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grandrobert.bsky.social
Tall Rob
@grandrobert.bsky.social
240 followers 150 following 950 posts
Blog: https://thetallrobreport.blogspot.com/

Tesla Takedown Northbrook zines: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1eDqHdqHSWMnS7dJLFTSIG-fIrgbq-C4U
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grandrobert.bsky.social
Playground chants and games have transcended geography since before the Internet, but I’ve still yet to meet anyone else who sang the song my classmates did after Kurt’s death. It was to the tune of the Notre Dame fight song…

"Cheer cheer for old Kurt Cobain / he shot himself while high on cocaine”
Reading through some of the smaller moments in the text also gave me the space to recall memories of my experience with NIRVANA before I'd actually started listening to them. A few months after Kurt died, a couple kids at my school had come up with a song about it to the tune of the Notre Dame fight song. The first line was "Cheer cheer for old Kurt Cobain / he shot himself while high on cocaine." It sucks that there's no such thing as an Internet search for my memories because I wish I could remember more of the song.
November 25, 2025 at 2:34 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Still can’t get over Nardwuar mentioning The NEOS to Kurt Cobain in a January 1994 interview.
On a related note (i.e., complete tangent), the best thing about WOUND UP is that all their songs begin without stick clicks but with all instruments and vocals hitting at once. That is fucking cool. Props to Mike from The CATBURGLARS (I think it was him) for pointing that out on the Chicago Hardcore message board years ago. Another cool tangent this book led me down was the January 1994 interview Nardwuar did with Kurt. It's interesting to see a young Nardwuar for sure, but the fact that he mentions the fucking NEOS at one point is utterly mind-blowing. It's taken for granted at this point that Nardwuar is talented at asking these kinds of questions about band members' influences and past experiences, and of course, there's nothing of the sound of The NEOS in NIRVANA's music, but it's still incredible that he brings up that band in this interview.
November 25, 2025 at 2:30 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Dying
And yes that was me. I am a Ludlow or whatever they're called. Luddite There it is
November 20, 2025 at 3:14 AM
grandrobert.bsky.social
lol fair enough!

I forgot to add the full alt text, so here it is again:
As the plot unfolds and the mystery deepens, we meet even more characters who could possibly be responsible for Milo's abduction. One close associate of the family has a gambling addiction and may need the quick money that a ransom payment could provide. Another family member struggles with prescription pill abuse and could be chasing the money needed for another fix. Some of the parents are as awful and entitled as the most privileged people you could imagine, so maybe they resent Milo's parents for the pettiest of reasons. (One of these reasons is that as a mom of an only child, certain moms such as Marissa and Jenny must have more time to give through volunteering for school fundraisers and events.) Maybe the parents are just faking it for attention, or even a book deal. After all, they are wildly successful people who know movers and shakers in the publishing industry who could get them a lucrative contract. Thankfully, not all of these people are women or femme-presenting, so the her in the show's title does not seem as prescriptive and limiting as it might at first. Men and society blame women enou as it is.
November 18, 2025 at 4:09 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
There are many ways that social class plays a role in #allherfault as well. From the invisible labor of canvassing remaining invisible (to the wealthy suburbanites) to the disparate outcomes of a drug charge for the affluent and the impoverished.
Screenshot of text from The Tall Rob Report’s review of #allherfault A missing white child from an affluent area is a surefire way to get attention from the media. Leading up to the hiccup at a press conference where reporters accuse the Irvines of faking their son's kidnapping, they take pains to present themselves as sympathetic. They know that their existing social media photos of drunken nights out or of lavish lifestyles will not endear them to the public. Their campaign to find Milo also involves a canvassing effort in the city. The level of organization needed for this undertaking seems huge, but all we see is a quick conversation between Marissa and her friend and colleague Colin Dobbs. He tells her he'll take care of it and then hundreds of people show up. The labor that makes that whole effort happen is completely invisible to the viewer in the same way it is to the characters. In a later episode the missing rungs of the social ladder are apparent through two wildly different outcomes of drug distribution charges. A character who has little and is desperate for money to support a family gets arrested and imprisoned, while a well-to-do son of a private school dean can make a deal with someone who needs something from the school in order to get this fortunate son's record expunged expediently. It's not just that the rich avoid a consequence; their second chance comes at the expense of the career and integrity of a person in a lower social class. There's a lot going on with this show!
November 18, 2025 at 2:19 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Plenty to consider with regard to gossip and mystery in #allherfault

