Marcea the Traveler

Just a quick update from the Twin Cities. (Please forgive the unsolicited message). THINGS ARE NOT BETTER IN MINNEAPOLIS. The media is mostly moving on, Trump is focused on other stuff, BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON THE GROUND. More than 2,000 DHS thugs continue to roam the streets, abducting people 24/7, assaulting legal observers with impunity, and routinely denying 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment rights. Drones and helicopters are overhead every day. Hundreds and hundreds of terrified families have not left their homes since mid-December ... relying on the community to bring them food and help with rent and other necessities. (Those people are NOT violent drug cartel sex offending murderers, as DHS would tell you. Most are legal residents or citizens.) If anything, things have just become more stressful and intractable (think trench warfare as a suitable metaphor): The resistance is better organized and numerous, but DHS has become more clever and better at disguise... and the county sheriff's office is increasingly supporting them . Do not let anyone tell you that Homans (the new person in charge of the occupation) is making anything better. Do not let anyone tell you that 700 ICE agents leaving the city has made much of a difference; the remaining force (again, ~2,000) is still larger than the entire city's police force (which is legally unable to do anything). Please call your congressional reps ... especially if there is any chance the administration might listen to them.

A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:

The governor elections in Florida are this year. I don’t have very high hopes for the Democratic Party of FL (or nationally) to back the right person or giving a lot of effort or money into putting up a fight. It’s depressing what’s happening down here.

Where the heck do you want us to go? And why should we pay a lot of money to move from a place some of us have lived for generations?

Stop putting the responsibility on Black people. We’re not the ones who need to change.

Once he was taken to an ICE holding facility at Ft. Snelling in suburban Minneapolis, Castañeda Mondragón said officers resumed beating him. Recognizing that he was seriously hurt, he said, he pleaded with them to stop but they just “laughed at me and hit me again.” “They were very racist people,” he said. “No one insulted them, neither me nor the other person they detained me with. It was their character, their racism toward us, for being immigrants.”

He pleaded with them to stop but they just “laughed at me and hit me again.”

“They were very racist people,” he said. “No one insulted them, neither me nor the other person they detained me with. It was their character, their racism toward us, for being immigrants.”

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so jumbled after a beating by immigration officers that he initially could not remember he had a daughter and still struggles to recall treasured moments like the night he taught her to dance. But the violence he endured last month in Minnesota while being detained is seared into his battered brain. He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again. He also remembers the emergency room and the intense pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.

ICE told nurses this Minneapolis man “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.”

What actually happened is that they pulled him from a car, beat him so viciously with a steel baton that he had 8 skull fractures, 5 life-threatening brain hemorrhages, and couldn’t remember he had a daughter.

Jessie Diggins, Olympic cross-country skiing gold medalist, from the Twin Cities: “I want to make sure you know who I’m racing for…”

There were 89,000 polling places in 2022.

8 states have all-mail elections.

At least 5,000,000 Americans marched in the October No Kings demonstrations.

They have 15,000 guys. They couldn't "surround the polls" if they wanted to.

something i would like to know is what, if any, role jeff bezos is playing in the trump administration's acquisition of giant warehouses across the country.

Florida has a law in place that only 10% of admitted students through the entire system can be OOS. UF and FSU are allowed higher percentages than the other schools.

That makes it like The Hunger Games for OOS students. The parent boards are full of people appalled their kid got rejected.

Also the cost of attending the UF or ‘Bama for out of state students is still reasonable compared to some in-state programs where the kids are coming from.

Add in the Tik-Tok factor and boom!

I live in FL and mine is headed north out of state for college and quite happy about it.

Normal people who care about their neighbors want ICE abolished. Only fascists want it reformed 😒

a man and a woman hugging with the words " slap her slap her she 's hysterical slap her " Alt: A clip from the TV show Fawlty Towers. A man with a mustache is pointing at two women who look like they are struggling. The man is saying “Slap her, slap her, she’s hysterical, slap her.” Behind them is another man with a mustache in a white tuxedo jacket looking bewildered.

