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August 23rd, 2017: One time my friend Joey Comeau of A Softer World dot com and I recorded a game we played so that we could share it for posterity and everyone could see how amazing we were, but after the game we destroyed our notes because it was A REAL EMBARRASSING GAME – Ryan

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Logan Square's beloved Dill Pickle Food Co-op opened the doors on its massive store expansion Friday morning [ more › ]

An avid genealogist, I have a knack for using the document trail to root out buried family secrets and often help adoptees and others trace their histories. And so it’s with great amusement that I have unpacked the family trees of anti-immigrant right-wing personalities from Rep. Steve “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies” King (whose own grandmother arrived in the U.S. as a four-year-old with baby siblings in tow) to Tucker “Why does America benefit from having tons of people from failing countries come here?” Carlson (whose ancestor wrote about how the bleak prospects in his native Switzerland forced him to head for America) to Stephen “We favor immigrants who speak English” Miller (whose great-grandmother most definitely did not speak English, per the census.) It’s a project I have jokingly dubbed #resistancegenealogy.

I was curious how long it would take me to hit an immigrant if I dug into the tree of Tomi Lahren, the platinum blonde, snowflake-hating ultra-conservative firebrand recently hired by Fox News. The answer was “not long,” but I never expected to hit pay dirt quite like I did.

But first, let’s back up. I like to say that following a genealogical trail is a lot like Law and Order. (Stay with me.) You hear the dun dun!, listen for the clues, (“I think she was working in a laundromat on 4th street?”) and then, well, you go to the laundromat on 4th street, for God’s sake. So how do we find out who Tomi’s ancestors were? You follow the dun duns.

Multiple sources identify Tomi’s parents as Kevin and Trudy Lahren of Rapid City, SD, including this Dallas Morning News piece. (While we’re at it, here’s a local newspaper article about the high school work experience that must have helped make Tomi who she is today.)

But who are Tomi’s grandparents? Well, this 2011 obituary for South Dakotan Wayne A. Dietrich lists Trudy and Kevin Lahren as his daughter and son-in-law, and Tomi as his granddaughter. And just to seal it, here’s Tomi tweeting out a remembrance of her grandfather on the third anniversary of his death.

Wayne Dietrich’s obituary says that he was born on February 11, 1938, in McLaughlin, South Dakota, the son of Julius Dietrich and Edna Schlacht. Here’s his family in the 1940 census. Further searching shows that Julius Dietrich, Tomi’s great-grandfather, was born in North Dakota on May 23, 1915 to Constantin (sometimes spelled Konstantin) and Pauline Dietrich. Here’s the family living in Linton, South Dakota in the 1920 federal census. And here is Constantin’s obituary, giving his date of birth as December 12, 1887.

Which matches the DOB for Constantin Dietrich of Linton on this World War One draft registration.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

Searching ancestry.com for more on Constantin Dietrich brings up an index listing for an INS file labeled “Prosecutions,” that indicates Dietrich was charged with “forgery, in altering the date of his declaration.”

Wait, what?

That file apparently has not survived, but a quick search of the local papers shows that Constantin Dietrich did indeed go on trial for forgery in Bismarck in May of 1917.

I ordered the court file, which included Dietrich’s grand jury indictment, in all its 14-page glory. Tomi Lahren’s great-great-grandfather was indicted on two separate counts, for “willfully, unlawfully and knowingly” making a false affidavit in connection with a naturalization proceeding, and for forging a naturalization document, in violation of the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906. The grand jurors accused him of swearing falsely to the date of his declaration, and of altering the original papers (“with a knife or steel eraser or other instrument unknown to the Grand Jurors”) to make it look like his declaration of intention to become a citizen had been executed in 1911 rather than 1909, apparently because he’d let too much time elapse before completing the naturalization process.

But – lucky for Tomi – despite the evidence, the trial jury apparently had sympathy for Mr. Dietrich and acquitted him of the charges. He went on to successfully become a citizen in 1926, ensuring that 90-odd years later, his great-great-grandaughter would be here to compare the Black Lives Matter movement to the KKK and to inadvertently admit that the right keeps hammering on Hillary’s emails to distract from the Russia investigation.

I bring this to light not to shame or embarrass Tomi Lahren. Poke any family tree and you’ll often find similar irregularities. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Constantin Dietrich was a bad person or a scorn-worthy “illegal” to be demonized. Perhaps it only means that like millions of others, his overweening desire to become a US citizen may have caused him to try to cut a corner or two. It means he may have been a good man who made a bad decision under pressure. It means you’d hope his great-great-granddaughter would have empathy for the plight of immigrants rather than try to pull up the ladder behind her.

It means it’s pretty damn ironic that she continues to claim the moral high ground on this one, throwing stone after stone at illegal immigrants, unaware that she’s been living in a proverbial glass house all along.