Some discussion of lies of Omission as compare to lies of Commission in my review.
Screenshot of text from a review of #allherfault from The Tall Rob Report The mystery of Milo's disappearance and its eventual resolution involves parsing who knew or did what and when. There are many cases of lies of omission. Characters sometimes conceal what they know, even when questioned by a sympathetically cast lead detective who does not have the moral code he initially seems to possess. They aren't deliberately telling an untruth, which is lying by commission. They are simply leaving out key details in their responses while not saying anything factually inaccurate. Part of it is a little sneaky, but as with most understandings in human interaction, the import of a small detail might not seem as significant the first time we consider it. It's rewarding to see Detective Alcaras pursue these leads and details to learn information the audience might already know, or might be learning along with him. He provides helpful think-alouds with his detective buddy to keep us in the loop. As with any good mystery or gossip story, we enjoy trying to guess where these leads and clues will take us and deciding whom to trust.
November 18, 2025 at 2:13 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Despite the title, it’s not just women who might be at fault in #allherfault
Screenshot of The Tall Rob Report review of All Her Fault #allherfault
November 18, 2025 at 2:10 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Here’s how @teslatakedown.com Northbrook #6 turned out.

Copies I distributed today have a typo and some crashing text, both of which are fixed in these pics and the scan available in my bio. Looks like I might need more printer ink, too.
Back and front covers of TESLA TAKEDOWN NORTHBROOK #6. Back cover reads "All flourishing is mutual” Robin Wall Kimmerer The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World Front cover reads: TESLA TAKEDOWN NORTHBROOK #6 Pages 2-3 of TESLA TAKEDOWN NORTHBROOK #6 No Trillionaires The specific reason for today's protest is because Tesla's shareholders approved a one trillion dollar pay package for Musk if he is able to meet an absurd number of benchmarks. It's beside the point that he will not meet these benchmarks. The issue here is that a group of shareholders think that giving Musk $1,000,000,000,000 is reasonable. No one should have that much money. Let's remember that it is impossible to work 40-hour weeks to become a billionaire. At the rate of $15 per hour, it would take 26,709 years to do so. Multiply that value by 1,000 to see how long it would take to work yourself into trillionaire status. When because of government policies, the set of values that allows one thoroughly mediocre man to potentially become a trillionaire must be jettisoned. We are here today to envision a different future, one without extreme wealth as a marker of success. No Al in Schools A couple weeks ago, I spoke at my local school district's board meeting because the district's technology department had recently released guidelines for teachers' and students' use of artificial intelligence. There is no place for Al in the classroom (or most anywhere else. Here are my comments. There are a number of reasons in general to avoid using generative AL. A quick review of news reports and empirical research on the topic reveals a few troubling issues that cannot be sidestepped through usage guidelines, no matter how well-intentioned. Here are a few of those issues: Environmental Concerns: Data centers that power Al use immense amounts of water and electricity. The International Energy Agency reports that a request made with ChatGPT will use ten times as much water as a typical Google search due to the demands of the data centers that help to power the searches. Pages 4-5 of TESLA TAKEDOWN NORTHBROOK #6 Intellectual Property: The data these products are trained on are stolen. Specifically, Meta used a dataset known as LibGen to obtain 81.7 Terabytes of data for its training. In previous cases, usage of 0.008 percent of that much data resulted in criminal investigations. Labor Impacts: Content moderators that work as contractors for major tech companies are subjected to 10-hour days of reviewing text and videos of child abuse, human mutilation, racist attacks, animal abuse, and sexual exploitation and making sure such content does not make it into the product. Electricity costs: Data centers caused increases in electric bills across the east coast and midwest this summer, usually to the tune of S10-25 dollars per customer per month. Mental health: Gov. Pritzker signed a bill into law in August regarding the use of Al as a therapist. Mental health providers cannot use these products to interact with clients, create treatment plans, or make therapeutic decisions. This is the case because there have been at least two known cases where teenagers have ended their lives after consulting with generative Al chatbots for extended amounts of time. Specifically to the district's guidance, the section on using Al ethically and responsibly is confusing. It explains that "Al-generated content may not always be neutral or objective" that "Al can sometimes generate incorrect or misleading information," and that it can "make mistakes or misinterpret information." There are libraries full of information that has been vetted for accuracy, bias, and correctness. There is no reason that students should use a product that is biased, misinformed, or incorrect. Musk openly tinkers with Grok, the Al agent on X/Twitter, to make it align with his limited worldview. It's a clear case of algorithmic manipulation that reveals the human hands behind the supposed neutral magic of AL. If Musk likes Al because he sees how it is useful for social… Pages 6-7 of TESLA TAKEDOWN NORTHBROOK #6 No More Cars The November 6th episode of the podcast lech Wont Save Us featured the hosts of the podcast The War on Cars, Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon. They're the authors of the recently released book Life After Cars. Throughout the episode, the host and guests discussed many ways that the car-centric culture of the U.S. has negatively affected how we see other humans. Cars make us adversarial toward each other because we're all going in the same direction and tighting for the same space, the Superman of the early comic book era fought the murderous scourge of reckless driving before facing off against supervillains, and living on a busy street has had an effect on social isolation even before smartphones and social medią existed. Til admit to thinking that electric cars used to seem like the best solution to carbon emissions. As this podcast episode among many other sources) indicates, replacing gas cars with electric cars doesn't take away the adversarial nature of driving, the number of traffic fatalities, or the isolation of driving alone. Buses and trains would make so much more sense. We need new infrastructure to support this future. It does not include Tesla. Nor does it include Rivian or.: Lucid or Polestar or any existing company with an electric option. TALL ROB keep your hands out of my pockets, you thief! -ARI KATZ
November 15, 2025 at 9:09 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
And yes, the mid-November weather in northern Cook County is quite warm.
Screen shot of current weather showing 66 degrees F with a Feels Like of 59 degrees F in Northbrook IL on November 15th at 12:30 or so
November 15, 2025 at 6:31 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Once again, we can see that the Tesla Service vehicle is a Ford Sprinter van.

