Julie&

Can people just like what they like ffs

Because neurodivergent people are so literal and honest, we get mislabeled as rude, sassy, or smart-mouthed when we’re actually just being exact.

Got a letter that Illinois is opening its own health insurance marketplace. I’m hoping this means my plan can stay affordable and I can continue working part time. I need more time to recover from the burnout and trauma inflicted on me by my prior workplaces. And 5 day work weeks are inhumane.

Must-Reads and the War on Chicago "Chicagoans will not be a conquered people."

I have a full day today, but I woke up early to put this edition of my newsletter together because I need you all to have this rundown of what we've been up against this week in Chicago as the federal assault on our city continues. To ignore these developments would be a damning mistake for us all.

I’m not intimidating, you’re just an insecure little bitch.

ICE agents drunk on their own power pulled screaming adults and crying children from their Chicago apartments during a large overnight illegal raid that has left tenants and neighbors shaken. cnn.it/4pPCXIt

The wealth of the richest 1% in America just hit a record $52 trillion. These are the people getting huge tax cuts — paid for by cuts to health care for millions of Americans. Every lie Trump and Republicans are telling right now about the shutdown is meant to distract you from this.

"They're trying to convince people they can't do the things they've been doing easily for years - to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies - to write that for you." We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, "that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won't know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can't do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat. People are already doing this. You won't have to process grief, because you'll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it's going to destroy humans, long before there's a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people." - author and filmmaker Justine Bateman from a piece by Emine Saner for the Guardian

Author and filmmaker Justine Bateman on generative AI

‘He wasn’t this national hero’: US college students voice concern over Charlie Kirk’s idolization Black, brown and LGBTQ+ students across the US are puzzled by all the praise the far-right commentator has received after his killing

www.yahoo.com/news/article... @meidastouch.com

Chicago-area folks. Did you know there is a dedicated website for banned books events in and around the city? It's chicagobannedbooks.org and right now, it redirects to FB...but it will have its own content soon.

Here's what events are on tap for next week: www.facebook.com/events/17104...

A Charlie Kirk fan stalked these teenage girls for months, did livestreams where he harassed them, and murdered them after one of them said something critical of Charlie Kirk.

This should be headline news. It’s a horrific tragedy.

I lovingly dedicate this sign to all nice white librarians.

Shoutout to @nicollewallace.bsky.social for not sugar-coating anything and saying on the air that an ICE agent said “fuck them kids” while handcuffing them naked in Chicago after an apartment raid.

My husband was detained by ICE today

Juan Muñoz, an American citizen, father of 2, and local government official, was peacefully protesting w. other elected officials. He was assaulted and taken away

I have had zero contact or updates since

#SOS
@duckworth.senate.gov @durbin.senate.gov

Remember when google’s motto was “don’t be evil”?

Julie Jurgens A singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose fearless, empathetic songs draw upon an upbringing in rural Illinois fraught with experiences of poverty, mental illness and domestic violence, su...

Happy Bandcamp Friday. I have a lot of music that I’d love for you to listen to. All money from Lovetaker goes to Girls Rock! Chicago to support the next generation of female and nonbinary musicians. juliejurgens.bandcamp.com

seven-year-old: “who’s voice is that”

me: “Bob Dylan”

7yo: “is that yr friend”

me: “no a singer”

7yo: “not a very good singer”

Repost with alt text.

ICE Agents Rappel From Black Hawk Helicopters Into Chicago for Major Raid Roughly 30 undocumented immigrants were taken into custody, several of them suspected of gang affiliation, NewsNation reported.

“Federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter onto the rooftops of Chicago residential buildings…”

www.newsweek.com/ice-rappel-b...

Yes. Republicans are about to murder TikTok, which means BookTok dies.

Some days I read the headlines and all I can think about is how people bow to every whim of this madman and the shame of it is never discussed.

a flow-chart with 2 islands. "Do I need AI?" that flows into a final island saying "No"

A bunch of the snow men comics were just recreations of his sprees.

Hey friends! Since former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is in the midst of an image rehabilitation campaign as he performatively mulls a presidential bid, I'm concerned that some of us have older relatives who see him through the blur of nostalgia and have forgotten his many corrupt scandals. /1

If he’s going to turn ALA into a library workers Union I could get behind that.

I really want to hear why the search committee was excited to hire Dan Montgomery. Isn’t this information ALA members deserve to have?

What is the purpose of that? I just don’t understand.

OKAY FOLKS FOR EVERYONE WHO ASKED FOR IT*
MY THREAD OF LATIN-AMERICAN HORROR IN TRANSLATION FOR THE PERFECT BOOK FOR THE OVERLAP OF HISPANIC HISTORY & SPOOKY MONTHS

*nobody asked but I KNOW WHAT YOU SECRETLY WANT 1/

Jane Fonda Relaunches Committee for the First Amendment With Support of 550 Celebrities Including Pedro Pascal, Viola Davis and More Jane Fonda has relaunched the Committee for the First Amendment with the support of Pedro Pascal, Viola Davis and more.

Go, Jane, go! She's rounded up hundreds of Hollywood figures to revive the First Amendment organization her father championed. Fonda, in her late eighties, is in her prime as a climate champion and a powerful voice for justice.

Every time the subject of Jimmy Fallon’s spinelessness comes up, I think of this passage from Tina Fey’s Bossypants