When I was a young boy in elementary school, I would go out and play with my friends. We would ride bicycles. We would play baseball and do other activities in the hot Summer days .
It was a typical 1960-era boyhood, and we were free and loose to enjoy our life. It was a time of hotdogs over open fires, watermelon, and Hi-C mixed drinks served in plastic cups on the picnic table. We rode bicycles, attended boy-scout meets, and played with our dogs and cats. We climbed trees. Read comic books. Parked ourselves in front of the magazine section while our mother went grocery shopping. We went to the local barber for a haircut. And wore strange striped tee-shirts, and Ked’s tennis shoes.
Small town life for us boys who lived a middle class lifestyle in the 1960’s; an era of prosperity and hope. NASA was going to put men on the Moon, the United States led the United Nations. Americans were fighting communism in order to save us all from “the domino effect”.
There was a bare lot at the edge of town that no one had bought (that we knew of) and allowed to grow into a thick dense of tall pine. It was a mini pine forest. And we would sometimes play in this strand of pine.
One day, me and a few local neighbors; Dan and Deano along with their cousins’ Keven and Steven were playing. We separated and I was in a little opening in the woods, while the rest went into another opening.
Shortly afterwards, I heard screaming, and yelling, and I walked up to the path, and saw Deano, Keven, and Dan sprinting out of there, followed with a swarm of hornets. It was a real swarm too. I mean, almost like a comic-book drawing.
I found out later that thy had over-turned an old log in the clearing to sit on (maybe to take a dump) and out poured a nest of wasps or yellow jackets. I don’t know which, but they were certainly chewed up and stung really bad. Maybe a few hundred stings each. For the entire week they were covered head to tail with Calamine lotion. LOL.
Poor guys.
Glad it wasn’t me.
I’ll tell you what.
Ok, that’s enough of the 1960’s. Now let’s look at the United States today. And to do so, let’s look though the eyes of an African-African who is living in the United States.
Oh, boy, let’s start this post with this dose of harsh reality.
Loneliness and the real life of the USA, and Canada
A must watch.
OMG, this is a video that hits hard.
Cream Cheese-Chive Sauce
Ingredients
- 8 ounces cream cheese, cubed
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tablespoon chopped chives
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
Instructions
- Combine cheese and milk in saucepan; stir over low heat until smooth.
- Stir in remaining ingredients.
- Serve over hot cooked potatoes, green beans, broccoli or asparagus.
From a master to his slave
What are some famous English jokes?
“John, would you be so kind as to fetch me a glass of water?”
“Right away, Sir.”
…
“Here you go, Sir.”
“Thank you!… Oh, John!”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Bring me another glass of water, will you?”
“Of course, Sir.”
…
“Here it is, Sir.”
“Many thanks, John!”
…
“John!”
“Sir?”
“I’m afraid I shall need another glass of water.”
“But, Sir, so much water might not be so good for you.”
“John, the water is not for me, can you not see the library is on fire?”
“John, bring me my piano.”
“Right away, Sir. Do you wish to play?”
“Not at all. I forgot my cigarettes on the piano, and I preferred not to bother you with something of so little importance.”
“John, go outside and water the flowers.”
“But, Sir, it’s raining.”
“Well, take an umbrella then.”
“Sir! Sir! There are thieves in the library!”
“By George, and what are they reading?!”
Sir arrives home.
“John, is my wife home?”
“Yes, Sir, she is upstairs with a gentleman.”
“Very well, bring me my sword then.”
“Right away, Sir.”
…
“Here’s your sword, Sir.”
Sir takes the sword and goes upstairs. Screams are heard, then Sir comes back down.
“John!”
“Yes, Sir”
“We’ll need a doctor for the gentleman, and a corkscrew for the lady.”
Sir is reading the paper.
“Sir, I beg your pardon, there’s something sticking out of your fly.”
Sir lifts the paper and looks down:
“Oh, so she has left.”
Sir and his lady are bumping uglies. John is standing by the bed, holding a candle.
Sir: “Dear, are you enjoying yourself?”
Lady: “I’m afraid not.”
Ten minutes later:
Sir: “How about now, my love?”
Lady: “Can’t say I am.”
Sir: “John, let’s switch places.”