Cybertrucks must not have good hauling capacity or storage options.
A Ford Transit van with TESLA SERVICE written on its door. It’s pulling in to Tesla’s Northbrook dealership.
November 15, 2025 at 6:23 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Heading out now with TTN#6 in hand.
Copies of the zine Tesla Takedown Northbrook, issue #6
November 15, 2025 at 5:47 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
In addition, Pearson, Madda, and Raphael (2023) characterize the debate around the science of reading as "manufactured" in their chapter, "Current Issues and Best Practices in Literacy Instruction."
Similarly, we see false debates around defining appropriate literacy instruction. In its simplest form, the most vocal current debate revolves around the centrality of phonics within the literacy curriculum. SoR advo- cates argue that the scientific research is irrefutable: teaching children the code through explicit, systematic phonics instruction is the best way to ensure that all children learn to read (Gersten et al., 2007; Petscher et al., 2020). Some even refer to it as “settled science” (Moats, quoted in Hanford, 2018a). Balanced literacy approaches, according to SoR advocates, are antiphonics (and therefore antiscience). They either leave out phonics instruction entirely or teach it in an ad hoc, unsystematic way. In its place, they promote whole-word memorization and the use of pictures and context (i.e., guessing) as primary methods for solving the pronunciation of new or unfamiliar words (Hanford, 2018a, 2018b; Moats, 2007; Petcher et al., 2020). Balanced literacy is, in these accounts, regarded as simply the whole-language approach to teaching reading in disguise (Hanford, 2019a). We cannot speak for others, but in speaking for ourselves across seven versions of this chapter on (what we used to call) balance, balanced literacy was never anything like whole language, disguised or not. Then, is the current debate real or manufactured? We believe it is manufactured. Why? Because the SoR movement is conducting both sides of the debate: asserting the claims for their opponents and then critiquing that position (often one that few of those on that side of the debate would accept). Unfortunately, there are real consequences to perpetuating false debates in education. False debates often sow distrust and misinformation among parents, schools, and policy makers, alienating teachers and cutting off opportunities for productive discussion (see Pearson, 2004; Strauss & Gabriel, 2018; Strauss, Reinking, Risko, & Hruby, 2021).
November 12, 2025 at 4:25 AM
grandrobert.bsky.social
For some reason, the Action Network site is being fussy with letting me log in to make an event.

Nevertheless, #teslatakedown Northbrook returns this Saturday as part of the No Trillionaires Day of Action.

Sat., Nov. 15th
12PM-2PM
1200 Skokie Blvd
Northbrook, IL 60062

@teslatakedown.com
Flyer for Tesla Takedown Northbrook Saturday, Nov. 15th, 2025 Tesla Takedown Northbrook 12PM-2PM 1200 Skokie Blvd Northbrook IL 60062 NO TRILLIONAIRES Elon isn't just an American problem, he's a global problem. He's calling "for violent uprising" in Britain Pushing for a "global neo-Nazi regime change" Funneling money into elections everywhere he can And his assault on USAID has already killed an estimated 400,000 children Text MUSK to 51905 to join the fight! Go to TeslaTakedown.com to learn more! flyer by TALL ROB
November 11, 2025 at 2:49 AM
grandrobert.bsky.social
It’s all Newsome this, Pritzker that.

