There was a moment that I would like to relate.
You know, all through school and into university, I took the hardest classes; the hard science classes. I excelled and forgo girls and dating with my mind fixed on my goal, and I ended up becoming a Naval Aviator. There, i was offered a role in MAJestic.
And then after my bio-modifications, I was sent loose on the Earth. And as such, I experienced all sorts of things. One of with was the harsh reality of American life. And in that harsh reality were various “snapshots”.
Today I will talk about one.
I was a breakfast cook in a restaurant in San Louis Obsispo, California. And there, I cooked, and did what ever I could do to make money. And yeah, I was often belittled by the owner’s snotty kid who was perhaps five years younger than me. And there, they also used me as their “roust about” go to” guy to do the dirty work.
And under that restaurant was a grease trap.
It was a cement rectangular box under the floorboards, that collected all the grease from the kitchen. And I was told to clean it out. And so I did. I got in that grease trap, waist deep, and with a bucket emptied it, and handed the bucket of grease to another fellow who poured it into a barrel.
Took me two hours.
I was then paid, and he gave me an extra three dollars for my efforts.
It was hot and dirty work. But it was calm and damp under the restaurant. You see the entire town was built over a meandering stream, and I had a view of that mystery stream that very few people ever had a chance to look at.
I think that I spent the three dollars on some gas for the van.
And that is my story for today.
Not a painful memory. But a dirty one.
Today…
Which part of ancient China preferred rice over noodles, considering noodles to be barbaric and rice to be good?
Ha！what an interesting question.
Chinese civilization has two roughly simultaneous origins, namely two great rivers over 5,000 kilometers long: the Yellow River in the north and the Yangtze River in the south.
In ancient times, the main crops in northern China were 黍和粟，millet and broomcorn millet, literally meaning “yellow rice” and “small rice.”
But about 3,000 years ago, a crop from West Asia entered China—wheat！
The image below is oracle bone script.
This is “come” (come here).
This is “wheat.”
Do you notice how similar these two characters look?
That’s right！
The original meaning of “wheat” in Chinese is “the one that came here.”
By the Warring States period, northern China was mostly growing wheat, while the native crops, millet and broomcorn millet, had very low yields.
In the south, meanwhile, it has always been rice agriculture, lasting for over 7,000 years.
As for “barbarism and civilization,” it has nothing to do with eating noodles or rice.
In today’s China, the south seems to have always considered itself more civilized, more refined.
But in ancient times, it was the complete opposite!
Back then, the rice-eating south was the “barbaric and ferocious” one—fierce and tough as hell!
They didn’t even value their own lives.
To the “civilized people” of the north, southerners were all barbarians…
I’m a southerner, raised eating only rice, almost never touching noodles.
At 16, I got into a university in Beijing, where the cafeteria offered both rice and noodles.
I basically stuck to rice.
My northern classmates, on the other hand, loved noodle dishes—like noodles or steamed buns.
Later, I got married. My wife is from the north, and she only ate noodles.
Now?
Now I like eating noodles, and she likes eating rice 🙂
Our kids, though—they love everything. They like noodles, and they like rice ：）
Bessent Panics: US Must Stop China, G7 Ally Retaliates, Trump Expected Crash, US Stocks No Rescue
Why has China been unsuccessful in making high tech chips in 30 years?
Because for many years China and Chinese companies could buy the advanced chips they wanted from western companies. The Chinese government tried to get Chinese entrepreneurs to develop Chinese chips, but this strategy did not make good business sense.
The only Chinese company which worked seriously on developing Chinese chips was Huawei. Many Chinese considered Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, to be paranoid and eccentric.
Then, under the first Trump administration, the US went after Huawei, and even had the Canadian government seize the company’s CFO, who was Ren’s daughter.
In the face of open US hostility, Chinese companies had no choice except to develop their own high-end chips.
Sweet Baked Beef Brisket
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
- 1 (4 pound) boneless beef brisket, trimmed of fat
- 2 to 3 tablespoons dried herb blend
- 2 large onions, thickly sliced
- 2 1/2 cups apple juice
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped
- 3 tablespoons raisins
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
Instructions
- Place beef brisket in a 13 x 10 inch shallow roasting pan. Thoroughly and evenly coat brisket with herb blend. Top with onion.
- Bake at 425 degrees F for 1 hour, or until onions turn brown.
- Mix apple juice, honey and spices, pour over brisket, cover tightly with foil, return to oven and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees F or until brisket is tender.
- Remove brisket to a warm platter. Skim fat from juices.
- To make gravy, combine water and cornstarch. Add to juices in pan. Pour cooking juices into a saucepan, add apple and raisins, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook about 5 minutes until apples are tender, about 5 to 8 minutes.
- Slice brisket against the grain, spoon sauce over meat and serve.
We’re LOSING The Tariff War With China: How Our Elites Sold Us Out
A major trend that started in April. Be advised and aware.
What happens if you get seriously ill in countries with universal healthcare – are there really no costs?
If you’re a citizen you’re automatically insured, birth to death, so there are no extra costs, no quibbles. Just medical treatment.
And no profit-driven private insurance company looking for ways to reduce or deny a claim (there is no claim – you just get treated).
Why did Asian cultures develop chopsticks instead of easy-to-use and practical cutlery?
Chopsticks are very easy to use and practical. It’s much easier to wind long noodles around a set of chopsticks than it is to attempt being graceful with a spoon.
Also, chopsticks are used in cooking. They actually make what are called cooking chopsticks. They are much longer than normal. Although, in a pinch, the dining chopsticks work. Use them to scramble, whisk, spear, deep fry, flip, or scoop. In fact, if you have a wok, a cleaver, and a pair of chopsticks, you can make a lot of Chinese dishes. The simplicity and minimalism is great!
You can even use them to keep your hair out of your face while cooking—though please don’t confuse the pair in your hair with the pair you use to cook with!
Some people might even use them to serve kabobs.
Just, whatever you do, don’t use chopsticks to make a gun.
If you want more uses for chopsticks:
Or if you would like to learn how to use them:
My late friend Jeffrey Zhang taught me how to use them and made me practice over and over again with things like grapes, berries, or popcorn. We shared much laughter as he’d watch some of my targets roll, bounce, or fly away.