Sometimes being on here makes me think what if would have been like to have lived during the Salem Witch Trials.

One person gets indignant for no reason and the wave begins.

Thank you Susana and co-workers for working so hard to keep us fed!

I’m also curious to see how many Blue Jay fans from Canada head to Dunedin for Spring Training this year. Last year some came because they had already made travel plans they couldn’t cancel.

As a travel writer, I’ve know Canadian writers who refuse to take media trips here. And some Canadian publications won’t accept stories about the U.S.

As a FL resident I’ve seen a significant drop in Canadian license plates on cars this season.

I don’t blame them. Actions have consequences.

My husband just leased a car that’s not a Tesla that has these and I hate them.

Well at least Jimmy Carter boycotted it

Poster with the four books being featured at next week's Schomburg event: Friedman's Carceral Apartheid, Fountain's High School Students Unite!, Davis' Police Against the Movement and Harris' Tell Her Story

Next Thursday 2/5 at the Schomburg Center at 6:30 EST, we will be having a timely conversation on "Policing Blackness: Resisting Repression, Police Violence & Surveillance" with LaShawn Harris, Joshua Clark Davis, Aaron Fountain, and Brittany Friedman. Please join us in person or online!

If you still like them and live near an Aldi, my husband swears their version is very close to the original. And much less expensive!

two men are standing in front of a sign that says closed Alt: Two men from a black and white 1930s movie sitting near each other look at each other and are nodding. Both are wearing suits and hats.

It’s pronounced Chick-oh? I thought it was Cheek-oh.

Learn something new every day!

#ANightAtTheOpera #TCMParty

I was only allowed sugary cereal when we visited my great-uncle in the summer 😢 Then I’d grab the mini box of Fruit Loops before my brothers (because I didn’t like Corn Pops and those usually were left for last).

#TCMParty

a frog wearing a top hat is dancing on a table . Alt: A frog wearing a top hat and carrying a cane is dancing and kicking moving across the screen as he smiles.

“Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gaaaaaaal!!”

#LooneyTunes #TCMParty

a cartoon character wearing a horned helmet is standing next to a rabbit Alt: Elmer Fudd dressed in an opera outfit, and a helmet with horns is dancing with Bugs Bunny who is in drag with a blonde wig in braids and a pink skirt.

I learned opera from Bugs Bunny! It still shocks me to hear some of the songs in the real world and not see a cartoon.

Looney Tunes cartoons are also the place where I learned it’s quite okay for males to wear drag.

#TCMParty

Screenshot of a Duke Energy electric bill summary page showing a past due balance of $179.39. A warning message states the account is scheduled for disconnection on or after February 5, 2026. The payment due date is January 27, 2026. Buttons labeled “View Bill” and “Pay Bill” appear below the balance.

Duke Energy threatening to disconnect my electricity 9 days after it was due, over less than $200, during unprecedented freezing temps in Florida is some kind of choice.

I’m lucky I just forgot and have it. Can’t imagine not having it and going without heat at night right now.

Devils.

And look at who it features 🥴😒

I was jokingly thought as I watched: “I hope this was taped 15 years old because if it’s recent, I’m eyeballing a man in his late 80s.” 👀😭🤣

#GreasedLightning #TCMParty

Greased Lightning had two Atlanta royals in it: Julian Bond as Mary’s first boyfriend and Maynard Jackson (who the ATL airport is partially named for) as the preacher who married Mary and Wendell.

#TCMParty

Greased Lightning is a really good movie! Wendell Scott is an icon.

#TCMParty #BlackHistoryMonth

I have not nice curse words that I will keep to myself . . .

At a time when Black history is being erased, places like the Louis Armstrong House matter more than ever. That’s why I’m proud to partner with the Louis Armstrong House Museum to offer free admission to all visitors on Saturday, February 7th.