Physical Therapist, former board certified geriatric clinical specialist. Raging moderate who believes all have a right to healthcare.
Cary, NC
Joined January 2015
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Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
David Jolly: The other side of the aisle likes to throw around the term socialism. I just call it cheaper insurance. But tell me what a hurricane fund currently is that bails out our insurance companies?
It sounds a whole lot like socialism to me.
What does it mean when we give Elon Musk billions of dollars of tax credits and we don't tax his profits? Sounds a whole lot like socialism to me.
What about a president who says, hey, if you vote for me and elect my team, we're going to give you a $5,000 check? What about a president who removes Maduro but supports Delce in Venezuela? What about a president who suggests we should allow investment in the hospitality industry on the island of Cuba? What about a president who invited Vladimir Putin to South Florida to come to Miami in December, a leader who has backed the Maduro regime, the Sandinistas, and the Cuban regime? They don't even understand economic theory on the other side of the aisle, folks.
They're just arguing labels to try to scare us and divide us.
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
Watching all the posts fly about Patrick Stewart, I have noticed something incredibly interesting that reaches deeper into the core of humanity: everyone, across the political spectrum, loved Picard.
The original Picard, from the 1990s. It seems people from all walks of life feel a heartfelt loss, and I think there is more to it than just nostalgia or a celebrity passing.
The TNG stories spoke true to everyone, no matter their politics. It was an era where we were able to agree on fundamental things, where our shared humanity and its complexities were spoken through timeless storytelling. It makes you wonder if that balance is why the 1990s feels like such a golden age in hindsight.
I often see the argument that when the original Star Trek came out, traditionalists were offended by it, and that heavy-handed ideology and corporate pandering in the recent Star Trek series are the same thing. But I would ask: what about The Next Generation? It, too, asked deep, challenging societal questions about the human condition - yet everyone, left and right, loved it.
I realize it was just a show, just a fictional character. But I think there is more to it. It represents something we are all sorely missing today: depth and a sense of shared humanity, delivered without constant virtue signaling, and without corporations trying to monetize every last ounce of our attention.
Perhaps the true magic of Picard - and the era he represents - was that he challenged us to be better without ever making us feel talked down to. He invited us to reflect on our flaws rather than policing them. In losing Patrick Stewart, we aren't just mourning an icon; we are mourning the standard of grace, curiosity, and mutual respect he embodied so brilliantly - and which is becoming harder and harder to find.
elov8.com/t/bb8c
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
The last time Leo XIV voted was to elect a pope. This time he's voting for East Joliet Sanitary District Trustee Board At-large. May he discern wisely.
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
I will never forget the night this aired in 1990. Our jaws were on the floor in shock.
And we’d have to wait three months to see how it ended.
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
We mourn the passing of Patrick Stewart, who inspired countless individuals at NASA (and beyond) to boldly go where no one has gone before.
ALT Image description: A packed, sparkling starfield captured by our Hubble telescope — with strange new worlds potentially awaiting. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, R. Cohen
There were some interesting calls @MikeZ125
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
In 1952, an English teacher named Cecil Dormand secretly paid for a dirt-poor 11-year-old to take a drama course.
He never told him and the boy didn’t find out until decades later.
By then, he was a knight, that little boy’s name was Patrick Stewart.
He was born into a poor family in Mirfield, a small mill town in Yorkshire and his father came home from World War II a violent man, and he was violent toward Patrick’s mother.
Young Patrick learned exactly when to step between his father’s fist and his mother.
An English teacher put a copy of Shakespeare in his hand and told him to get up and perform.
He never stopped and left school at 15.
By 19 he was completely bald... most agencies told him he'd never make it because of that.
In 1987, the LA Times called him an “unknown British Shakespearean actor” when he was cast as Captain Picard.
Then he became one of the most famous faces on Earth.
You’ve probably heard that part.
Here’s the part you haven’t:
He spent decades as a patron of Refuge, sheltering women and children from domestic violence.
But he never stopped trying to understand his father.
He dug up a 1940 newspaper clipping that said his dad had come home with severe shell shock.
He went to France and walked the ground where his father’s unit was pinned down under bombing for hours.
He learned his father had PTSD, and nobody ever helped him.
So Patrick became an ambassador for Combat Stress, a charity that helps veterans.
In 2013, a young woman at a Texas convention told him she was a survivor of domestic violence.
He asked, “My dear, are you okay?”
Then he hopped off the stage, held her, and told her: “You never have to go through that again, you’re safe now.”
At Dragon Con, a Make-A-Wish girl dressed as Spock came to meet him.
2,000 people were waiting for him to speak... he sat down and talked with her for 15 minutes, making all of them wait.
He told her that since they were friends now, whenever she saw him on screen she could wave and say, “Hello Patrick.”