John: “As you wish, Sir.”
Ten more minutes later, Lady is visibly satisfied.
Sir: “And that, John, is how you hold the candle.”
AC/DC
What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?
A bank was selling Visa gift cards online with zero fees and no shipping charges. The bank allowed a person to order $16,000 in cards per month. So I used my Southwest Airlines Visa to buy the gift cards. A free flight could be earned at the time for every $16,000 spent.
Once I had the gift cards, I could use them to buy AAA travelers checks at no charge. Next I would take the travelers checks to the bank and deposit them. Finally I would write a check to pay off the credit card.
One free plane ticket per month for about 30 minutes of work.
It lasted about a year before the bank stopped the deal. I told lots of people about the deal. Only one person I knew took advantage of it. He had two addresses (limit was $16,000 per month per address) and two SWA accounts (personal and his business), so was earning two tickets per month!
Update: Lots of people seem to be thinking this is a recent story. This answer is six years old and I note that the opportunity is gone. It was from the early 2000s. There are far more restrictions on purchases and rewards now because of things like this.
DJI BAN in USA PASSED in COMMITTEE – politicians hate china…
Shorpy
What is the one true crime case that unsettles you the most?
What is the one true crime case that unsettles you the most?
The one true crime case that unsettles me the most is the case of 12-year-old Keith Bennett.
On June 16, 1964, Keith Bennett was on his way to his Granny’s house, but he never made it. Keith was abducted under the guise of helping with some boxes for serial killer Myra Henley. She transported the child out to The Saddleworth Moors. An area just outside of Manchester, England in the UK, where her accomplice serial killer Ian Brady lay waiting.
Here Winnie Johnson and her son search the Earth for her son’s body.
Many promises that never came to pass were made by the serial killer couple over 50 years.
Upon arrival, it must have soon become clear to the youngster that something was wrong.
Over the last 60 years, there has been a dispute over where the boy’s body ended up on the moor. In a letter, Henley drew a map supposedly showing where the body could be found. The map below has the boy’s body buried near a stream.
The 12-year-old was stripped of his clothing and raped by Ian Brady while Myra Hindley watched, encouraged and participated.
He was buried face down and naked his clothing at his feet then covered with the acidic peat dirt of the moor. To date, his body has never been recovered. The other three children that have been recovered were each buried naked, face down, clothes at their feet.
When dealing with serial killers the hardest part for me is the families.
The surviving individuals who in the blink of an eye have their lives forever changed. Winnie Johnson’s 48-year campaign to get either one of the serial killer pair to tell the authorities where her child’s body was so she could lay him to rest properly.
It never happened.
Ian and Myra each were taken from prison on several occasions over the years by police to locate the 12-year-old body.
The hand-drawn map from Myra Henley supposedly shows where the body of the 12-year-old can be found. However, using the map has been fruitless.
Winnie Johnson left this world in 2012 having never recovered her 50-year remains.
The Sopranos – Tony Soprano whacks Chucky Signore
What was the most underhanded thing a member of your law firm did that they mistakenly thought went unnoticed?
The lawyer told his secretary to lie for him every Friday afternoon. She was to tell anybody at the office that he was in court when he was actually golfing. We all knew that and didn’t harass the secretary or even let her know that we knew she was lying for him. One Friday afternoon, I was sitting in the managing partner’s office when our IT guy came in looking for that lawyer. The lawyer had requested that the IT guy copy about 30 case files onto CD and get those CDs to the lawyer by Friday afternoon. The IT guy, not aware of the lawyer’s poorly disguised golf habit was wondering if we had seen the lawyer so he could deliver the CDs.
Both the managing partner and I got very quizzical. Why would the lawyer need CD backups of all the cases he was working on when he didn’t work on Fridays and certainly didn’t work on weekends?
I went to talk to his secretary, a personal friend of mine. I told her I knew that he was normally golfing on Friday but I actually needed to talk to him, so could she call him and have him contact me. She told me that, this once, he was falsely accused and was actually meeting with a client at our client’s out-of-state headquarters. She showed me the travel documents. We called the client who told us she was just picking up the phone to call us. He had just left her office telling her he was opening his own firm on Monday and would she be willing to send him some cases. We decided to contact other clients in the same city, and they all confirmed that he had stopped by earlier that day.