I Am Mac SE/30
Written in response to: “Write a story from the POV of a now-defunct piece of technology.“
Doux Ancolie
All was silent until I experienced an awakening on a Monday, December 11, 1989. The electrical surge shot through my circuits and components, flickering my monochrome screen to display every 512×342 of gray pixels from corner to corner. I get pinged with an instruction from the Captain EFI, “I AM Mac SE/30.” I scan my internal EFI logs, tracking my hours of operation by minutes and seconds, including the month and days of the year. As long as I have an electrical current, I can process other programs. I lavish it more so from my input cousins, the keyboard and the mouse. I am a superstar starting with 1MB of RAM that expands with eight memory slots, holding up to 32MB. My SCSI drive bay can use a 40MB or 80MB hard disc to store and access data. I process data in the form of images and animated graphics, or text for file documents. Don’t be fooled by my size! I’m following instructions at 16MHz, and I am the “fastest and most expandable monochrome MacIntosh” of my time. “Don’t ask me how I know this. I just do.” I receive other commands from “Sergent Memory,” and it is directed from component to component, working me faster and faster. I am Mac SE/30 and “I am alive!”
In less than a nanosecond, light drizzled upon me. With each processing moment, I can see from my screen an entire colony of SE/30s surrounding me. Hallelujah we are united, and I am surging with power, waiting for my next command. Our independent mission is to process the bits and bytes in each unit’s coding and display it on its screen. Nothing more, nothing less, and I am exceptionally good at what I do. To feed me, I need electrical power and software programs on floppy discs inserted into my dock bay. A picosecond passes and there is another source of energy entering the room. The creature looks similar to my Creator as it sits in front of me. The Mac SE/30 Creator gave me vast spatial distribution thanks to my expandable memory, my speed, and my graphic capabilities. I never stop creating until the creature leaves. As long as the current energizes me, I can process input and display the output on my screen. Input is like a goddess, for she brought me information on a disc inserted into my bay and commanded to load data on my screen. The information empowered me for any creature to create animated and interactive jobs that are saved on my SCSI disc tracks and sectors. So much energy running through me, I could do this forever.
The creature in front of me inserts a floppy disc and internal commands are being sent and received when the data appears on the screen. I take notice of what is going on around me and I see creatures sitting in front of other SE/30 members. After this creature has input the floppy disc into the bay, I process the input for several hours as output splatters across the screen, taking shape and filling each pixel. A matter of seconds passed before I was displaying an interactive map of downtown Golden, Colo. For each icon on the map, the creature input data and the result appeared on the screen with a comment box and digitized figures moving about. A ball is bouncing, and animation is inviting a ping on the Coors Brewery icon, “Take the Tour.” The changes were compiled and saved on the SCSI. This was the funnest creation I have experienced. So many pings were hitting my processor at once that it is good to have a powerful fan built in to keep my circuit board and components cool. The current I use for power gets hot with so much going on inside of me. The Creature now in front of me is like my Creator, it too is vertically oblong with its own slots for input and output. The Creature has two round holes near the top curve of its figure. A small distance below were two smaller holes, and below it was a bigger hole that can change shapes. That big hole stayed closed during most operations, except for when it moved up and down. I watched the creature’s expression, which I could not process, but every time the big hole made a jolly noise, the program was saved and activated again. After hours of processing, the program was closed down and the disc removed. I am silent at 23:00 hours, and this proves true for the rest of my stay.
Every time I went silent and was powered on again, the date and time were different, but I quickly adjusted to real time. From my code analysis, I keep track of how many hours I am in operation. The seconds, minutes, and hours of the month and the year came and went when 296 days had passed, and I went silent. I was disassembled and opened up to make repairs on my clock battery and to add more memory to my expansion slots. My cousins were wiped cleaned with a white swab and clear liquid. We were getting a preventative maintenance clean up. Another year and half goes by, and on my next awakening, I notice that a part of my colony, the troops are gone and they were replaced with a bigger size: the MacIntosh Classic II. I got to know more about Classic, as we could communicate through electrical transference energy in the room. By 1991, Classic told me that my species has been pulled from manufacturing and the Creator is now making colonies of Classic IIs. On March 31, 1995, I went silent for a very long time.
I came alive with the current in 2020. Captain Processor completes my surge of power and the last time I was alive was April 1, 1995. On this day January 17, 2020, nine thousand, one hundred and twenty-five days have passed since my last entry. I’m no longer in the big room of light with different sizes of creatures sitting down to use my power to create animated graphics. Such pleasant memories. Before I was removed, Classic informed me that when we are disassembled, we are melted down, packaged and dispersed. Fortunately for me, I was salvaged and kept in a secure domain. Time showed 16:00 hours when the creature approached me and sat down in front of me. He slips in the floppy disc and viola! I load the graphics program while I wait for more input. The creature fools around and then adds a scsi device to the back of my port. It’s a modem that he has connected to me. How am I supposed to recognize the device without software telling me what it is? I call him Crea. He’s a young creature that likes to tinker with electronically powered devices. I am now his next project.
From the table top I’m placed on, I see another odd-looking device. Hey, it is the Classic II, and there are two more next to him. Next to me is a flatter device, and it folds over. I have no idea what it does, but it uses power. Crea taps my device keyboard, and it lights up with images and animated icons moving around on my screen. Several hours go by when Crea removed the disc and changed shapes to move away.
I counted the hours and minutes. Twenty-four hours pass before Crea appears before me, and inserts a floppy disc. My days are never numbered. I can still perform the same work today that I did thirty-six years ago. I feel other energy sources in the room with me. Some appear to be the same shape and size, while a few other devices are small and large. Several large devices have big images that light up the silence in my life.
Yours truly,
I AM Mac SE/30 and “I am alive.”
What should the Chinese government do to respond to President Donald Trump’s 34% reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods?
U.S.-China trade accounts for a smaller and smaller share of China’s GDP, already slightly less than 1.5 percent in 2024.
So this time when Trump started a tariff war, China was almost quiet. Even if the Chinese paid attention, they just wanted to see Trump’s joke.
The United States was panicking, the stock market plummeted, and all the media were scolding Trump.
The American media almost said:
Don’t fight a trade war, let’s surrender to China quickly. Now is the time with the lowest cost. In the future, if we surrender to China, we will not only kneel, but also raise our hands high.
Trump wants to focus his fire on China, but he’ll play America to the point of collapse before he has a chance to do any real damage to China.
Just recently, China launched the strongest counterattack, imposing a 34% tariff on all goods originating from the United States!
The target of the tariff is all American goods!
Trump has repeatedly provoked, and now it is finally as he wished, China and the United States are about to decouple…
China’s imposition of tariffs on US goods, in simple terms, will have two results.
First, most US goods are highly substitutable.
China can live without the US, but the US cannot live without China.
China can always find a bunch of agricultural products to replace US agricultural products. But once China stops importing, it will be a devastating blow to the US.
The largest category of US exports to China is agricultural products, which do not have any technical content, but account for 18.8% of US exports.
Soybeans are the most important agricultural product in the United States, and China is the largest buyer of US soybeans, accounting for more than 60% of US global exports.
Now that China does not buy US soybeans, countries like Brazil are very happy, as they finally have the opportunity to sell soybeans to China.
