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sadele2

@sadele2.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1K following 604 posts

"I dreamed I was a perfect smile" Can someone please remind me where this phrase came from, who said it or wrote it, decades ago? Old & a bit out of the way. Background in writing world, art world, book world, tv news & entertainment world.

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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Got an email yesterday from L.A. Taco, they've started a weekly newsletter ICE Watch To sign up: lataco.com/newsletters (I got the email bc I'm a member but at the link it says the newsletter is free) Part of the email below (incl. instance of infant left by ICE in hot vehicle in San Diego) -->>
Welcome to L.A. TACO's ICE WATCH newsletter. 
We are at the HEIGHT of the raids, and our neighbors and families are suffering. But we're refusing to look away. We're launching this newsletter today to document ICE raids and the heinous overreaches of our government for all of you who also refuse to look away.
If you'd like to get ICE WATCH in your inbox every week, click here.
Throughout this past weekend, ICE agents continued their operations, taking at least 15 people across Southern California. These sightings are based on reports from several rapid-response teams across Southern California, including Grupo Auto Defensa Dena, We Keep Us Safe, Siempre Unidos LA, SELA RRN, Union Del Barrio, the 805 Rapid Response Network, VC Defensa, and various on-the-ground autonomous community patrollers.
Here in Los Angeles, ICE was seen in Burbank, Pasadena, Lynwood, Glendale, Van Nuys, La Habra, and Los Angeles. In the Inland Empire, they were seen in Fontana, Riverside, Chino, and Indio in the Coachella Valley. In the 805, ICE continues to be present at county jails, including the San Luis Obispo County Jail and the Santa Barbara County North Jail.
Down in San Diego, there was an instance of an ICE arrest that led to an infant being left alone in a hot vehicle. According to patrollers, the infant was inside the vehicle until San Diego Police arrived to take the infant. 
L.A. TACO reached out for comment to the San Diego Police Department regarding the allegations made surrounding the infant. L.A. TACO also reached out to ICE regarding the ICE sightings in the cities we recorded.
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
2 screenshots frm 1/17/2019 (I forget the source) of Brian Williams quoting ex-prison guard: 2nd pic: "Always leave a man an out. Even the slightest crack, so that they feel they’re not cornered because cornered people get desperate.” Does Donald Trump feel cornered by the Mueller investigation?
Williams: I have a buddy who was a corrections officer in New York State for many years. People who don’t know the prison system may not know. They are not armed when they are among the inmate population.  And he always said, when I asked him, “What was the lesson of all those years you spent inside with the inmates?” He said, “Never corner a man.”Williams: “Always leave a man an out. Even the slightest crack, so that they feel they’re not cornered because cornered people get desperate.” 
Does Donald Trump feel cornered by the Mueller investigation?
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
From Musée d’Orsay Manet Dossier description of Manet's L'Asperge [Asparagus - a small painting of a single asparagus spear resting on the edge of a marble slab or table top]:
"The delightful story of this painting is well known: Manet sold Charles Ephrussi A Bunch of Asparagus for eight hundred francs. But Ephrussi sent him a thousand francs, and Manet, who was a master of elegance and wit, painted this asparagus and sent it to him with a note saying: "There was one missing from your bunch".
The "mother" canvas was painted on a black background, rather like the Dutch still lifes of the17th century. Here, Manet creates a very subtle interplay between the mauves and greys of the asparagus and the colour of the marble on which it lies. He paints freely, and purely for the pleasure, demonstrating in this spontaneous work his formidable skill, his perfect taste and his humour. "This is not a still-life like the others", wrote Georges Bataille, "although still, it is, at the same time, lively".
Thus, increasingly throughout the 1880s, Manet produced small still life paintings with a few flowers or a limited number of fruits. It was as if he was producing extracts, examples of the pure essence of painting. Often they were sent to friends, personal gifts that always contained humorous asides or signs of affection and tenderness."
 - Manet Dossier
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Post one (1) photo of a painting that you took with your very own hands Painting I bought in an antique store. Actual painting is much darker. Unsigned. If anyone has a clue who the artist might be might be, please tell me. Seems like it might be by...someone...
Old, dark moody painting of seascape beneath dark moody clouds, dawn or dusk, a few boats, one row boat carrying a couple of men near center foreground of the painting which is 36" wide by 9.5" high.
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
"Never retweet a man who doesn't link to documents" - Pinned tweet by Zoe Tillman from back in the day
Screenshot of a pinned tweet by @ZoeTillman from back in the day - photo of a pretty white woman with windblown hair beneath text that has been edited from "Never marry a man who lies" to read instead "Never retweet a man who doesn't link to documents"
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Real men wear pink Jonas Vingegard, 29, on his 1st day in Giro d'Italia's leader's jersey, the Maglia Rosa, 24 May 2026. He won 5 stages of this 21 day Giro & assuming he finishes Sunday´s final stage will be only the 8th man ever to win all 3 Grand Tours (Giro, Tour de France, Vuelta a España)
Screenshot from Tour Tracker app of Danish cyclist Jonas Vingegard in his first day in the leader's pink jersey, the Maglia Rosa, on stage 15 (out of 21) of the 2026 Giro d'Italia. He's standing astride his Team Visma yellow bike which has pink handlebar tape & GPS & he's wearing the pink jersey, pink skinsuit jersel & pants, pink gloves, pink helmet, pink sunglasses.
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
1970s/80s Iowa GOP Gov. Ray "would count the number of want ads in the Des Moines Register, call the [complaining] letter-writers back, & tell them, “the [Vietnamese] refugees haven’t come here yet, there are 1,200 jobs in the paper, go get one before they come…” www.jezebel.com/iowa-used-to...
Quote from 2016 article about Iowa GOP Governor Robert Ray's response to worries abt resettling refugees: 