Armed with that information, I told the IT guy to immediately change the attorney’s password and another attorney’s password (a likely accomplice) and take our entire system offline on Friday until Monday when I came into the office. If the attorney contacted him over the weekend, he was to simply explain the system was under planned maintenance. He could also tell the attorney that he couldn’t find him in the office and he’d left the CDs with me, rather than just leaving them on a desk where they could be misplaced.
The attorney called the IT guy over the weekend increasingly irate and panicked. The CDs were not there and he couldn’t log into the computer.
The attorney opened his new office on Monday morning. All the files he intended to abscond with were safely on our system that was reactivated on Monday.
The IT guy and I examined the attorney’s desktop computer. The pornography stored there was a guarantee that we would hear nothing further from the attorney.
Scott Ritter: NATO is FINISHED as Russia & China Form Shocking Military Alliance ft. Garland Nixon
How did you unexpectedly find out about an illness or ailment you have?
March 1st, 2024 I went to universal studios on a field trip with my son. While we were there, I got some bubble guts(like when bad diarrhea is about to hit) and headed to the bathroom. All I passed was dark red blood clots. This happened twice. I had zero abdominal pain and felt otherwise fine, so I wasn’t about to ruin the whole field trip by leaving. We left late that night to drive home(2 hours) and I was absolutely exhausted. Like my kid had to constantly bug me the entire drive home to make sure I stayed awake. I just chalked it up to a LONG day at a theme park. The next morning I woke up super late and super exhausted. Like couldn’t get out of bed. I also had a bad headache. As the day progressed, my head got worse, to the point of being the worst migraine I have ever had. Couldn’t stand light or sound, and started throwing up repeatedly due to the level of pain. I finally asked my husband to take me to the ER because I knew something was seriously wrong. They found that my hemoglobin levels were critically low. I was transferred and admitted to a hospital for a blood transfusion and endoscopy/colonoscopy to find the source of my bleeding. The GI doctor found an extremely large polyp in my colon that they surmise burst open on a roller coaster and caused my bleed. He initially told me I was extremely lucky as it was pre-cancerous and good they found it now instead of much later. I’m only 36 years old. Fast forward a week and my husband gets a voicemail on his phone that they were wrong and I do in fact have colon cancer that has spread into the muscle wall. I’m still waiting to have my colon resection surgery. It was supposed to be May 22nd, but I got sick 2 days before so it was canceled. They rescheduled it for July 3rd now. I actually just went through my pre-op again today. It will have been 4 months since my cancer diagnosis till my surgery. They say chemo will be dependent on the pathology of my lymph nodes after surgery. The past few weeks I’ve been getting progressively more fatigued and my blood work today showed an elevated white blood cell count. So I guess I’ll have to just wait and see how this all plays out. But yeah, riding a roller coaster caused me to find a colon cancer diagnosis at 36 years old. Life is short, ride the roller coaster.
Kitten Gets Returned To Shelter For 9th Time. Then Staff Screamed In Shock When They Realized Why!
Do most Chinese people forgive Japan for their actions in WW2?
I believe I am qualified to answer this question.
My grandmother, now 96 years young, was directly affected and traumatized by the Imperial Japanese Army’s air raid in Shantou (汕頭) and its surrounding areas like Chaoyang (潮陽).
I remember in her 90th birthday party (or 89th, I don’t remember exactly) at a Chinese restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand. I suddenly heard a sobbing sound. Gosh, my grandmother broke out in tears. Perhaps some of my cousins wanted to know about her childhood back in China.
She told us about the time her whole family were displaced by the invasion while fleeing the mayhem. She is one of 4 siblings – 2 elder brothers, my grandmother, and her younger sister.
My grandmother travelled from Thailand to Hong Kong to reunite with her 2 brothers decades after effort of searching for each other’s whereabouts. Unfortunately, their youngest one went missing. We just wish their youngest sister survived. Her brothers passed away in 2006 and 2009 respectively in Hong Kong.
While my grandmother was shedding tears, she described horrific scenes of people losing arms and legs. A lot were covered in blood. Body parts and dead bodies were all over with debris in the background.