The US is miserable, as soybean stocks will surge, prices will plummet, and they will eventually be destroyed if they cannot be sold.
In the 2018 trade war, China only imposed a 10% tariff on US soybeans, and US soybean prices immediately fell by 26%. US farmers suffered heavy losses, and protests against Trump continued. American farmers are Trump’s base and the Republican Party’s iron base. Trump can just wait to be scolded.
In the future, whether it is American energy, automobiles or chemical products, they are all dispensable, and substitutes can be found everywhere.
American energy traders are now jumping up and down and scolding Trump, saying
“We tried every means to raise funds for you, Trump, to return to the White House, and this is how you repay us?”
For example, the United States has been thinking about getting China to buy their Boeing aircraft every day, but now it is completely impossible, and Airbus in Europe will start to be happy. Not only that, China’s large aircraft development speed will be further accelerated.
Therefore, the United States will suffer a severe blow, and the base of Trump’s supporters will collapse.
Second, the next important thing is that the Chinese science and technology community will start to be happy.
Now no one discusses chips, because China’s chip problem has been solved by Trump.
Six years ago, China’s chip industry was struggling to support itself, and almost no one invested in domestic chips because they found it difficult to find a market.
People all have a dependent mentality, which is a weakness of human nature, and there is no way.
It is normal to have such an idea that “it is better to buy than to make, and it is better to rent than to buy”. Who would be willing to spend so much effort on such a long supply chain research and development when they can normally import more mature chips from abroad?
But once Trump starts to sanction Chinese chips, China’s opportunity for domestically produced chips will finally come!
When Trump’s blockade began, the situation reversed and China began to eliminate all interference and focus on developing China’s domestically produced chips. The sales of China’s domestically produced chips also soared.
Since 2018, all major domestic manufacturers, as long as the chips are not much different in quality, have begun to use domestic chips as much as possible, at least, they have begun to have backup plans for domestic chips.
So, after the start of the technology war, Chinese chip companies began to grow explosively, and various capitals squeezed into this track crazily… Everyone is paying attention to chips.
In just 6 years, China has become the world’s largest chip exporter. In 2024, the total chip export volume will exceed 1 trillion.
Although we have not yet developed the most advanced chips, everyone knows that it is only a matter of time.
After China’s counterattack began this time, it will be even more difficult for Texas Instruments, Intel, and other chips to enter the Chinese market. Jensen Huang felt very disappointed and said, “I’m done for now. I only have 3 years left at most.”
But what is the United States really panicking about now?
The United States, which was originally the founder and leader of global trade, is now completely crazy and has taken the initiative to withdraw from and destroy its own trade system.
The United States has become isolated, while China, as the world’s largest trading country and industrial hegemon, will surely hold high the banner of free trade and strive to develop its own circle of friends. A new world trade pattern centered on China will be formed quickly.
So the Economist magazine said that this is not “Making America great again”, but “Making China great again”.
Well, we don’t call it “Making China great again”, we call it “China return to its original position in history”.
We Finally Figured Out How AI Actually Works… (not what we thought!)
Could America potentially lose the trade war against China and end up in debt to them, similar to Japan after World War II?
What is the nature of the US-China trade war?
Trump imposed total of 54% tariffs on China in addition to the 20% to 25% he imposed during his first term for total of 74% to 79% (not counting Biden’s tariffs).
China countered with 10% and 15% tariffs on selected US goods + 34% on all US goods, for total of 44% to 49% on selected goods and 34% on all other goods.
US has sanctions galore on China to frustrate its tech development. Trump & Biden blacklisted over 1,500 Chinese companies on its entity list.
China bans exports of certain minerals and technologies to the US. Many minerals are in its exports control list, nearly 10 US companies are also on this list, over 10 others are blacklisted in its unreliable entity list, and several are under investigation for antitrust andChina said it would do whatever it takes to protect its interest, which suggests, it would match the US if it escalates the tariff. other offences.
Who would win the trade war? Both will lose. Who would pay the heavier price?
China exported $440bn worth of good to the US in 2024, most were consumer goods, intermediate inputs, and equipment. US exports to China were worth $143bn, mostly agriculture and energy goods.
Is China or US more able to replace the goods from the other sources?
China has many other sources of supply of agriculture and energy goods. Does US have other sources of supply to replace the imports from China? bearing in mind that US tariffs of other major exporters are at 20% to 45% rates.
We may say the more dependent country would pay most of the tariffs.
How badly would the tariffs affect the growth of each country? Our guesstimate for China is 0.5 to 1.0 percentage point, taking account that its exports to the US in 2024 were 2.4% of GDP. We refrain from making a guess for the US. Its trade war is with the world.
US’s sanctions of China is over 10 years old. Its sanction pool should be quite empty. China is new in the sanction game. It has a full arsenal, the notables are rare earth minerals & related technologies. The initiative lies with China.
Time will tell who has the better stamina to sustain the trade war.
Why won’t single payer healthcare work in the US? What is different in Sweden, Denmark, or Canada?
Nothing is different in those countries, universal healthcare works fine in those countries, and medical outcomes are better, medical professionals are well paid (I have doctors as friends, the mother of my children is a nurse)
The reason single payer will not work in the US, is the private medical insurance industry, makes billions in profits, executives get massive bonuses, not one dime of which goes to medical expenses.
Those billions, help to pay for lobbyists, and negative advertising campaigns. Those negative advertising campaigns, which include social media posts, create an atmosphere of distrust in the idea of universal healthcare, in the minds of many Americans.
It’s pretty sad – since the entire world, has universal healthcare.
Sir Whiskerton and the Case of the Shedding Sheep: A Tale of Wool, Woe, and a Very Fluffy Apocalypse
Ah, dear reader, prepare yourself for a tale so absurd, so unraveled, that even the scarecrow would clutch his straw in horror. Today’s story is one of runaway fleece, allergic reactions, and the eternal truth that too much of a good thing is just a very itchy nightmare.
So grab your lint roller (you’ll need it), and let us dive into Sir Whiskerton and the Case of the Shedding Sheep: A Tale of Wool, Woe, and a Very Fluffy Apocalypse.
Act 1: The Fleece That Ate the Farm
It began on a peaceful morning—which, as any farm animal will tell you, is never a good sign. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Fluffy the Sheep was… well, exploding.
- “I don’t mean to alarm anyone,” Fluffy said calmly, “but I believe I’m shedding.”
- “Shedding!” Ditto echoed, already buried up to his ears in wool.
And shedding was an understatement. Fluffy wasn’t just losing a little fluff—she was launching it into the atmosphere like a confetti cannon at a very confused wedding.
Within minutes:
- The barn was padded like a winter coat.
- The pond was a woolly hot tub.
- Rufus the Dog had vanished entirely, leaving only a faint “help” muffled under six feet of fleece.