After 9/11, he felt helpless, so he brought his one-man A Christmas Carol back to Broadway for a full week of charity shows.
He played every character himself and donated every cent.
In 2019 he did it again, and every dollar went to feeding hungry New Yorkers.
In 2017, he fostered a pit bull named Ginger, who had been rescued from a dogfighting ring.
She was his first dog in more than 50 years.
He couldn’t bring her home to England, so he found her a family.
Then he kept fostering more.
When he said he was done with Star Trek so many people told him the show had gotten them through the hardest times of their lives.
So he wanted to see if Picard could do it one more time.
Rest in Peace, Sir Patrick 🖖
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
i wonder how many people fell in love with space because of star trek
History will never forget the name Captain Picard.
Thank you for inspiring the Next Generation of explorers. ✨
ALT Two interacting galaxies against the black of space. Together, they fill most of the right side of the image. They have a rounded center shape, with two extended arms. The arms both extend back, shaped roughly like the starship Enterprise. A third smaller galaxy spirals to its left.
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
SIR PATRICK STEWART (1940-2026)
Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.
We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions. My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in 'Star Trek'. “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk—getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”. Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes ('X-Men' of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.
America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.
His farewell performance in 'Avengers: Doomsday' is yet to be seen.
Ian McKellen 29 October 2026
Photo: University of Huddersfield
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
From me @NRO, with a frightening warning to voters:
A List of Things Democrats Might Do If They Retake Power
nationalreview.com/corner/a-…
Crazy! @MikeZ125
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
Dollar General is illegally overcharging customers.
We’re taking them to court.
I send tweets to my late son @mikez125 who slipped into unconsciousness and died a week later - mostly about hockey ❤️🩹
“My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are - really and truly - still in existence somewhere. I wouldn't ask very much, just five or ten minutes a year, say, to tell them about their grandchildren, to catch them up on the latest news, to remind them that I love them.
There's a part of me - no matter how childish it sounds - that wonders how they are. "Is everything all right?" I want to ask. The last words I found myself saying to my father, at the moment of his death, were "Take care."
Sometimes I dream that I'm talking to my parents, and suddenly - still immersed in the dreamwork - I'm seized by the overpowering realization that they didn't really die, that it's all been some kind of horrible mistake.
Why, here they are, alive and well, my father making wry jokes, my mother earnestly advising me to wear a muffler because the weather is chilly. When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it.
So I don't guffaw at the woman who visits her husband's grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It's not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she's talking to, that's all right. That's not what this is about. This is about humans being human.”
― Carl Sagan
Theresa Kienle, PT, MS retweeted
We need to talk for a minute, because things could fall apart next week.
I know a lot of Dems all around the country are half or higher intoxicated with the how things will be better when we win back control of the Senate and the House on Nov 3, but I also know we were stumbling drunk on our own endorphins on what should have been the eve of the election of Hillary Clinton.
A little bit of psychological and practical prep now can do a lot to reduce the initial shock and the freeze response on Nov 4th this year, if things go badly. If we need to shift into Long-Term Resistance mode, instead of Victory mode, we can’t afford a long lag while we dwell and wallow.
So, just a handful of things we can do:
• Visualize and absorb the potential negative outcome. Taking a little time to think about how you will be running on a mix of grief, anger, and autopilot for a while, which will help you avoid being thrown off when they hijack your brain.
• Flip the switch in your head. As soon as (and every time) you switch from thinking “Oh my god, we’re doomed; all is lost” or “the world is broken; America is unsavable” or so on, and instead think “OK, what’s next?” or “What can I do to soften the damage,” you switch from the emotional overload of the amygdala and into the frontal cortex. That halts the flood of systemic stress chemicals and opens the tap on neurotransmitters that promote stability, focus, and logical processing.
• Change your framework from victim “how long until I/we can heal from this disaster” and instead anchor around the idea of anti-fragility. That’s the powerful quality of things that are actually made stronger and more resilient by stress or overload. Think of ways we already rock at that, like building muscle by constant overload and building immunity through exposure to invaders and vaccines.
• Put together a list of small tasks and processes so you can stay in motion even when you are running in a dampened state. Maybe that means meeting and sending out notes of support with people in your network to be supportive of each other. Maybe that is putting a timeline together so you are already thinking about milestones to the next election and small wins you could achieve to get you on the way. Whatever fits with your skillset and is likely to motivate you a little bit. Make them small at first—easy to do even if you are in a crummy mood or tired or full of lame excuses not to do it. Actions of any size are huge in terms of resilience and recovery.
I know from years of teaching at all grade levels that the vast majority of you will not take this to heart any more than reminders not to start your term paper the week before it is due, but for those that this does help—each one means one more anchor that others can look to and rally around if things veer toward dystopia.