Mimzy Whimzy

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

GO APOLLO GO

SIC 'EM

But when I was a manager in a fast food restaurant I've had customers throw food at me, demand for my personal phone number with an added threat of "Well I'll just have to FIND it", customers charging past the front counter to physically intimidate me and my coworkers, screaming and swearing, demands to know what time I get out of work, demands to know when my manager would be at work as a threat, people sitting in their car waiting for me to finish closing because they were angry at me, causing me to stay in the office watching the camera waiting for them to drive away...

But none of those incidents are arrest-able offenses, not one, any time I called the cops on any customer I would just hear excuses like " "there isn't anything illegal about calling a restaurant", that nothing physical happened and therefore there's nothing they could do, to call back and let them know if anything else happens

Idk, just think it's A TEENY TINY BIT ODD

3x Tea time - Hobbii yarn

4.5 mm crochet hook (I tend to crochet very loosely, so I'm going down at least 1 size on my crochet hooks)

Fhdc (foundation half double crochet)

Ch (chain)

Hdc (half double crochet)

Slst (slip stitchl

Instructions in (brackets) are for the uncropped version

Size M

Instructions to adjust size will follow

Border:

R1 : 6 Fhdc, ch1, turn

R2 - 64 : 1 hdc in back loop only, ch1, turn

Sleeve 1:

R1 : 1 hdc in each row of border, ch1, turn (64 hdc)

R2 - 53 : 1 hdc in each stitch, ch1, turn

R 54 : 1 hdc in each stitch, ch 11 (ch21), turn

Body:

R1 : 1hdc in each loop, 1 hd in each stitch, 10 Fhdc (20 Fdhc), ch1, turn

R2 - 10 : 1 hdc in each stitch, ch1, turn

-> tip: add more rows here and less rows in the next part to make the neck hole smaller, it's written far too loose, it's off shoulder

R a is the front, R b is the back, in between should be 4 unworked stitches (count and use stitch markers to find the middle!)

R 11a - 34a : 1hdc in the next 40 (50) stitches, ch1, turn

At the end of R 34a, cut yarn and pull through

R 11b - 34b : start at the beginning of R 54, 1 hdc in the next 40 (50) stitches, ch1, turn

R 35 : 1 hdc in each stitch of part b, 5 Fhdc, 1 hdc in each stitch of part a, ch1, turn

R 36 - 45 : 1 hdc in each stitch, ch1, turn

Sleeve 2:

R 1 : slst in the next 10 (20) stitches, 1 hdc in the next 64 stitches, ch1, turn

R 2 : 1 hdc in the next 64 stitches, ch1, turn

R 3 - 53 : 1 hdc in each stitch, ch1, turn

R 54 : 1 hdc in each stitch, ch7

Border 2 :

R 1 : 1 hdc in 2nd stitch from hook, 1 hdc in the next 5 stitches, slst in next two stitches of R 54, turn

R 2 : 1 hdc in back loops only, Ch 1, turn

R 3 : 1 hdc in back loops only, slst in next two stitches of R 54, turn

Repeat R 2 and 3 until the end of the row 54, cut yarn and pull through.

Sewing :

Fold the piece in half, leaving the neck hole on the top. Sew along the open edges down the sleeves to the bottom of the body. Use cotton or any other wool that holds up and doesn't tear, Tea Time by Hobbii tears easily.

Border Body :

Start somewhere on the bottom of the body.

R 1 : 1 hdc in 2nd stitch from hook, 1 hdc in the next 5 stitches, slst in next two stitches of the body, turn

R 2 : 1 hdc in back loops only, Ch 1, turn

R 3 : 1 hdc in back loops only, slst in next two stitches of the body, turn

Repeat R 2 and 3 until you end up one time around at the beginning, cut yarn and pull through.

Sew together the ends of the border.

Neck hole :

Start in the middle where your back will be.

This piece is just if your neck hole is too large: Mark with stitch markers where your shoulders are. This will be the base for shoulder straps. Make sure they're symmetrical.

Put 1 hdc in every stitch. Once you're at a stitch marker, make 15 Fhdc and 1 hdc in the parallel stitch marker. Again, hdc in each stitch until the next stitch marker, 15 Fhdc, and 1 hdc into the parallel stitch marker. Hdc until you're at the beginning. Slst into first hdc, cut yarn and pull through.

Insert yarn at the shoulder, 1 hdc in each stitch all around, including the shoulder strap. Slst into first hdc, cut yarn and pull through. Repeat for second shoulder

And what is the exercise that somehow everyone thinks they should do instead? Jogging. It's more accessible, sure, it's easy and costs nothing to go outside and run. But I need you to understand telling a fat person to go running is basically telling them to go destroy their knees. Not to mention it's probably one of the most physically uncomfortable exercises to do when you have a body that jiggles even with compression garments.

And I fucking love to swim. It's my favourite way to exercise. But I don't swim because I want to exercise.

I swim because I love being in water and there is no greater feeling than gliding through water.

Also, I'm fat in a way that means bathtubs are laughable. If i want to be in water, and have all of me submerged, I have to go swimming.