Sir Whiskerton, ever the voice of reason (or at least the voice of mild irritation), surveyed the chaos.
- “This,” he declared, “is a problem.”
- “Problem!” Ditto agreed, sneezing out a puff of wool like a tiny, distressed cloud.
Act 2: Doris the Hen’s Fluffy Nightmare
Enter Doris the Hen, who had opinions about the situation.
- “I’m not a hen—I’m a woolly mammoth!” she shrieked, flapping wings now completely mummified in fluff. “And I’m allergic to fluff!”
- “Fluff!” Ditto sneezed.
- “You’re allergic to yourself half the time,” Sir Whiskerton pointed out.
- “That’s irrelevant!” Doris snapped, before sneezing so hard her comb wobbled.
Meanwhile, Porkchop the Pig had taken advantage of the situation by building a wool fort and declaring himself King of the Fluff.
- “Bow before me, peasants!” he announced, lounging on a throne of fleece.
- “That’s my wool,” Fluffy said.
- “Finders keepers,” Porkchop replied, tossing a wool ball at Ferdinand the Duck, who mistook it for a very soft grenade and quacked in terror.
Act 3: The Great Shearing Showdown
Sir Whiskerton, realizing that the farm was one sneeze away from becoming a giant sweater, devised a plan:
- Find the root cause of Fluffy’s shedding. (Was it stress? Diet? A secret wool-based vendetta?)
- Stop it before the farmer returned and mistook the farm for a craft store.
- Save Rufus. (Maybe.)
But first, they had to navigate the wool wasteland.
- “It’s like a blizzard,” Doris wheezed, “if blizzards were made of poor life choices.”
- “Choices!” Ditto coughed, now completely camouflaged as a tumbleweed.
After digging through fluff like archeologists at a very soft dig site, they discovered the culprit:
Fluffy had been sneaking extra helpings of “special” feed from Chef Remy LeRaccoon’s “Experimental Buffet.”
- “It was supposed to make my wool shinier,” Fluffy admitted.
- “Instead, it made you a public hazard,” Sir Whiskerton deadpanned.
The solution? A radical, farm-wide shearing.
- Bessie the Tie-Dye Cow volunteered her “groovy” scissors.
- Buckley the Goat ate the loose wool (for “moral support”).
- Doris supervised from a safe distance (i.e., the roof).
And when the last tuft was trimmed?
The farm was saved.
(Though Rufus was still missing. Turns out he’d burrowed into the wool and taken a nap. He was fine. Probably.)
Moral of the Story
Sometimes, less is more—especially when it comes to fur, feelings, and questionable raccoon cuisine.
Also, never trust a sheep with a glow-up plan.
Best Lines
- “I’m not a hen—I’m a woolly mammoth!” — Doris, having a day.
- “Bow before me, peasants!” — Porkchop, briefly the fluffiest tyrant.
- “It’s like a blizzard if blizzards were made of poor life choices.” — Doris, poet of pain.
Post-Credit Scene
*Chef Remy LeRaccoon unveils his newest invention: “Un-Shedding Serum!” The label reads: “May cause excessive hoarding. Or llamas. We’re not sure.”
Starring
- Sir Whiskerton as The Cat Who’s Done With Fluff
- Fluffy the Sheep as The Walking Yarn Bomb
- Doris the Hen as “I Regret Everything”
- Rufus as “Still Stuck in the Wool”
P.S. If life gives you wool, knit a sweater and get over it.
The End.
Is it true that when you use an airplane toilet, your waste goes straight overboard and into the air? Is there a risk that it could land on someone and cause contamination?
On a long-haul 747 flight, each passenger uses the toilet an average of 2.4 times, producing 870 litres of waste – roughly the volume of a four-person Jacuzzi.
There is so much unwanted material, it would take miraculous engineering to process it all.
This is where the flush function of airplane toilets comes in handy.
Currently, these toilets do not work with traditional siphons and water.
As early as 1982, airplanes began installing new toilets with non-stick bowls that used a blue substance called Skychem instead of water, and powerful vacuum suction devices that left almost nothing in the bowl.
Skykem helps eliminate odors and sanitize the toilet bowl. Additionally, vacuum toilets use much less water than siphon toilets, are much lighter, and can be installed in a variety of ways, making them more fuel- and space-efficient – two very important factors on an airplane.
When you flush, a trap door at the bottom of the toilet opens and the Skykem liquid fills the bowl. The loud noise you hear when flushing is not the trap door opening out as many people think. It’s simply the sound of a vacuum suction, like a large vacuum cleaner.
Waste is sucked in through the toilet hole and travels through pipes to the rear of the plane, where it ends up in a tank that can only be accessed from outside the plane. Pilots can’t empty this tank in flight even if they wanted to.
When the plane lands on the ground, the tanks are emptied by a special tanker truck, which attaches a hose to the plane and vacuums up the waste. Once the plane’s tanks are empty, they are cleaned with a disinfectant.
However, there have been many incidents in the past where waste from airplane toilets has fallen from the sky and landed on houses.
This was a common issue in the 60s and 70s when airplane toilet pipes weren’t properly sealed, causing leaks. Urine and waste would mix with the Skykem and leak out of the pipes, usually onto the outside of the plane near the rear landing gear.
When this liquid comes into contact with the cold air at high altitudes it turns into blue ice .
As the plane descended to land, the ice began to melt, falling off the plane and eventually onto the roof of a house.
In 1971, a huge block of blue ice fell on a building in London, blowing a hole in the roof.
There have been several instances of this kind of incident around the world in older aircraft over the past few decades. Although it is now very rare, it does happen from time to time.
Has a plane ever intentionally dumped waste while in flight?
The answer is yes. In the early days of civil aviation in the 1930s, aircraft such as the British Stranraer and Short Sunderland had toilets that opened to the outside. Anything that fell into the bowl was dumped outside.
However, as time passed and commercial air travel increased, this practice was soon phased out.
Wife’s Affair IMPLODES After Husband Exposes Lover, Now Wife Furious That She Was Just A Side Piece
The Iphone 16 Model would cost $ 1,378 in USA after the Tariffs from China, $ 1,438 from India, $ 1780 if parts are assembled in India and subsidy of $ 16 Billion is given to apple to assemble in USA for 5 years (plus 2 years set up cost)
However if Fully made in USA including the Supply Chain then even with a $ 60 Billion subsidy to shift the entire supply Chains to US, an Iphone could cost $ 2100 and $ 2500 without Subsidy
So Options for Apple
Keep making in China and India and have customers pay $ 1380 and $ 1440 respectively, around $ 200 extra
Or
Get $ 16 Billion from USA, spend $ 15 Billion to uproot assembly chain from China, spend $ 4.5 Billion to uproot assembly chain from India, lose the Chinese & Indian market and sell in US for $ 1,800 each – an extra cost of $ 600 for the customer
Or
Get $ 60 Billion Subsidy from USA, spend $ 37 Billion to uproot supply chains, lose the Chinese and Indian market and sell in the US for $ 2100 per customer, $ 900 higher
Or
Get no subsidy, lose the Chinese and Indian business and spend $ 37 Billion to uproot supply chains and sell in the US for $ 2500 per customer, $ 1300 higher
Easiest to just reduce the license payments by $ 50, reduce the commission by $ 80, reduce the commission mark up by $ 25 and pay the tariffs
It comes to $ 1,225 per Iphone, only $ 25–35 extra that any customer can pay
Apple will likely absorb the loss
The Carson Effect
Written in response to: “Write a story in which someone time-travels 25 years or more into the past.“
Ryan Bigley
This story contains themes or mentions of suicide or self harm.