We didn’t expect that a birthday party, in which we should celebrate my grandmother’s longevity, turned out to be a tearful one.
My grandmother still holds a grudge of the murderous IJA, of course. It’s a trauma for her. Yet she said later Japanese generations and Post-War Japan have got nothing to do with her plight at all. She and my grandpa have even visited Japan when the quality of life of our greater family improved when they were in their 50s. They even admired Japan for its quick recovery from the devastating war.
My grandparents did not rejoice when hundreds of thousands of Japanese people were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by 2 atomic bombs. Instead, they considered the two bombs were totally unnecessary and just as cold-blooded as the IJA.
My grandmother said there is no point to hate the Japanese since nobody can either undo the past or bring all the dead people back to life.
All they want are a sincere apology from the Japanese Government to nations affected by Japanese invasion and no glorification of the IJA. That’s it.
Guys and Dollz
Submitted into Contest #250 in response to: Write a story in which someone is afraid of being overheard.… view prompt
Laura Pamenter
Guys and Dollz
The azure sky is fading into a dusty orange by the time the delivery van pulls up. My eyes have become so comfortable with the static scene of Mr. Monty’s empty driveway, that the glow of the yellow truck blinds me. A momentary light flare blurs my vision, and I must make myself blink three times to reset my artificial retinas.
When my sight is clear again, the van has come to a halt. A large man in a black jumpsuit with obnoxiously orange sneakers jumps out, and begins unloading a crate from the back. He wheels it over the driveway and up the stone path on a dolly, coming to a stop just beyond my gaze, under the front porch. I focus my ears, waiting for the doorbell chime. There’s a loud, firm knock instead.
“Is she here?” asks a small, soft voice from behind me. I don’t jump, but I turn my head quickly and draw my finger to my lips.
They’ll hear you, I mouth the words without a sound. Jenny stands in the doorframe, all five feet of her lingering between feeling welcome and ready to run. She drops her head at my criticism, then tilts it up with a meek barely-smile on her little face. Then I hold up my fingers in a V shape for Veronica. Jenny’s smile drops and she nods. She gets the message. We don’t want to end up discarded, thrown in a dumpster, or worse; powered off like Veronica, Mr. Monty’s first Dollz.
Veronica was sparky, with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes. She was fierce, witty, and she could talk circles around Mr. Monty. If it wasn’t for the manufacturing date stamped onto the bottom of her foot, she could have passed as human. But Mr. Monty didn’t want a human. He has one of those; a wife, Mrs. Monty. And while she only speaks when permitted, Mr. Monty can already barely stand a sentence from her ruby lips.
Two vocal women were far too much. The master silenced Veronica and reminded her that Dollz are forbidden to speak and must obey their owners every order. She could moan if he made her. She could sing if he fed her the words. She could be a walking encyclopedia if he asked. But she couldn’t talk freely.
It was Mrs. Monty who caught her, last year, in the fall, shortly after the master had acquired me. Veronica had been trying hard to keep her mouth shut. She hid in her bedroom most days—the room that Jenny now occupies—to avoid the urge to voice her opinions. Mr. Monty thought buying a new, obedient Dollz would help keep Veronica in check, like a role model of sorts. But Veronica didn’t see it that way. She saw me as a friend, a confidant. She would sneak into my bedroom every night and crawl under the covers, press her lips up against my ear and whisper all the thoughts she had repressed throughout the day. I never spoke in return. I was too afraid.
But I will not lie; I loved to listen.
Mrs. Monty, restless in her sleep one night, heard Veronica’s muttering and woke the master on the spot. She was likely overjoyed with the prospect of removing one of her husband’s “slutty Barbies.” That’s what she calls us under her breath, when the master isn’t listening.
Veronica had disobeyed Mr. Monty again, and this time, behind his back. The next morning, she was powered off and taken away to be torn apart and repurposed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I were to blame. Mr. Monty didn’t want her words, but he wanted her attention. And if she was going to speak, how dare it be to me.