I’ll tell you what I want.

I WANT OUT
HELLOWEEN’S “I Want Out” 12” on blue vinyl. It’s a pumpkin headed Uncle Sam saying “I want out”
October 31, 2025 at 12:47 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
This filing choice does seem of a piece with Dewey’s perspective on the world, though. At least, according to what I know from this utterly devastating Judith Flanders’ footnote in her book “A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order.”
Photo of footnote text from p. 217 of Judith Flanders’ “A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order” *While all systems are inevitably biased, making more space for some elements and overlooking others, Dewey's was particularly so, and has proved troublesome in the modern world. Being based on Baconian hierarchies, it is predisposed to an Anglo-centric worldview. More, it is almost laughably Christian-centric: religion, allocated the 2o0s in Dewey's system, sees 200-289 devoted to Christianity, while all of Islam is contained in just 297. Women, meanwhile, are patronizingly categorized alongside etiquette. (Dewey himself had chronic woman trouble, or, rather, women had chronic trouble with Dewey: he was forced to resign from the American Library Association after no fewer than four women complained that he had assaulted them in a single ten-day period in 1905. He was, in addition, a notable anti-Semite and racist, even for those notably anti-Semitic and racist times, also being requested to stand down from his position as librarian for New York State owing to his endorsement of clubs that operated on Christian-whites-only policies.)
October 28, 2025 at 2:19 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
In my review, I mention how I noticed McKinney’s book was filed under 296.3 at the library where I checked it out. This is a section on Judaism, specifically “Theology, ethics, views of social issues.” This choice baffles me and has some awful implications…

(2/3)
Tall Rob holding a library copy of Kelsey McKinney’s You Didn’t Hear this from Me with Dewey decimal system code 296.3 on its spine Screenshot of text from The Tall Rob Report: What's relevant about Flanders' footnote with regard to Mckinney's book is that my local-ish library (and maybe yours, too) has classified it in the 200s, which means it is considered a text about Religion. According to the Dewey Decimal System, 296 is reserved for texts on Judaism. More specifically, the number 296.3 is a subsection titled "Theology, ethics, views of social issues." What the fuck? Like, what the actual fuck? Does this library branch think that only practitioners of Judaism have an ability to or an interest in gossip? Or that gossiping is the sole purview of members of the Jewish faith? Flanders' commentary makes it plain that Dewey was antisemitic. Guess that goes for a few librarians using his system in 2025, too.
October 28, 2025 at 2:17 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
This sign, though. Wow. Takes the cake. Saving it for last because it is so powerful. A message that resonates throughout time (and the halls of this nation’s schools). This is what youth outreach looks like.

Laughed harder at this one than any others. Not even kidding!

#nokings
#sixseven
#6-7
Protest sign reading “6-7 makes more sense than Trump.”
October 18, 2025 at 10:31 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Saw a couple variations on this sign (including one with an actual chancla) but only managed to take this one photo.
Protest sign reading “Chinga La Migra o te chingo con La chancla!” fuck ICE or I’ll fuck you up with my flip flops!
October 18, 2025 at 10:25 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Michael Myers came up from Haddonfield to give this public service announcement.
Michael Myers (from Halloween) holding a protest sign reading “Even I Draw the Line at Zip-tying kids”
October 18, 2025 at 10:22 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
This sign is possibly the only good thing to result from “The Life of a Showgirl.”
Protest sign showing Trump behind bars. The text reads “The fate of Pedophilia.”
October 18, 2025 at 10:20 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
In a roundabout way, this is a Jane Austen sign…
Protest sign reading Are you CLUELESS? (Written in the font of the movie) It does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty XOXO Cher ICE OUT!
October 18, 2025 at 10:18 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
This callback to The Oregon Trail is a little too real…
Protest sign in the style of The Oregon Trail. Text reads “you have died listening to RFK jr.”
October 18, 2025 at 10:16 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
This one was a sandwich board. Didn’t get to see the front.
Protest sign reading DEMOCRACY DEFENDER! There is a picture of Pikachu. Below, it reads “strength: unlimited ; ability: agile”
October 18, 2025 at 10:15 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Couple few other cool signs too.

#nokingsincludesgwima
#kpopdemonhunters
Protest sign reading PROTEST SEALS THE HONMOON
October 18, 2025 at 10:13 PM
grandrobert.bsky.social
Saw a few of @rotanen.bsky.social‘s signs during the rally, too.
Protestor holding a TRUMP IS A PEDO sign Protestor holding a NO KINGS NO NAZIS NO PEDOS sign
October 18, 2025 at 10:02 PM