“Donald Trump.”
“Seriously? That attention hog that is always in the news with the terrible haircut and ugly gold buildings?”
“Yep, same guy.”
“Wow, we must have lost some serious war to be in such a crappy future.”
It occurs to me that we have not really progressed in the future of the year 2025. These people I’m talking to in 1995 don’t really believe I’m from the future. It doesn’t really help that I can’t exactly prove it. “Not really. We didn’t lose any wars, actually. In fact, we started some wars.”
“So, do cell phones actually get smaller?”
“No, in fact, they get bigger.”
“Bigger? Why?”
“We use phones to watch videos and check our social media.”
“Our what?” I keep forgetting, social media didn’t become a thing until the mid-2000’s.
“We use our phones to open up an application that shows what our friends are doing.” I mean, that’s what they were originally intended for. Now, our social media is only used to spew ignorance and sell advertising space.”
“Wait, people give their real names to other people online? And then you spy on them? Isn’t that dangerous?”
I definitely remember a time when we were told not to give out personal information on the internet. It’s amazing how much of our personal lives we give out to a wide open network.
“These phones, do they still make phone calls?”
“Well, yes. But nobody really uses their phone for that purpose.”
“So, why do you still call them phones?”
The technology was revolutionary. In what was an attempt to open up childhood memories for the purposes of therapy, the company Dygonine actually unlocked the human ability to travel backwards in time. Humans had always had the undiscovered ability to change their timelines, just like the ability to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste.
While developing technology to open up repressed memories, a scientist named Dr. Gilbert Carson working with Dygonine had been doing an MRI on a patient when they discovered a section of our brain that was firing neurons into empty gray matter. In a risky exploratory surgery, this scientist also discovered that this part of the brain had no outlet to the temporal lobe. Without knowing precisely what it would do, Dr. Carson advised the surgeons to connect this small discovery to the temporal lobe. When the patient woke up, he didn’t feel that much different. But he did keep referring to his son’s 4th birthday party, which was a year and a half ago. We initially thought it was memory loss, since the man had brain surgery. Instead, he was recollecting specific memories (like the color of shirt he was wearing, and the color of the wrapping paper on his son’s gifts).
Just as soon as the patient was wheeled into his recovery room, his wife and now 5 1/2 year old son walk into the room to greet him. Everyone is happy, and the recovery looks to be on track.
Dr. Carson is less enthused. I was his protege, and brought me to meet the patient after the surgery was over.
“Matthew, we need to talk about this patient. Something isn’t right.”
This was strange seeing as how the patient was clearly doing well, and he was surrounded by family. “Dr. Carson,” I ask, as we leave the hospital room. “What’s the matter?”
“When the patient checked in, he had no emergency contact. He listed no dependents. He claimed a “widowed” marital status. And now he has a wife and son. I don’t understand this.”
This was puzzling to me as well. Could he have been lying? Could this man have risked his life for a surgery that could have killed him, and leave his wife and son without a husband and father?
Weeks pass, and we’re still no closer to a real answer. The patient has tried to explain what the issue is, but he swears he wrote the paperwork information down correctly. He seems willing to try and helps us and provide answers, but he’s not really sure what happened.
“Dr. Carson, I think I should have the surgery.” I say, mostly bluffing to get a reaction, but also because something happened after the surgery, and I want to know.
“Out of the question, Matthew. You’re one of the brightest young minds I’ve ever known. We’re not risking that brain for a wild experiment.”
“Doctor, something happened to our patient when opening up his Carson’s Area.” Scientists thought it only fair to name the area of the brain we discovered after Dr. Carson. It was the least they could do.
“I know that, but why does it have to be you?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I know what we’re studying, I know what outcome we’re seeking, and if I experience what happens first hand, I will be able to better explain it.”
“But Matthew, if you damage your brain, all of your work will be lost forever.”
“Maybe, but at least you’ll have the answer for the future.”
Surgery has always been nerve-wracking for me. The thought of being under anesthesia and having zero control of my body as its being operated on, the feeling of knowing that when you come out of it, you’ll be groggy and doped up. The fact that some people that have died and been resuscitated say that it’s a lot like going under anesthesia, where you don’t see black, you don’t feel anything, you just don’t exist. Oh, and this time, they’re operating on my brain.
“Say the alphabet backwards.” My anesthesiologist had a sense of humor. Jokes on him, I’ve been practicing since I was in second grade.
“Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T, s…. ”
Tyler had been asking me for weeks. “When are you getting that tattoo, dude?”
I had always wanted a tattoo of my favorite band, Pink Floyd. The prism from the album Dark Side of the Moon. “I don’t know, I’m kind of afraid of needles. And I don’t do well with pain.”
This, of course, does not sit as well with Tyler, who is covered in tattoos. “Come on, dude, it doesn’t hurt that much.”
“I’m telling you, I’m horrible with pain. I’m really not sure I want to go through with this.”
Tyler was always a sort of negative influence on me. “I swear, you’re afraid to live.”
He was right. I always preferred safety. No tattoos, no piercings, no skydiving. Never did drugs, never drank, I was always the kid that avoided pain as much as possible. Just as I’m about to go home, Tyler grabs my arm. “Just think, a life-long testament to the greatest band ever. Right here, immortalized forever. You’ve always wanted this, why not make it happen?
I’m not sure why, but this is what finally convinces me that I want to live a little. Every thought in my brain is telling me to run away, but just this once, I think I want to override my own brain. “Okay. Let’s make this happen.”
He did it. He got the most stubborn, allergic-to-pain guy he’s ever known to get a tattoo. And boy, they weren’t kidding about the pain. Holy moly, this is probably the most painful thing I’ve ever felt. I regret making this choice. Why didn’t I listen to myself 20 minutes ago.
However, 20 minutes was all it took. A few needle jabs, some unabated torture, and voila. A triangular prism with a rainbow shooting out of it. It’s truly a work of art. Now that it’s all said and done, I’m actually really proud of this, and I can’t wait to show everyone.