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The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

Last year, 65 people were shot and 13 were killed over the long holiday weekend. [ more › ]

Every bad tweet lives a life. They begin as every tweet begins: in idiocy and shame, but also with hope. No tweet will ever be anything but the legible stain of a person yielding to the human impulse to transcribe the precise sound of every fart; even the good tweets that exist are basically the record of your more…

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Chicagoans looking for more local, sustainable grocery options have been feverishly anticipating this day. [ more › ]

Got what it takes, Chicago home cooks? [ more › ]

Seán Doran shared some recently processed photos of Jupiter that he worked on with Gerald Eichstädt. The photos were taken by NASA’s Juno probe on a recent pass by the planet. These are like Impressionist paintings…you could spend hours staring at the whirls & whorls and never find your way out. There are more images of Jupiter in Doran’s Flickr album, including this high-resolution shot that you can download for printing.

Tags: astronomy   Juno   Jupiter   NASA   photography   science   space

The Cubs were meticulous in their destruction of the Pirates today, leaving Pittsburgh no hope in a bloodbath with a final score of 17-3. But before the game became a blowout, Chicago shortstop Javier Báez acted boldly to tie things up at two runs apiece in the second inning.

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An unnamed dog bravely stepped up to the challenge of guarding Golden State Warriors human Klay Thompson today. With some sharp instincts and a quick step, he effectively rattled Thompson enough to cause him to miss at least one shot:

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The city is gathering input on how to improve Milwaukee between Logan and Belmont. And some residents are renewing the push to overhaul the avenue where it hits the neighborhood's iconic focal point. [ more › ]

The teaser trailer for the TV reboot of Heathers debuted during last night’s MTV Video Music Awards, presumably causing much of the audience for the original Heathers to miss it. And that’s probably for the best, as this new teaser for the show—currently set to land on the Paramount Network—makes its damage very much…

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Excellent. [ more › ]

In April, an author named Gerald Brittle filed a $900 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. over the Conjuring movies, with Brittle claiming that he owns the exclusive rights to the stories of Ed and Lorraine Warren—real-life paranormal investigators and the protagonists of the Conjuring series. The Hollywood Reporter says

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Sunday at The Chicago Air and Water Show, a Blue Angels combat jet flew very low past an unsuspecting crowd and surprised the bejeezus out of some folks. It’s worth watching this video on a large screen multiple times while focusing on the reaction of a different person each time. You can see how low and fast the plane was flying from another angle. They also flew between the buildings downtown.

Tags: flying   video

Alarming news from the north.

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nuggetemily:

ancaporado:

prognostiq:

odyssey420:

Glasses belonging to the Mormon preacher Hyrum Smith, 1844

can you imagine seeing some dude preaching about reincarnating on other planets while wearing these

Steampunk western sci-fi engage

honestly i can’t imagine someone wearing these talking about anything else other than reincarnating on other planets

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

Looks like that long-rumored reunion of the original Smashing Pumpkins lineup will have to wait just a little longer. [ more › ]

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

On March 8-9, 2016, a total solar eclipse swept across the Pacific Ocean for more than 5 hours. About a year before the eclipse, Hayden Planetarium astronomer Joe Rao realized Alaska Airlines flight 870 from Anchorage to Honolulu would pass right through the path of totality…but 25 minutes too early. Rao called the airline and convinced them to shift the flight time.

Alaska’s fleet director, Captain Brian Holm, reviewed the proposed flight path and possible in-route changes to optimize for the eclipse. The schedule planning team pushed back the departure time by 25 minutes, to 2 p.m.

On the day of the flight, Dispatch will develop the specific flight plan, to find the most efficient route and account for weather and wind. Maintenance and maintenance control will help make sure the plane is ready to go — they even washed all the windows on the right side of the plane.

Captain Hal Andersen also coordinated with Oceanic Air Traffic Control, to make them aware that the flight might require a few more tactical changes then normal.

“The key to success here is meeting some very tight time constraints — specific latitudes and longitudes over the ocean,” Andersen said. “With the flight management computer, it’s a pretty easy challenge, but it’s something we need to pay very close attention to. We don’t want to be too far ahead or too far behind schedule.”

The video was shot by a very excited Mike Kentrianakis of the American Astronomical Society, who has witnessed 20 solar eclipses during his lifetime.

July 11, 2010. That was the eclipse over Easter Island, the one for which hotel room rates were so high that there was no way Kentrianakis could afford it. Instead, he considered attempting a trip to Argentina, where experts predicted there was a 5 percent chance of clear skies. His wife at the time, Olga, urged him not to go — it’s not worth the expense, she insisted. Reluctantly, Kentrianakis stayed home.

“It was the beginning of the end for us,” Kentrianakis says. There were problems in the marriage before that episode, “but it affected me that I felt that she didn’t really appreciate what I loved.” They were divorced the following year.

Kentrianakis doesn’t like to dwell on this, or the other things he’s given up to chase eclipses. He knows his bosses grumbled about the missed days of work. Friends raise their eyebrows at the extremes to which he goes. He’s unwilling to admit how much he’s spent on his obsession.

“There is a trade-off for everything, for what somebody wants,” he says.

A camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite captured the eclipse’s shadow as it moved across the Earth:

For this year’s eclipse, Alaska Airlines is doing a special charter flight for astronomy nerds and eclipse chasers. Depending on how this eclipse goes, seeing an eclipse from an airplane might be on my bucket list for next time. (via @coudal)

Tags: 2017 solar eclipse   astronomy   Earth   flying   Joe Rao   Mike Kentrianakis   Moon   Sun   video

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!