"When Ray announced that the state would resettle more Vietnamese refugees in the ’70s and ’80s, it was politically dangerous. Polls showed that a majority of Americans and Iowans, worried about losing jobs, were opposed to more refugees. Some wrote Ray letters urging him to change his mind. He would count the number of want ads in the Des Moines Register, call the letter-writers back, and tell them, “the refugees haven’t come here yet, there are 1,200 jobs in the paper, go get one before they come,” Quinn said."
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Photo & text from newsletter from Big Brother Mouse, an educational nonprofit in Laos, on some effects of fuel crisis. 40% of gas stations closed, prices high, gas rationed, gov’t considered closing schools 2 of 5 days
Photo of crowd of over 90 people on motor scooters swarmed around gas station in Luang Prabang, Laos. Text reads: 
The fuel crisis

 Like you, we've been hit with fuel shortages and higher prices. Perhaps worse. The N.Y. Times, in a recent story about how the crisis has impacted Asia particularly hard, reported that 40% of gas stations in the country are closed entirely and it ran a photo of the long line at one Lao station that was still open. Here's the scene in Luang  Prabang. And when you finally reach the pump, if any fuel is left, it will be rationed.
 
As a result, we have suspended book parties, and also the one-day school visits that we previously offered. It could be worse. The government considered reducing the school week to 3 days instead of 5, then extending the school year into summer. That would have played havoc with lots of things, including child care for working parents, and finances for schools, like ours, which pay teacher salaries by getting tuition. Happily, those plans are set aside, at least for now
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
US embassy in Israel tells citizens it is unable to assist in evacuations The US Embassy in Jerusalem has notified its citizens in Israel that it is “not in a position” to help them evacuate the country. Full text of this news brief in ALT aje.news/xgc2gx?updat...
US embassy in Israel tells citizens it is unable to assist in evacuations

The US Embassy in Jerusalem has notified its citizens in Israel that it is “not in a position” to help them evacuate the country.