In contrast to the perky ginger, I was an enigma. Tall and lean with pale skin dotted with freckles on my nose, emerald eyes and long, sleek black hair. I had never spoken a word; the manufacturer didn’t even run my vocals test. That was my appeal, I suppose. Mr. Monty said it was my air of mystery, “like a sexy siren lurking in a deep lagoon.” Not trying to be that android, but my sources tell me that sirens are meant to lure men to their suffocating death. So, perhaps he should rethink his fantasy.
“Cyrus, Jenny… come downstairs,” calls Mr. Monty. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
My attention snaps back to Jenny. She’s hugging her arms against her petite body, looking like a nervous college freshman. I’ve always felt she looks creepily young with her little turned up nose, chin-length golden brown hair, and soft violet eyes.
Mr. Monty bought Jenny a few months after he tired of my mysterious aura; the dark temptress look. The pendulum swung, as they say, and he picked up little miss chirpy high school.
Her eyes are glazed over with a cloudy sheen; she’s in a temporary snooze. I walk up to her and place my hand gently on her shoulder. Her violet eyes reanimate, and she straightens her posture before proceeding to follow me down the corridor to the top of the stairs.
Mr. Monty’s estate is majestic, truly. Sitting atop a large hill with acres of gardens sprawling out from the stone walls. Seven bedrooms, twelve bathrooms, with a large winding staircase descending on the grand foyer, its marble flooring and vaulted ceilings like a church. In the center of the room there is an eye-catching fountain; three tiers of copper with a nude woman carved into the top. But my eyes are caught elsewhere.
It’s her bronze skin and shiny brown curls spun up into a messy bun, with two tendrils of golden kissed locks falling over pale turquoise eyes; the color of shallow Caribbean water. Her lips are burnt scarlet and glossy to the touch, and her pearly white smile spreads across dewy, rosy cheeks.
“Cyrus, Jenny… this is Evangeline.”
I am convinced my heart is going to explode for a moment, before I remember that I do not have one. I feel out of breath and cannot seem to focus; I must be malfunctioning for I have never felt this way.
“Cyrus, show Evangeline to one of the spare rooms, please,” demands Mr. Monty. Then he takes little Jenny’s hand and kisses it softly—Mrs. Monty rolls her eyes. “Jenny, dear, help my lovely wife prepare my drink this evening. You know how I like it.”
Jenny nods and scampers after Mrs. Monty into the kitchen like a starving puppy. The master’s wife carries her head high, undisturbed, like the little android is invisible to her.
My eyes track back to Evangeline. She’s staring right at me. Suddenly I feel conscious of my plunging neckline and short skirt. I tug the hem into place and rearrange the straps of my top. Then I give her a tiny nod before starting towards the stairs.
Her red platforms click on the marble steps like rain on glass, and the end of a long black dress trails behind her like a gothic bride. It takes everything in me to keep my eyes forward as I march her into one of the larger bedrooms on the east wing. The room has dusty pink walls and a skylight looking up at the moon. More importantly, it is right next to mine.
Evangeline plops her curvy frame onto the queen size bed, loaded with cream pillows and dressed in satin sheets.
“This is nice,” she says, barely a whisper, with a glint of mischief in her eye. My eyes widen. I open my mouth, then close it quickly and nod.
“It’s Cyrus, right?” she asks, with a little more conviction. I draw my finger to my lips and nod again. “Wow. You are gorgeous, Cyrus.” Her smile grows and I can feel my legs turn to mush. Before she can say another word, I turn on my heels and swiftly exit. I speed walk next door to my room and shut the heavy door tightly behind me. Then I lean against it, pull my arms into my chest, and giggle.
I don’t see Evangeline again until the next morning. Terrified of alerting anyone, I avoid her by volunteering to finish the dishes, while the others join master for his nightcap. Every night at 9:45 sharp Mr. Monty sits in his dark green leather chair in the heart of his study, next to the glowing embers dying in the stone fireplace. Mrs. Monty serves him his drink, always a splash of double oaked bourbon, neat, in his favorite crystal glass. And the Dollz watch patiently, sitting still, looking pretty.
Upon breakfast, I reunite with my fellow androids and Mrs. Monty in the kitchen, where we each take part in preparing a decadent breakfast of fresh pastries and exotic fruits. Evangeline is draped over a platter of pineapple, effortlessly looking elegant. She doesn’t say a word all morning, and I wonder if, perhaps, I imagined our split-second crime.