“Hi Matthew, you’re doing great. The surgery was a success, you’re in the recovery room right now.”
Whoa, that was strange. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream while under anesthesia. It takes me a couple of hours to finally feel like I’m awake.
“Glad to see we didn’t completely ruin your brain.” Dr. Carson wasn’t without his charm. It was good to see him while I was waking up. I was ready to get to work, but he insisted that we can wait until I’m at least up and walking again.
“Dr. Carson, how common is it for people under anesthesia to have dreams?”
“I don’t know, Matthew, I’m not that kind of doctor. What dream did you have?”
“Well, I dreamt that I got a tattoo of the Dark Side of the Moon prism. I felt the pain and everything. It’s no wonder I’ve never gotten a tattoo.”
Dr. Carson was immediately perplexed. “What do you mean never gotten a tattoo?”
I was starting to get worried. “You know, how I hate needles and pain?”
Dr. Carson got out his notebook and started writing something down really quickly. “Matthew, raise up your left sleeve for me.”
I didn’t know what this was about, until it revealed itself. A slightly-faded, clearly aged, triangular prism with a rainbow shooting out of the other side.
How is this possible? Did I somehow alter the past? That dream had to mean something. I got a tattoo in that dream, then it appeared. Interestingly enough, I remember having a conversation with my friend Tyler, and specifically not getting one for my fear of pain. Why do I have two separate memories of this event? Well, clearly something changed, because I now have this 10-year-old tattoo on my left arm.
“Dr. Carson, did I alter the past?”
Dr. Carson looks at me like I was speaking a different language.
“Because, I remember the day I got the tattoo two different ways. One where I didn’t get the tattoo, and one where I did. I told myself days after the fact that I should have just gone through with it. Did I just go back to a time where I changed the outcome?”
Dr. Carson continued to scribble in his notes, he was onto something that he wasn’t sharing with me.
“Matthew, try something for me. Think of a time where you made a decision you regret, but don’t tell me. Think about the time in your head. Scream it to yourself with your inner dialogue. I’m going to ask the nurse for some melatonin. I want you to report back with what happens when I see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”
This all seems so strange. I’m not really sure where this is really going, but I told Dr. Carson that I was willing to go through this experience to get the answer, so I trust his judgment. Within the hour, I was asleep.
Dr. Carson was sitting in the chair across the room when I wake up precisely at 6:30am. He has clearly been monitoring me for some time.
“How do we feel this morning?” Dr. Carson pulled no punches.
“Fine, I could really use some grape juice.”
“You left your bottle on your table.”
This was an interesting development. Last night before I fell asleep, I asked for some apple juice to take my melatonin. After I drank it, I thought to myself “Man, I really wish I ordered grape juice instead,” and fell asleep. I dreamed that I had laying in my hospital bed and I had asked the nurse for some grape juice. This was not an occurrence that I would have put much thought into, as my dreams are typically mundane. But this time was different. Why did I ask for grape juice in my dream, and it made itself appear when I woke up?
“Don’t you see?” Dr. Carson asked. “You did change your timeline! When you dreamed that you asked for grape juice, you went back in time to change that part of your future!”
This was bonkers. Not only did I change my timeline, but in true Matthew fashion, instead of fixing war or American history, I chose to drink a different juice. My priorities are pretty clear cut, it would seem.
“So, as long as I think about what parts of my timeline I want to change, I can travel there?”
“It seems like you’re able to change parts of your life that you have lived. We’ll need to keep studying this on you, and anyone else that will volunteer for this. This is big, Matthew. We’ve just figured out how to change reality.”
Of course, microscopic brain surgery is not without its risks. Most people that volunteered to the experimental surgery came out of it with some side effects. Some as simple as dry eyes and headaches to heart attacks and strokes. Some would travel back in time, and never return. Some would travel to a place in time that didn’t have the same medical breakthroughs we have now. Some would travel forward in time, and time can only tell what happened to those people.
I became the institute’s training and development coordinator. Teaching someone how to unlock their natural human ability to change their timelines and create a better world for themselves has been the most amazing experience. We’re learning how to create a life without war, a world without hate, and a human experience worth living.
Of course, this experience is not without its drawbacks. Again, this is still an experimental procedure with tons of negative side effects. My best friend was working with me at Dygonine when he decided he wanted the surgery. He wanted to go back to play the stock market and buy up a lot of the high-valued stock at a dirt cheap price to become the world’s “most bad ass billionaire,” in his own words. He wanted to also patent the word “thrillionaire” as his official title. Unfortunately, he forgot to tell the doctors of his family history of brain hemorrhages, and he died on the operating table.
There was another friend of mine that wanted to go back to the time of Jesus to prove once and for all that it happened exactly like it did in the bible. Spoilers: It doesn’t. He never came back from that time, and I later found out he committed suicide in Jerusalem.
There were also a lot of unintended consequences for allowing humans to go back in time. Some tried to stop World War II, only to find that other countries were all plotting similar types of awful things. Some worse, some not as bad, but every one of them was stopped because of what happened in WWII. Others tried to take technology with them to show how advanced our society has become, but by showing off that technology, we unknowingly made people afraid of it, and all funding towards technology like computers, televisions, automobiles, and space travel came to a grinding halt. One volunteer even scared society into thinking the future is evil, and anybody who goes far enough back is killed on sight.
This leads me to my trip to 1995. This point in society has been researched and chosen as the most neutral society towards time-travel that we can find. They finally started to allow technology to grow again, and started to make mass communication more accessible. It was my job to try again to convince that society that time-travel is safe, affordable, and all it takes is microscopic brain surgery. I might not want to lead with that last one.
“So, you say the stock market is at an all-time high. Does that mean everyone is rich?”
I wasn’t prepared for how unimpressed people would be about 30 years into the future. “Actually, no. Unemployment is at an all-time high, and minimum wage barely puts food on the table.”
“This doesn’t sound like a great future.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here.” I’ll literally say anything at this point to save face. “What I want to try and do is change the timeline so that we can convince society to focus on what really matters. Like building homes for everyone, free healthcare for our citizens, emphasis on education.”
“Wait, those aren’t priorities in the future either?”
Again, it occurs to me that we really haven’t progressed in 30 years. “I mean, I guess not.”
“I’m still not convinced this guy is from the future. He’s just saying things that are happening now, and trying to convince us that nothing will change. And the way to change things is to have microscopic brain surgery. Sorry, future dude. But I’m out.”
“Yeah, I have to agree with my colleague here. This isn’t going to work out. I’m sorry.”
As I leave the startup Dygonine office, I’ve now got to get back to my hotel and fall asleep. The only way to travel back and forth is through sleep, and I haven’t been able to sleep the last three days. This was my chance to convince the founders of Dygonine to try the experimental surgery themselves, so that they realize how much of threat it poses to humanity, and they shut it down long
before it starts.
