Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children. Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

I need my credit cards to make it harder on me to spend money. I should have to do a long division equation or solve a troll’s riddles three

Steins Beer Garden closing in March, making the future of Mountain View Oktoberfest uncertain After 12 years in downtown Mountain View, Steins, a beloved beer garden that spearheaded the creation of Mountain View Oktoberfest, will pour its final brew on March 30.

The Big Day

www.paloaltoonline.com/mountain-vie...

Every day I wake up and check the news to see if it's The Big Day. I can't wait for The Big Day!!

i need a 52 year old man with $800 billion to impregnate my wife . i am worried our offspring wont be sufficiently feeble and/or annoying

Don’t buy stuff on February 28. Money’s the only thing these dicks understand.
#resist

the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president

Issa Rae, Shonda Rhimes withdraw from Kennedy Center amid Trump takeover The “Scandal” creator has resigned from the Kennedy Center board, while the “Insecure” creator canceled her sold-out event.

Issa Rae just canceled her sold-out event and Shonda Rhimes resigned from the board amid Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center

If anyone is dealing with family estrangement this is such an important read (from the brilliant Tara Westover, author of the memoir Educated)

A Visit to Madam Bedi: A Personal History by Tara Westover I was estranged from my own mother, so a friend tried to lend me his.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

I’m just tired. Tired of all his bullshit. Tired of hearing about his daily bullshit. Tired of those who propagate his bullshit. Tired of all those who voted for this bullshit.

Just tired.

it is genuinely incredible that all you have to do is scratch the surface and it becomes clear that each of these guys is a huge piece of shit

Any aspect of popular culture not immediately understood by 40+ year old white dudes is DEI, apparently.

Kendrick Lamar uses the Superbowl half-time show to put out a piece of deeply impressive performance art that examines black masculinity and American patriotism in a way that enrages the right wing commentators.

New York Times: OMG, he wore bell bottom jeans!

"Insel Air" plane

can't believe the DOGE team even has their own plane

Silicon Valley be all like "You didn't want to buy our monkey jpgs and conduct meetings with VR headsets, I guess we have no choice but to start WW3"

So You Bent the Knee and Were Banished Anyway: A Guide for Mainstream Media

At this point, we should just replace the United States with 4chan.

www.stopkillerrobots.org

"what else can we do to fight this???" the reason no one has answered your question is that the answers violate the terms of service. go read the TOS and that should help you figure it out!

I would love any legacy media to report on this administration in a way that reflected reality and not mealy mouthed double speak

*has two week continuous night and day panic attack* good how about you

I like how people say "manage your depression" like it's a stock portfolio but you're heavily invested in sadness

remember a few years ago when we could barely find a Popeye’s chicken sandwich, and now we can barely find the will to live

(me as a tour guide leading you around existence right now) I don’t know what any of this fucking is. They changed it man

my brain needs crutches from this month and also everything else

right now, Mary Oliver would just be like “wow, we are fucked. I got nothin”

I'm sorry, but "they took over the whole federal payments system, fired the career staff, and won't let anybody see what they're doing" is not a situation in which you wait for more information. It's a situation in which you assume the worst. There's no explanation for it other than rampant crimes.

PBS- Secrets of the Dead-The Bombing of Auschwitz. Recom if you're inclined.
My takeaway is that we're screwed. We have no competent leadership.They should have had Musk arrested the 2nd he went into that bldg. But they took a holiday instead. We need leaders with brains & balls. There are none.