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mnhtnbb

mnhtnbb's Journal
mnhtnbb's Journal
February 19, 2026

Flashbang explosive device found at North Carolina early voting site, police say


Aberdeen police on Wednesday afternoon responded to reports of a loud noise at the early voting site at 301 Lake Park Crossing, police Capt. Shannon Blackburn told WRAL. About 30 people heard the noise and initially suspected that an electrical transformer had exploded — but that was not the case, Blackburn said.

About 150 yards from the polling site, police found the remnants of a flashbang, a small explosive device often used by law enforcement agencies to disperse crowds. Aberdeen police found a black cylinder with a pull tab that’s about six inches long and two inches wide, Blackburn said.

No one was injured during the event, and no property damage was located. Voters and poll workers said they believed the device was thrown from a moving vehicle traveling southbound on US 1, Blackburn said.

“We believe the poll was targeted,” Blackburn told WRAL, adding that the department has increased its presence at the polling site.



https://www.wral.com/news/nccapitol/flashbang-found-near-early-voting-site-aberdeen-moore-county-nc-feb-2026/

Moore County voted 64% Trump in 2024.

Anybody want to put odds this was some right wing shenanigans attempting to disrupt polls with the suggestion it was "libruls' who did it?
February 17, 2026

Cross posting from the African American forum: Harlem's African American Wax Museum Creator: Raven Chanticleer

(I am cross posting about Raven Chanticleer here because he was gay and the fact that his family did not approve of his "lifestyle" was the reason they destroyed the museum he created and much of his life's work after his death.) https://www.democraticunderground.com/118771452


If you lived in NY in the '80's or 90's, you may have heard or been familiar with the name/persona of Raven Chanticleer.

My youngest son holds a doctorate from Yale Drama and has been writing/producing/narrating a podcast https://www.artofcrimepodcast.com/ for several years. In a roundabout way (after producing a series about Madame Tussaud) he stumbled upon Raven Chanticleer, who was motivated to create Harlem's African American Wax Museum after a visit to Madame Tussaud's in London where he noticed there was not one single wax figure of an African American in the collection at the time.

My son writes:

For about the last year-and-a-half, I've been working on a side project titled Raven. It's about an unforgettable man with an unforgettable name: Raven Chanticleer. In 1989, Raven fulfilled a long-held dream of opening a wax museum devoted to Black history in Harlem. It garnered widespread attention in New York and abroad. When Raven died in 2002, his family gutted the museum and sold the property, destroying his life's work. For years, Raven's prized wax statues were thought to have been lost or destroyed. Plot twist: some of them miraculously survived. Part character study and part detective story, this miniseries looks at who Raven was, why the African American Wax Museum mattered, and what happened to the collection after its closure.

If you like what you hear, please follow the show on your preferred podcasting platform (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.) so you find out as soon as new episodes are out. Again, the podcast is called Raven, and it's linked to my name. (Gavin Whitehead)

Apple Podcasts has spotlighted the series on the homepage under New Shows

February 17, 2026

Harlem's African American Wax Museum Creator: Raven Chanticleer

If you lived in NY in the '80's or 90's, you may have heard or been familiar with the name/persona of Raven Chanticleer.

My youngest son holds a doctorate from Yale Drama and has been writing/producing/narrating a podcast https://www.artofcrimepodcast.com/ for several years. In a roundabout way (after producing a series about Madame Tussaud) he stumbled upon Raven Chanticleer, who was motivated to create Harlem's African American Wax Museum after a visit to Madame Tussaud's in London where he noticed there was not one single wax figure of an African American in the collection at the time.

My son writes:

For about the last year-and-a-half, I've been working on a side project titled Raven. It's about an unforgettable man with an unforgettable name: Raven Chanticleer. In 1989, Raven fulfilled a long-held dream of opening a wax museum devoted to Black history in Harlem. It garnered widespread attention in New York and abroad. When Raven died in 2002, his family gutted the museum and sold the property, destroying his life's work. For years, Raven's prized wax statues were thought to have been lost or destroyed. Plot twist: some of them miraculously survived. Part character study and part detective story, this miniseries looks at who Raven was, why the African American Wax Museum mattered, and what happened to the collection after its closure.

If you like what you hear, please follow the show on your preferred podcasting platform (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.) so you find out as soon as new episodes are out. Again, the podcast is called Raven, and it's linked to my name. (Gavin Whitehead)

Apple Podcasts has spotlighted the series on the homepage under New Shows



I'm posting this in recognition of Black History month.

