What Ships Are For

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: June 11, 1963--

On June 11, 1963, Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk, entered a busy intersection in downtown Saigon to engage in an act of protest that would hit the front page of newspapers around the world. A significant majority of the South Vietnamese population was Buddhist. South Vietnam president and U.S. lackey Ngô Đình Diệm, however, was part of the Catholic minority, and his government enacted numerous discriminatory policies against the Buddhist population.

Đức sat down on a cushion, assuming a meditative lotus position. Another monk poured a five-gallon can of gasoline over him. Đức rotated wooden prayer beads through his fingers and chanted; he struck a match.

Đức was engulfed in flames, but did not cry out, did not move.

Think of how much it hurts when you get the slightest burn. How long can you hold your hand to a flame? What would it take for you to not react to the pain? Thích Quảng Đức showed no sign of suffering as he burned alive.

Monks, nuns, passersby, even police, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Cameras snapped photos. President John F. Kennedy said of one photo taken by American journalist Malcolm Browne, “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world.”

That photo later won a Pulitzer Prize. It also served to get Americans to question the support of Diệm’s government. Via radio, President Diệm made noises of concern over the event and promised to renew the stalled negotiations with Buddhists, but as historian Seth Jacobs said, “No amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm’s reputation.” Jacobs also said of Đức’s self-immolation that it “reduced America’s Diệm experiment to ashes as well.” The crisis deepened and on November 1,1963, with assistance from the CIA, President Diệm was overthrown and assassinated.

Later, Communist China used the image for propaganda purposes, printing millions of copies and distributing them as an example of American imperialism.

NOTE: This piece was researched and written by a human, not some bullshit "ai" plagiarism software.

1. Have fun and be yourself

2. Pointing loaded guns at your friends is always funny

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for false claims in its AI-generated search overviews. In this case, Google's AI had wrongly linked two publishers to scams and shady business practices. The court treated the AI overviews as Google's own content and rejected Google's argument that users were responsible for fact-checking the results themselves.

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center, Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas had no time for the GOP’s ridiculous claims of “reverse racism.” [...] “I’m not gonna play with anybody who’s gonna play with my time, so I’m going directly to Ms. McCord—professor, let me put some respect on your name,” she said. “All right, ‘If I see a black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.’ Does that sound like a hater or not?” “That sounds like a racial stereotype,” McCord responded. “‘We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s,’” she read.  “That sounds like someone who still adheres to racist views,” McCord answered.

OR ‘PEAKED’

BUT PIQUED

‘PIQUED MY INTEREST’

YOU ARE NOT ‘PHASED’. YOU ARE ‘FAZED.’

IF IT HAS BEEN A VERY LONG DAY, YOU ARE ‘WEARY’. IF SOMEONE IS ACTING IN A WAY THAT MAKES YOU SUSPICIOUS, YOU ARE ‘WARY’.

ALL IN ‘DUE’ TIME, NOT ‘DO’ TIME

‘PER SE’ NOT ‘PER SAY’

BREATH - THE NOUN FORM

THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE

WANDER - TO WALK ABOUT AIMLESSLY

WONDER - TO THINK OF IN A DREAMLIKE AND/OR WISTFUL MANNER

BALL- A FUCKING BALL

Loose- untight

Their = belonging to them

can’t = a contraction for cannot

Me realising there are some things I didn’t already know:

TWO- 2, A NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 3

WORD, THE MUSIC IS TOO LOUD,

THE SHIRT IS TOO LOOSE.

ROGUE: CRIMINAL/REBEL/VAGRANT/ETC

ROUGE: RED MAKEUP

If he’s not moving, he’s STATIONARY.

If it’s someone ruling over people, it’s REIGN

If you’re telling someone they’re going to have to reconsider an opinion or course of action, then they have ANOTHER THINK COMING

It’s “voilà”, not “viola”