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At the highest of peaks and the lowest of valleys, I have always and will always love my friends. I love all of you so much it makes my heart ache.

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“i hope you die” is basic. “i hope your text post gets popular with someone else’s addition you don’t find that funny and all the tags on it are about that addition” is smart. it’s real. it’s terrifying. it could happen to you

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your mom is a basic task and i was able to do her in a few days

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idk I just personally think that getting chills from music is the best part of being alive. like when a song is so good you can feel it in your whole body. that's why I'm here.

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I’ve been engaging in behaviours not beneficial to my wellbeing

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A Blacksmith’s Dream

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Hello!

A close-up photo of Enceladus, Saturn's moon, taken by the Cassini spacecraft.

thank you for your attention

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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

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

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Limerick Template

There once was a [PERSON] from [PLACE] Whose [BODY PART] was [SPECIAL CASE] When [EVENT] would occur It would cause [HIM OR HER] To [BREAK A LAW OF TIME AND SPACE]

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Within Carina

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middle-earth dashboard simulator

🏵 hobbitc0re Follow

pippin was 29 years old???

🏵 hobbitc0re Follow

he should've been at the green dragon

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📸 daily-middle-earth-photos Follow

#gates of argonath #argonath #amon hen #middle earth landscapes #photographers of middle earth #travel #dark academia #lmao pls reblog this i almost fell out of my boat taking this photo

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🦢 elfposting Follow

my hungry ass could never travel with lembas

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🐟 sojuicysweet Follow

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#the entitlement i see on this site sometimes is disgusting #y'all will just post about having easy access to lembas when we can't eats hobbit food??? #we must starve??? #vent #do not rb

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CALLOUT FOR GRIMA WORMTONGUE

I've talked a lot about this already on this blog, but I want to have everything collected in one post so next time some dipshit with a white hand icon slides into my inbox to call me a liar I can just link to this post. tl;dr grima wormtongue has been poisoning my uncle and the land of rohan for the past few years, and here are the receipts:

Keep reading

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🧙‍♂️ bignaturals Follow

i stg if one more of you tells me I should've sent frodo on the eagles I'm asking iluvatar to take me back

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📖 booknerdofbree Follow

recent read: there and back again: a hobbit's tale by bilbo baggins

I thought this was SOOO fun and cute! I'm usually not into rpf but did anyone else think there was something between bilbo and thorin? 👀 I can't be the only one who saw it. but the ending made me cry my eyes out.

4.5/5 stars

#booklr #there and back again #bilbo baggins #recent read #dark academia #light academia #book review

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🌲 elvenking69 Follow

who up mirking they wood

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🐛 manofsirith Follow

wtf the new king of gondor just bowed to these four random short guys?? everyone else bowed too and I just went along with it lmao 😅 am I missing something????

#this is right after he sang a song and made out with some hot elf chick #truly the wildest coronation i've ever been to

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ULTIMATE HOTTEST FIRST AGE BADDIE TOURNAMENT FINALS!!!!

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here y'all go again pitting two bad bitches against each other

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🌊 helcaraxebaby Follow

everyone who voted galadriel is a kinslayer apologist #luthiensweep

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fuck my job so much. everyone manifest an attack on gondor so I can finally warm my fingers on this beacon fire.

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by eru this can't be happening

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I want to write an essay on how that theme shows up with Alina Starkov and her ending and on how that makes sense but I don’t have the brainpower if yall are interested let me know

Rereading the Lord of the Rings series recently, and it's so fascinating to me how much the series is a denial of the typical juvenile power-fantasy that is associated with the fantasy genre.

Like, the power-fantasy is the temptation the Ring uses against people It tempts Boromir with becoming the "one true king" that could save his people with fantastic power. It tempts Sam with being the savior of Middle Earth and turning the ruin that is Mordor into a great garden. It tempts Gandalf and Galadriel with being the messianic figure of legend who brings salvation to Middle Earth and great glory to herself.

The things the Ring tempts people with are becoming the typical protagonists of fantasy stories that we expect to see. and over and over we see that accepting that role, that fantasy of being the benevolent all-powerful hero, is a bad thing. LotR is about how power, even power wielded with benevolent intent, is corrupting.

And its so fascinating how so much of modern fantasy buys into the very fantasy LotR denies. Most modern fantasy is about being that Heroic power-fantasy. About good amassing power to rival evil. But LotR dares not to. It dares to be honest that there is no world where anyone amasses that power and remains good.

I guess that's one of the reasons its so compelling.

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Since it’s Spotify Wrapped season I thought I’d share this reminder that streaming services are killing the music industry. Musicians can’t make a living like this. If you love an artist, find them on Bandcamp and actually buy their albums.

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framing is everything

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I feel so bad posting this knowing I'm in a slump for the bastard and the saint but would anyone be interested in a fic around crow from destiny 2?

i'm hoping it will bring me out my slump and get me back into writing