February 8, 2026

USA Gold in Team Event Figure Skating

It was neck and neck with Team Japan. Fabulous performances.

February 4, 2026

WORDLE Feb 4 SPOILERS

Wordle 1,691 3/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜steal
🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜diner
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩chide

NY Times average 3.9 and Wordlebot in 5.

January 31, 2026

The Guardian reviews Melania documentary "with a face like a fist and a voice of sheet metal" LOL hilarious review

My audience with Melania is booked for Friday lunchtime at a retail park on the outskirts of Bristol, inside a large cinema which appears to have been swept and emptied in readiness. When Brett Ratner’s contentious, Amazon-backed documentary previewed at the White House last weekend, the guestlist included Mike Tyson, Queen Rania of Jordan and the president himself. Today it’s just me in the room and Melania on the screen. It makes for a more intimate and exclusive affair.

This mood of cosy conviviality extends all the way through the opening credits; at which point the chill descends and the novocaine kicks in, as the film’s star and executive producer proceeds to guide us – with agonising glacial slowness – through the preparations for her husband’s second presidential inauguration. She glides from the fashion fitting to the table setting, and from the “candlelit dinner” to the “starlight ball”, with a face like a fist and a voice of sheet metal. “Candlelight and black tie and my creative vision,” she says, as though listing the ingredients in a cauldron. “As first lady, children will always remain my priority,” she coos, and you can almost picture her coaxing them into her little gingerbread house.

No doubt there is a great documentary to be made about Melania Knauss, the ambitious model from out of Slovenia who married a New York real-estate mogul and then found herself cast in the role of a latter-day Eva Braun, but the horrific Melania emphatically isn’t it. It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality. I’m not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne.

It’s dispiriting, it’s deadly and it’s spectacularly unrevealing. Ratner’s film plays like a gilded trash remake of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest in which a button-eyed Cinderella points at gold baubles and designer dresses, cunningly distracting us while her husband and his cronies prepare to dismantle the Constitution and asset-strip the federal government. “White and gold – that’s so you,” purrs one of her lickspittles as she busies herself with the colour-scheme for the ball and the incoming first lady allows that yes indeed, this is true.


The full review: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/30/melania-review-trump-film-is-a-gilded-trash-remake-of-the-zone-of-interest

January 30, 2026

Rewatching The West Wing on Netflix.

What a series. Story, acting, production. It's all so well done.

I had watched the first episode some weeks ago and couldn't go on because it physically hurt to think of what's really happening now. So much of TV now is about monsters, evil, fear, crime and the dark side. Reality TV reflecting those things now occupies the real West Wing.

Then The American President was on the other night, directed by Rob Reiner. Martin Sheen plays the Chief of Staff to Michael Douglas as the President. It made me decide to go back to The West Wing. And now I can't stop. Getting to the end of the first season, when the president is convinced to stop playing it safe, and let his values determine his political decisions and actions.
Damn, it's inspiring.

January 20, 2026

All 25 James Bond movies coming to Netflix

On Jan 21.

The list of them by release date is included in the link.

How to Watch the James Bond Movies in Order on Netflix https://share.google/6Pzi2BpxAkzDZ4p1d

January 12, 2026

Chargers and Patriots

Idiots! Why do these teams insist on going for it on 4th down instead of taking the easy field goal? Especially since the opportunity was the result of a turnover?

Are they all just flaming egocentric fools? So sure of their own abilities and unaware of the skills of others?

I really don't understand this fad of not taking the sure fire field goal, especially early in the game.

January 4, 2026

The good news is

that if you have a passport that needs to be renewed, it can be done online. Turnaround time for mine was only two weeks. I submitted my renewal application and uploaded my digital photo ( taken at the same Walgreens where I got my latest COVID booster shot in September) on December 15th and my new passport with an expiration date of December 29, 2035 arrived in my mailbox on January 3rd.

If your passport is due to expire within the next year, renew it now. If your passport has expired, apply for a new one, now. If you've never had a passport, there's no time like the present to get one if you have any thought that you might want to leave the country--for any reason --in the next few years.

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Gender: Female
Hometown: NYC
Home country: USA
Current location: Durham, NC
Member since: Sat May 7, 2005, 10:13 PM
Number of posts: 33,269
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