Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

T R E 4 5 O N

American history and black history cannot be separated.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Everybody saw this coming.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You cannot shame the shameless.

This fight is for everything.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread

Late Night Open Thread

by | 25 Comments

This post is in: 

These little stories are from an article about people who are making a difference, and I thought little pieces of it might make good late night posts.  A little bit of inspiration, perhaps, at the start of an open thread.

But talk about whatever you want!

In a year that made many of us want to give up, these unsung activists found a way to help others.

h/t hazmat

🌼

The Librarian for Teenagers

Ricci Yuhico says the teenage students who study and socialize at her branch of the New York Public Library have formed real friendships there.Credit…Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

Covid has cast an especially long shadow on teenagers, both in terms of academic outcomes and social emotional development. Ricci Yuhico, who manages the Teen Center at the New York Public Library’s newly renovated Stavros Niarchos Foundation branch on Fifth Avenue in Midtown, has been there to help. The center operates essentially as a full-service joy machine, where kids can connect over studying, produce a movie or a song in the recording studio and media lab, get help with college essays, dance and make crafts.

Students come from all over the city, Ms. Yuhico said, some from nearby homeless shelters. Others might use the center as a stop-off point to do homework when they attend a charter school in Manhattan, say, but live in the far reaches of Queens. There’s a strong cohort of teenage volunteers from which real friendships have emerged, Ms. Yuhico said. She and her team see as many as 100 students a day, and one of their greatest successes this year was a building-wide Halloween party.

“The day after, one of our regulars came in and I asked him what the best part of the party was,” Ms. Yuhico recalled. “He said, ‘Just having fun with people I didn’t know.’”

From Six New Yorkers Who Made the City a Better, Cooler, Fairer Place in 2023.  Written by Ginia Bellafante, who writes the Big City column, a weekly commentary on the politics, culture and life of New York City.

In a year that made many of us want to give up, these unsung activists found a way to help others.

h/t hazmat

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

25Comments

  2. 2.

    lollipopguild

    Kids having fun and getting things done at the library! OH NOES!  If this was FREEDOM FLORIDA(TM) the gov. would have the place shut down right away.

  5. 5.

    Harrison Wesley

    @lollipopguild: Reminds me of something I read earlier today – apparently Bill O’Reilly (I didn’t even know he was still alive) is most undone about having a couple of his books yanked as part of a literature purge in one Florida county.  He’s most especially undone because he cheered on the shitty book-banning movement here that prompted this.  Guess it’s just another one of those things about leopards and faces and how/when they interact.

  8. 8.

    JAFD

    I almost married a librarian. If I had, Mayhaps she’d’ve made a pot of chicken soup to sooth this lousy cold I’ve come down with.
    Or maybe not…
    Anyway, have a great Martin Luther King Day!

  14. 14.

    Mike in Pasadena

    In the 70s the Sierra Madre public librarians were still shushing teenagers. This new attitude is better, but I suspect the library needs a room or two dedicated to teenagers to give a quiet place for other people reading and studying. Sounds like a good use of city money.

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    Cool library story.

    I remember news stories about kids sitting outside closed libraries using the Wi Fi during the Covid pandemic.

    Libraries are essential in all kinds of ways.

  20. 20.

    Ripley

    Just took the dogs out. -15F. They were good dogs and did both jobs ASAP, but I still had to carry one back in, for cold toes.

    A full week of sub-zero overnights is going to grow old very qui- oh, hey, it’s already old.

Comments are closed.