In a security alert posted online, the embassy provides information on shuttle buses that Israel’s Ministry of Tourism is operating to the Taba border crossing with Egypt.

“If you choose to avail yourself of this option to depart, the U.S. government cannot guarantee your safety. The information is provided as a courtesy to those wishing to leave Israel,” the embassy said.

The embassy also informs US citizens that to be included on the buses travelling to the Egyptian border, they must register with the tourism ministry via its “evacuation form”.
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Bacon Horseradish Dip
Photo of a 12 oz (340g) plastic container of HeluvaGood! brand Bacon Horseradish dip. Text includes "Made with Real Milk & Cream" and "Flavored With Other Natural Flavors"
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Got this email today. Don't know if still a law 100 YEARS AGO: "The blowing by boys of police whistles…became such a nuisance in 1926, & created so much confusion… …"blowing whistles was unlawful & subject to fines from $5-$25. Nonpayment of fines entailed jail sentences to a like number of days."
Photo of a Faurot police whistle, circa 1920s. Image courtesy of thewhistlegallery.com.

Email from Sag Harbor (NY) Whaling & Historical Museum:
SAG HARBOR
100 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
January 25 – January 31, 1926

The blowing by boys of police whistles, which ordinarily should only have been employed by police to direct street traffic or by householders needing police assistance, became such a nuisance in 1926, and created so much confusion especially in the business district, that the village trustees at their meeting ordered that section four of village ordinances be published for the information of the public. It was noted that the practice of blowing whistles was unlawful and subject to fines from five to twenty-five dollars. Nonpayment of fines entailed jail sentences to a like number of days.
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Canada PM Carney referenced Václav Havel's 1978 "Power of the Powerless" in his World Economic Forum speech in Davos today. Full transcript below globalnews.ca/news/1162087...
In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called “The Power of the Powerless,” and in it he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?

And his answer began with a greengrocer.

Every morning, the shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world unite.” He doesn’t believe in it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists — not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this living within a lie. The system’s power comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.

Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Thanks for doing this, Russ, & to @taniel.bsky.social for spreading the word. Here’s rcpt for my donation to Community Aid Network MN via Paypal—>>
Photo of part of PayPal receipt for $51.99
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
"You've been thinking – behind my back!"
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
"Homeless Sign for Trump Tower" 1989 by General Idea (collective of 3 artists: AA Bronson, Jorge Zontal, Felix Partz). Cast bronze plaque, mounted on pink marble, 68.6X75.6cm reconstructs a cardboard handwritten sign found on the street in Greenwich Village. #Art #GeneralIdea
Text of bronze-cast of rendering handwritten sign described in post:
I'M Down on My Luck
Lost My JoB
Now I'M TRying To 
SuRViVe spare soMething if you caN
Thank you
God BLess
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
Maybe not only tariff policy that’s hurting US sales to China. From Wikipedia on Terry Branstad, ex IA gov & DT’s 1st term amb to China. (Xi considered him an old friend): In 2018 TB argued that Stephen Miller idea to cutting off student visas to Chinese nationals would harm US trade to China
“In October 2018, the Financial Times reported that Branstad opposed a proposal by White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller about stopping providing student visas to Chinese nationals, making it impossible for Chinese citizens to study in the United States. Branstad argued that such a ban would harm US trade to China and hurt small American universities more than the elite ones.” – from Wikipedia entry on Terry Branstad
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
re question marks over out heads: clip from 'Memorias de Subdesarollos'/'Memories of Underdevelopment' 1968 Cuban film dir. by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Reminded of NYC ~1979, was in Chin-Ya restaurant on 55th St. when it was raided by INS (Immigration & Naturalization Service). Agents, gruff & sneering, wore Western-style clothes, sheepskin coats, cowboy boots, like actor Dennis Weaver in tv show McCloud, which made scary scene falsely absurd.
Photo of actor Dennis Weaver as title character in tv series McCloud (1970-77). Standing in front of panorama of the Manhattan skyline taken from across the river in NJ, he's wearing outfit similar to what's described below:
 "...McCloud galloped the length and breadth of Manhattan (he was joined by a mounted unit in “The 42nd Street Cavalry”), and the sight of McCloud on horseback riding down the middle of a busy street (taken from an early episode) became one of the series’ most famous images.

