I always See The Glass Half Full... Of Poison.

you’re used to dealing with people like chrissy teigan and serena williams, game for it sure but 0 dance training or experience and not really a performer (although i’ve still not figured out what it is chrissy teigan actually does so many I’m wrong about that? not important)

and then this guy comes up to you and says hey, i’m gonna be on the show. i went to stage school so i have literally no shame or performance anxiety, i’m a trained dancer in ballet tap and modern, i was billy elliot on the west end so you don’t have to worry about me not remembering the routine, and i’m in the best shape of my life because i’m spiderman right now, literally hit me with your absolutely worst i can take it

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

Remember in PoA, when Hermione’s parents had left her some money to buy herself a birthday present? That’s nice of them and all–we see them trying their best to make her happy, at least. But how sad is it to be the little girl whose parents can’t understand enough about your life to know what you might want for your 14th birthday?

I mean, it must be hard enough being a Muggle-born who goes away into the wizarding world and has a relatively normal, safe life. But then you become best friends with the Chosen One, almost get killed in a death maze, and spend half a year petrified. You can’t really talk to mum and dad about that stuff, can you, it would only worry them, and the only thing they could do to help would be to keep you home, which, hard nope.

Just before we see them in PoA they went on holiday to France, and… Hermione wanted to see all the wizarding historical sites. The ones that gave her lots of material to add to her essay on witch burnings, mind. That can’t have been particularly fun for the Muggle parents–to what extent could they even see what Hermione was seeing? We know a lot of those things are charmed to either repel Muggles or be invisible to them.

And now they’ve dropped her off in care of the Weasleys, and left her birthday money. They can’t have been overly keen to linger in Diagon Alley, after what happened last time (i.e. Arthur throwing down with Lucius Malfoy over the latter’s anti-Muggle sentiments… okay, yeah, our presence is making our new friend get into fist fights with people who don’t want us here, real welcoming atmosphere). And after watching her spend the summer poring over wizard mail-order ads shopping for Harry’s present, they’re pretty sure they have no idea what she might want, and they probably won’t even know what the thing she gets herself is.

So they do their best for the little girl they want to make happy… but at that point, they surely all knew already that they were losing each other.

If adapting a folk or fairytale as basis for a novel, as I was then, there are some elements which Must Not Get Left Out, and IMO those elements are the ones where the hero isn't merely brave, strong and tough but also good, kind and generous.

This characterisation carried over successfully into the other folklore-world-meets-historical-events books of that short series, and I've had people tell me Ivan is one of the most likeable characters I've ever written.

I like that.

*****

And now read, or listen as he reads, @neil-gaiman's "Instructions".

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—      Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—      Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—      Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

What's more Niemoller was a national conservative. He originally supported the Nazi Party, hoping it would bring about a national revival (as did many Germans), until Hitler proclaimed the supremacy of state over religion and Protestant churches, at which point he allied with other pastors and Lutheran organizations against Nazification. He was also anti-Semitic, making many pejorative remarks about Jews, such as them deserving persecution for crucifying Jesus and believing they should be kept out of any positions in the government. He was imprisoned from 1937-1945, during which time he reconsidered his earlier views.

I worked with a woman who was independently wealthy. But she liked working housekeeping. So she did. And if the manager got bitchy with her, she’d just shrug and be like “Okay, I can quit.”

Like the manager treated her like a human being because she knew she had to because otherwise she’d lose one of her best workers.

There’s a lot of people who’d happily do the same sort of thing.  Honestly?  A lot of the jobs we consider “shitty” jobs?  Are shitty because the employees are treated like garbage.

But the other side of this coin is that ONLY a person's basic needs are covered. As someone above said, people still want to do fun stuff! Fancy coffee and vacations and doing leisure activities like movies or bowling or whatever. Keeping pets. Having get togethers. If someone wants the extras in life, THAT'S the stuff they "should" be working for. That's the "well if they don't want to work then they don't get [whatever]!" that is the consequence of not working. Are some people gonna be fine not doing any extra stuff and just living basically? Sure! And that's okay. But most people DO want extra stuff and will work for it if they can (and if they can't they should still get extra basic income! Humans deserve enrichment!)

Natural polished Java plume agate

Anyway, she was super fucking homophobic and abusive to me when I told her I was gay, so here’s the recipe

4-6 lbs of Hamburger/turkey burger

1 pk onion soup mix OR ranch mix

1 TBs ketchup

1 Tbs spicy brown mustard,

1 Tbs bbq sauce

1 Tbs steak sauce

1 egg

mix, shape into a loaf in a big pan, and bake at 350 for 2 hrs (maybe 2 and a half if you’re feeling dangerous)

(6 servings)

-2lbs red potatoes

-1 cup butter (2 sticks)

-1 cup cream cheese (1 pack)

-Chives (optional)

-Salt & Pepper to taste

1. drop those bad boys (potatoes) in a big ol pot. U don’t even have to chop them just wash them

2. boil til soft!

3. Drain

4. Mash (usually they’re small enough you can use a fork if u don’t have one of those squashers) until its a pretty chunky mix

5. add the other stuff. Keep mashing

i tried for five there was an honest effort to choose only five and it lasted about eight seconds

seamus heaney, “north” (x)

marina tsvetaeva, “poems for moscow” (x)

w.h. auden, “musee des beaux arts” (x)

derek walcott, “midsummer, tobago” (x)

lewis carroll, “the walrus and the carpenter” (x)

james wright, “a blessing” (x)

alexander pushkin, “the prophet” (x)

dante alighieri, inferno

nadine sabra meyer, “invocation: a fragment” (x)

william blake, “jerusalem: the emanation of great albion” (x)

sappho, “fragment 94”

paul celan, “death-fugue” (x)

philip larkin, “bridge for the living” (x)

kim addonizio, “for you” (x)

arthur rimbaud, “barbarian” (x)

w.b. yeats, “the second coming” (x)

kay ryan, “stardust” (x)

wilfred owen, “dulce et decorum est”

geoffrey hill, “tenebrae” (x)

h.d., eideolon (book iii section vii (x))

pablo neruda, “sonnet xxxiv” (x)

emily dickinson, “i dwell in possibility” (x)

jacob shores-argeüllo, “paradise”

anon, sir gawain and the green knight

kathleen sheeder bonanno, “death barged in” (x)

john donne, “holy sonnet xiv” (x)

elizabeth bishop, “at the fish-houses” (x)

rainer maria rilke, “the boy” (x) and “lament” (x)

mahmoud darwish, “your night is of lilac” (x)

gregory orr, “trauma (storm)” (x)

frank o’hara, “having a coke with you” (x)

john milton, paradise lost (books v & ix)

anne carson, “the autobiography of red”

naomi shihab nye, “burning the old year” (x)

christopher marlowe, hero and leander

sylvia plath, “three women: a poem for three voices” (x)

anna akhmatova, “voronezh” (x)

ted hughes, “bride and groom lie hidden for three days” (x)

anon, beowulf

dylan thomas, “fern hill” (x)

margaret atwood, “sumacs” (x)

kiki petosino, “genuflect”

t.j. jarrett, “how to speak to the dead” (x)

louise glück, “landscape” (x)

jorge luis borges, “poem of the gifts” (x)

e.e. cummings, “i will wade out” (x)

sean ó coileáin, “the ruins of timoleague abbey” (x)