My hotel room is dirty, dilapidated, and my home for the foreseeable future. I can’t think too hard about Dygonine meeting today, because if I fall asleep, I’ll return right back there to that same meeting, where I fail in trying to convince the founders that discovering the Carson’s area and connecting humans to their ability to time-travel will cause unspeakable atrocities as humans change and alter history to the point where any thought of the future brings the worst heartache imaginable.
This is my punishment. My torture. What I’m forced to live with by being the first human to discover time-travel. If only I could go back in time and take that ability away from myself.
How does the Chinese government make the Chinese people think that China is great?
let’s talk about this.
for me ,a normal citizen like who named Smith in
America.LOL
I take my daughter to hospital today.
I just pay 0.5USD to make a registration,and I can talk with an doctor who have Doctors Degree and have over 10 years experience for skin illness. for almost 10 min.
how about your country？
as a citizen, I care more about my normal life than the unreal things like politics or GDP and so on.
I agree that America is totally developed and he is powerful and rich. people live in there can elect the leaders they like. but what matters？Im common people，I dont want to just eat Ibuprofen when Im sick I want to talk with doctor too.
most western country and people is brain wsshed by Americas values now.
I wondering if you think really the leader you chosen can really represent you？？？
hospital
Pictures
This is a collection of various pictures that I AI generated for experimental purposes.
Are hamburgers, cola, and French fries exclusive to white people? Why do few Asians eat these foods?
Burgers, cola, and fries—at least in China—sell pretty well.
The image below shows a celebratory package designed by KFC in China to mark the opening of its 10,000th store.
(The Chinese character in the middle means “ten thousand,” but in Chinese, it can also resemble the Nazi swastika symbol.
Paired with the red, black, and white color scheme, it led Chinese netizens to mock it mercilessly as “Nazi KFC.” Of course, it was just an oversight, but for a giant company that has been operating in China for over 30 years with 10,000 locations, such a lack of cultural awareness is hard to excuse.)
In my impression, wherever there’s a KFC in China, there’s almost always a McDonald’s nearby, so I’d guess McDonald’s also has close to 10,000 stores.
There are also plenty of local brands—fast-food chains specializing in burgers.
For example, there’s one brand I’d never heard of before that suddenly announced it had 3,000 locations.
The name of this chain, I strongly suspect, comes from Blizzard Entertainment’s card game Hearthstone, similar to Magic: The Gathering.
(It’s this card—the store’s name and the character’s catchphrase sound almost identical.)
Cola also sells really well.
Two cans of 330ml Coke cost 1 USD. The price in China
In China, cola is colloquially called “fat nerd happy water.”
The first cola I ever had was in 1987, and my impression was terrible—I thought it tasted bitter, like Chinese medicine.
It wasn’t just me; back then, everyone thought it tasted like medicine.
(Beer was the same. The first time people tried it, they thought the yellowish-orange liquid might be urine. Plus, no one knew how to open it, so my father ended up using a kitchen knife to chop off the bottleneck of the glass bottle…)
Total beer consumption by countries around the world. It’s clear that Americans really love drinking beer. China has a large population, so its total consumption is high, but per capita, it doesn’t rank in the top 30.
Personally, I almost never drink cola because I find the sugar content too high.
But I buy it often.
Because my kids love cola chicken wings.
(Chicken wings are washed, cut into pieces, marinated with salt and cooking wine, then fried. Add green onions, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, cooking wine, and Coca-Cola.)
Fries are also popular, especially with kids and young people.
I don’t eat them at all. I find them too greasy and unhealthy.
Onion Soup Brisket
This is truly a melt-in-your mouth brisket.
Ingredients
Equipment
- 1 large baking pan
Brisket
- 1 (3 pound) beef brisket
- 1 packet Lipton onion soup mix, with or without mushrooms
- 3/4 cup cold water
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 teaspoon light brown sugar (optional)
- 2 garlic cloves, minced, or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 medium onion, sliced thinly
Instructions
- Heat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Mix together soup mix, water, ketchup, garlic, black pepper and sugar, if using, until combined.
- Pour into pan, lay brisket over sauce then turn over a few times to coat the brisket.
- Place sliced onions over brisket.
- Cover pan rather loosely with aluminum foil.
- Bake for about 3 hours or until brisket is tender.
- Let sit in the pan for about 15 minutes before slicing.
How will the trade war severely impact the United States?
Trump’s all-out trade war against the world will bring about the collapse of the dollar’s dominance!
As Trump pushes forward with the trade war, many countries can no longer sell goods to the U.S. and receive dollars in return. Since the dollar is the global reserve currency, international trade relies on it. With the trade war, many countries can no longer earn dollars—what will they do?
Think about it: after the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, Russia’s dollars were frozen (effectively leaving them without dollars). What do you think happened next?
They had to bypass the dollar and switch to using local currencies for trade.
Back in 2022, China and Russia’s local currency settlement rate was only 30%, but by 2024, it had soared to 95%.
For countries lacking dollars, they must find ways to trade with others. Aside from using gold, the only other option is local currency settlements. Since gold is in short supply and can’t support massive international trade, using local currencies is becoming the new norm.
If the world’s major economies start using their own currencies for trade, what’s the point of the dollar as the global reserve currency?
So, while Trump’s trade war might seem to boost U.S. manufacturing, it’s ultimately weakening the dollar’s global dominance.
Proof of Life After Death: Hope and a Warning From The Other Side
Are airport metal detectors effective?
As others have said – metal detectors are very sensitive, BUT…
You need to worry a lot more about secret terahertz scanners…
I used to work for a company that sold these scanners and we were doing a live demonstration of an unnamed Asian airport.
Soon after we turned on the scanner at the exit gate from customs inspection to the “free world”, we saw an elderly lady with a double camouflage tied to each leg. It turned out that she was carrying a kilo of heroin on each leg – under her sari… she had already successfully passed customs inspection…
The worst case of bad luck – for her!
These hidden scanners can see if you’re hiding something!
And you may not even know you’ve been scanned…
THE YING AND THE YANG
Written in response to: “Center your story around a character who’s struggling to let go.“
Joanne Oliver
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0 comments
George had insisted that he would help me clear out her belongings but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
His Aunt Betty was a part of my grandmother’s entertainment troop. She played piano and by all accounts was quite the male impersonator.
