Meals for All Program.

A “no” vote opposes lowering state income tax deduction limits to provide an additional $95 million annually Healthy School Meals for All Program, thereby leaving in place the current limits of $12,000 for single filers and $16,000 for joint filers.

Random Pics – Denver – September 23, 2025

Swimming in Chicago River – First Time Since 1926

DOWNTOWN — For the past 98 years, swimming in the Chicago River was unthinkable.

The once-contaminated river was a dumping ground for industrial pollution and sewage, creating toxic smells that kept would-be swimmers far away.

But today, the Chicago River is cleaner than it was decades ago, and Sunday marked the first time an open-water swim has been held in the river since 1926. Organized by nonprofit A Long Swim, the event celebrated the city’s progress toward cleaning the river while raising money for ALS research and youth swim education programs.

For Olivia Smoliga, a two-time Olympian from suburban Glenview, the opportunity was too historic to pass up. After finishing her one-mile race in first place, she felt ecstatic to be part of history.

Swimmers Return To Chicago River For 1st Time In A Century, Marking Dramatic Transformation
Hundreds of swimmers dove into the Chicago River on Sunday to raise money for ALS research and highlight the river’s rebound after years of pollution and unsafe conditions.

When the Secret Police Go Out of Town for a Few Days

What the Peace Corps volunteer found rather comical was bearing witness to the element of farce that police states often engender, of how easily the arrogance of officialdom can tilt into stupidity. As in all Iranian towns and cities, a favorite guessing game of Sonqorians was speculating on the identity of the SAVAK agents in their midst, a parlor game Metrinko was increasingly brought into as he gained residents’ trust. In the late summer of 1971, such speculations were abruptly resolved when the regime announced that travel to the city of Shiraz was temporarily off-limits to all private Iranian citizens, a security precaution for the upcoming international gala being held in nearby Persepolis. Except that soon after that announcement, many of those Sonqorians suspected of being secret police climbed aboard buses and left town, bound for Shiraz. “So that proved to everyone they were SAVAK.” Metrinko laughed. “They were all going down to stand guard over the shah’s party.”

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Scott Anderson

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Member of Antifa

Anyone who isn’t fascist
byu/Efficient-Ruin-4713 inDelusionsOfAdequacy

RIP – Robert Redford

He was a great actor and so much more.
So sad to lose a tireless champion for the environment.
R.I.P. Robert Redford.

[image or embed]

— Carole King (@carolekingofficial.bsky.social) September 16, 2025 at 10:13 AM

Chicago – September 9, 2025

Lincoln Park
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Park,_Chicago

Chess Records
https://bluesheaven.com/

From Keith Richard’s memoir Life:

2120 South Michigan Avenue was hallowed ground—the headquarters of Chess Records in Chicago. We got there on a last-minute arrangement made by Andrew Oldham, at a moment when the first half of our first US tour seemed like a semidisaster. There in the perfect sound studio, in the room where everything we’d listened to was made, perhaps out of relief or just the fact that people like Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry and Willie Dixon were wandering in and out, we recorded fourteen tracks in two days. One of them was Bobby Womack’s “It’s All Over Now,” our first number one hit. Some people, Marshall Chess included, swear that I made this up, but Bill Wyman can back me up. We walked into Chess studios, and there’s this guy in black overalls painting the ceiling. And it’s Muddy Waters, and he’s got whitewash streaming down his face and he’s on top of a ladder. Marshall Chess says, “Oh, we never had him painting.” But Marshall was a boy then; he was working in the basement. And also Bill Wyman told me he actually remembers Muddy Waters taking our amplifiers from the car into the studio. Whether he was being a nice guy or he wasn’t selling records then, I know what the Chess brothers were bloody well like—if you want to stay on the payroll, get to work. Actually meeting your heroes, your idols, the weirdest thing is that most of them are so humble, and very encouraging. “Play that lick again,” and you realize you’re sitting with Muddy Waters. And of course later I got to know him. Over many years I frequently stayed at his house. In those early trips I think it was Howlin’ Wolf’s house I stayed at one night, but Muddy was there. Sitting in the South Side of Chicago with these two greats. And the family life, loads of kids and relatives walking in and out. Willie Dixon’s there….

Lakefront trail
www.choosechicago.com