"McCloud’s attire, typically consisting of a sheepskin coat or Western jacket, bolo tie and cowboy hat, allowed for implied comic relief in many encounters with New Yorkers. He would often allay suspicion of his motives by insisting he was in New York “to observe and learn”. McCloud was a Deputy Marshal operating out of the US Marshal’s office in Taos. Under his jacket or coat, he usually wore a khaki uniform shirt with a brown star-shaped uniform patch with gold trim on left sleeve. There was a yellow circle in the center with the number 33. He wore two collar pins one was “NM” and the other was “33”. McCloud carried a blued .45 Colt SAA with a 4¾” barrel." 

https://cultfaction.com/2016/05/12/cult-tv-essentials-mccloud/
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
"Never retweet a man who doesn't link to documents." – Zoe Tillman on Twitter 2022 @zoetillman.bsky.social
Screenshot taken in 2022 of journalist Zoe Tillman's pinned tweet. Photo is of pretty woman smiling with eyebrows raised, long hair is pulled behind her neck, locks framing her face are blowing the in the wind. Out-of-focus background shows landscape of flat land, trees, water of a bay or wide river. Text in white letters on photo says: "Never marry a man who lies" but "marry" & "lies" have black line drawn thru them and are replaced so it reads: "Never retweet a man who doesn't link to documents."
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Roz Chart cartoon on New Yorker cover January 29, 2018 Simpler times (I fear February will seem longer than January this year)
Roz Chast cartoon on cover of The New Yorker magazine January 29, 2018. Shows  girl in winter gear standing by bus stop in front of large calendar of January that looks like a 5 story building behind her, starts off w/ Jan. 1, hangover, 2, Lost Keys in snow, 3, Still January... continues day by day Cold, Sun sets at 11am, slip on ice, flu flu flu, etc. until finaly Last Day of January!
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Important footnote (on Joni Mitchell's site) re Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos): The NYTimes that Woody read, that inspired the poem later set to music, did not name any of the people killed in the crash. The Fresno Bee did name all known names. jonimitchell.com/music/song.c...
Footnotes

The genesis of "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" reportedly occurred when Guthrie was struck by the fact that radio and newspaper coverage of the Los Gatos plane crash did not give the victims' names, but instead referred to them merely as "deportees." Guthrie lived in New York City at the time, and none of the deportees' names were printed in the January 29, 1948, New York Times report, only those of the flight crew and the security guard. However, the local newspaper, The Fresno Bee, covered the tragedy extensively and listed all of the known names of the deportees.

Unaware of the extensive local coverage of the disaster, Guthrie responded with a poem, which, when it was first written, featured only rudimentary musical accompaniment, with Guthrie chanting the song rather than singing it. In the poem, Guthrie assigned symbolic names to the dead: "Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita; adiós, mis amigos, Jesús y María..." A decade later, Guthrie's poem was set to music and given a haunting melody by a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman. Shortly after, folk singer Pete Seeger, a friend of Woody Guthrie, began performing the song at concerts, and it was Seeger's rendition that popularized the song during this time.
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
So happy to see you here. I've missed you by not going to the birdsite. I see yr not on Mastodon (yet?). You can crosspost from Bsky to Mastodon, tho I'm not sure how it's done & if you can see replies. Others on Masto miss you too mastodon.social/@jeremy_data...
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sadele2 @sadele2.bsky.social · 13/08/2024
Better than Woerm’s Wiggle Inn that used to be in McGregor Iowa. Tho the food was tasty as I recall from when I was 8 years old
Vintage snapshot of drive-in restaurant at the end of a row of buildings, and car of 1960s/1970s vintage
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