My trembling hands cupped her silver music box as I recalled sitting on the piano, my tiny legs dangling over the side. I could almost hear my grandmother humming happily, stitching sequins onto my alarmingly accurate costume. Why did I have to grow up so damn quickly? Puberty had been a minefield of hormones and mood swings
” One day – You will find the Ying to your Yang,” My grandmother’s voice was clear and comforting against my usual loud slamming down the phone, storming off to my room and sobbing into pillow performance. “How do you think I met your grandfather?” She sat on the edge of my bed. “His plane crashed near the cattle shed, and I helped your great grandmother nurse him back to health. Funny thing your great grandfather and great uncle Bert couldn’t find his plane with any documentation or insignia. My great uncle thought your grandfather was some sort of undercover spy and these things had been removed for national security. Your great grandfather thought the land had claimed it back. Do you know on our wedding day, your grandfather gave me his only possession—this music box. He told me its power. It led him to me and one day at the right time the box will take you exactly where you need to be”
Turning it over in my hands, I sighed. The weight of memory pressed against my chest, and before I knew it, a stubborn tear slipped down my cheek.
As a child, I’d watched her wind up the music box, curlers in her hair, claiming it held magical powers. “Close your eyes,” she’d whisper with a knowing smile, “Make a wish. “ As the melody played, her vivid stories would unfold: towering castles with kings and queens, lords and ladies weaving secrets, and Border Reivers lurking in the mist. I thought they were mere bedtime tales, but now, with the music box nestled in my palms, they felt tangible—alive.
I wound the key, half-hoping its mechanism would stir something within me.
The familiar chime filled the room. For a brief moment, everything paused—the ticking clock, the raging storm. And then, the world shifted.
The bed beneath me was gone. My clothes, too. In their place, I wore ripped jeans, a leather jacket, and a shirt that screamed punk rebellion. The smoky air and thrum of bass told me I was in a bar, packed with leather-clad strangers.
It was 1977. The Broken Palace—a forgotten haunt of the punk rock scene. My heart raced as I tried to make sense of the impossible.
“What stage of grief is this supposed to be?” I muttered, my voice swallowed by the chaos around me.
I was about to bolt when the lights dimmed, and Alex Zander stormed the stage bounding around like a hyper active gazelle. The crowd roared as he led his band The In Zanies with his raw, electric energy. This wasn’t the Alex Zander rediscovered by internet sleuths during lockdown—the one whose disappearance from his home baffled the world.
This Alex Zander was very much alive and so goddamn beautiful.His leather trousers clung to every inch of his athletic frame, his jet-black curls falling across smoldering blue eyes. The room hung on his every word.
As the band played the faint glow from the music box began pulsing in time with the beat. The melody seemed to shift, weaving into the song onstage like it belonged there, like it was calling to something—or someone. I pressed it closer to my chest, but it was too late. Alex’s gaze locked onto mine, sharp and unrelenting. It was almost as if he had sensed the music box but that was impossible
Suddenly he leapt off the stage and made a beeline for me. My breath hitched as he grabbed my hand, his warmth sending a jolt through me. He leaned closer, his voice a mix of grit and seduction. Then, with a devilish grin, he back flipped onto the stage.
There was something about him that went past the usual rockstar allure; something deeper—primal, magnetic, undeniable. Was distraction also part of the grieving process?
The music box shimmered again and the smell of lavender filled my nostrils
.
The box lay cold and still in my lap, its glow completely gone, as if it had never been there at all. My heart was still racing, my mind swimming with the sound of bass and the memory of Alex’s electric gaze. What was this thing?
My grandmother’s voice echoed in my mind: “It will take you exactly where you need to be.”
“Okay, I get it,” I whispered to the empty room even though I didn’t not yet.
Over the following weeks despite what I told myself I found myself giving in to the temptation, spinning the key and letting the melody transport me.
Each time, there was a fleeting moment—a shared glance. Then a stolen kiss but all too soon the music box would shimmer and that familiar smell of lavender would bring me back home
Denial,” I whispered as the radio burst out that his latest single had just missed out on the number one spot on the music charts. “This is obviously Denial.”
“Anger,” I muttered another time, watching Alex glare at a bandmate’s onstage behaviour.
Over time grief became something quieter, almost, manageable and I began to socialise more and convinced myself I’d stop using the music box when me and George were officially a couple. He was the Ying to my Yang so why did I put my engagement ring on the bedside table?
The smell of lavender was overbearing. I had to pick up the music box again.
That familiar tune played, and the room shifted once more.
This time, I materialized in a warm kitchen. The aroma of coffee hung in the air. Alex Zander sat cross-legged on a small sofa, papers scattered in front of him.
This was the day he disappeared. What was this? Shock therapy? Or punishment for choosing George?
My pulse quickened. As Alex started, closing the distance between us. In seconds his arms wrapped around me, and his voice trembled with relief.
“So it finally brought you here,” he murmured.
“I don’t understand…” I stammered, my words swallowed as his lips crashed against mine. The intensity between us was overwhelming, a release of something that had been building for far too long.
The music box fell to the floor, shattering into small constellations , amplifying the sensations between us.
As he lifted me, silk sheets materialized beneath us, and we surrendered to the pull of fate.
When I caught my breath, I glanced at the music box. It was whole again, perched smugly on the bedside table.The warm air wrapped around me, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of lavender. It wasn’t faint this time—it was everywhere, rich and alive, like my grandmother’s soft Goodnight kiss upon my forehead. Suddenly , the ache in my chest loosened, and a quiet certainty settled over me. The music box had done exactly what it was meant to do
Were there any American citizens living on US soil who died because they couldn’t afford healthcare?
I once managed a coffee shop/bakery. One of the shift supervisors was an older gentleman named J.P. Because we worked for a small independent company, we had no healthcare benefits.
J.P. and I worked together for a couple of years. I could tell he wasn’t doing well and he soon told me that he had received a diagnosis of cancer. That, in and of itself, was horrific. But after a few months J.P. told me he was going to no longer going to seek treatment due to the fact that he could not afford his prescriptions nor his treatments.
I pleaded and pleaded with him that only the living have to worry about paying bills, and he only needed to face that challenge if the treatments worked. J.P. didn’t see it that way.
I had the pleasure of seeing him waste away, getting weaker and weaker…watching him trudge along, serving customers with a smile and then practically collapsing when the customers turned away.
Then, one day J.P. didn’t show up for his shift. He didn’t answer his phone. I called one of his sisters to check on him. She found him dead, to no one’s surprise.
I’ll never forget the way his nephew broke down crying at J.P.’s funeral service. He was in front of the congregation singing “His Eye Is On the Sparrow” and could no longer control his grief, tears streaming down his face, the words choking him. With a shuddering breath, he continued on, leaving all of us absolutely overcome with emotion.
J.P. had to choose between food and rent or life-saving medicine and treatment. It is the height of ridiculousness that in the wealthiest nation in the world a grown man working a full-time job at more than minimum wage should be put in that situation through no fault of his own.
It infuriates me, still to this day, that I had to watch a colleague and a friend work himself to death because he couldn’t afford healthcare.