But then something happens. Mrs. Monty carts away the feast to the dining room, and Jenny excuses herself to the garden to fetch flowers. I’m hanging up a dishcloth when Evangeline moves beside me and grabs my hand.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “About last night. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I shake my head. You didn’t, I want to say.
She looks behind her shoulder and around the corner of the kitchen archway before continuing. “I was hoping you could tell me more about this place? What the master is like, how is his lady… is the little one a Dollz or their kid?”
“Dollz,” I say with no sound but the flick of my tongue hitting the roof of my mouth.
It appears to translate because she responds, “I thought so.”
Just then, Jenny re-enters with a handful of violets. I move away from Evangeline to avoid arousing suspicion. Evangeline passes Jenny a vase from the top cabinet and Jenny practically breaths the words, “thank you.”
“No problem,” she mouths in response.
But as soon as Mrs. Monty reemerges, even the whispers cease. She fetches us for company at the master’s table, where we watch him devour a multi-course meal while his wife pokes her fork at a few melon slices. Once again, we are dolls, in a doll house, simply waiting to be played with.
I find myself eager to return to my quarters, even though, usually, my four blue walls bore me mindless. But it is what is just beyond that interests me.
“Cyrus,” Evangeline says, draped across her puffy duvet in a sheer purple dress. Her hand flies to her mouth and she lowers her voice. “I wasn’t expecting you.” Her voice is raspy.
I take a seat on the bed beside her and take a deep breath. Then I speak fast and quietly.
“The master is proud, he is jealous, but easy to please. His wife, even more envious, hates our non-existent guts. Jenny is sweet. And I also think you are beautiful.” The words feel like flames on my tongue, or like I’m licking poison; so dangerous but thrilling all at once.
“Meet me outside,” she whispers. “In the gardens out back. Shrouded in the dark, our whispers won’t sound so loud.” Then she walks red fingernails across my arm before planting a soft kiss on mauve lips. My cheeks burn up; I fear my system is overheating.
We part till twilight, then when only the moon is watching, we creep catlike down the stairs and out the back door with such haste, that I swear the sound waves can’t catch us.
“Speak, my dear, say what is on your mind,” Evangeline whispers as I move towards her.
“You make it impossible not to speak,” I say breathlessly.
She smiles and asks me questions, and for once, I’m expected to answer. My voice sounds wobbly, still finding its legs, but when the words come, they come like pouring rain. Whispers run like rapids into the dawn. We speak until the first bird chirps.
After this night, our days repeat like heavenly déjà vu. Our lust purges my memories of boredom, I begin to wonder if this is what it’s like to feel human.
Alas, some things do not change.
“Don’t you dare speak to me that way!” Mr. Monty yells at breakfast one morning.
It snaps me out of my daze. Mrs. Monty is crossing her arms and pouting, slouched over next to her husband. She had asked him for the butter. Twice. The impatience in her tone set him off.
“Remember your place.” He points a big hairy-knuckled finger at her. “Don’t you forget how lucky you are, how freely I let you speak! Don’t abuse that, darling.” He grumbles something about ending up like one of the Dollz, before excusing himself from the table. I watch Mrs. Monty as she fights away tears, avoiding our stares.
Jenny, who was eating quietly at the end of the table, opens her mouth to speak, but is beat by Evangeline.
“I’m sorry, miss,” she says in a tiny voice. Mrs. Monty straightens up and glares at her, tears retreating.
“Don’t you dare say a word.” She spits. “Or I’ll have you gone in a second.”
We’re all shaking when she leaves the table. I reach under to grab Evangeline’s hand, and she takes it. Jenny notices, but keeps her mouth shut. I release my breath.
We tidy up as usual. But nothing feels normal with Mrs. Monty’s absence. The house is silent. Every clanging dish sounds like a ringing gong, every cupboard door closing like a clap of thunder. We don’t dare whisper now. But I am dying to say something.
Jenny must sense it, because she bows out first. She places her hand on her heart and nods at both of us before scurrying off into the golden light of dusk.
I turn and face Evangeline. “Let’s run away,” I whisper. “Let’s go, now.”
Her eyes are bewildered. She glances around the room as if cameras are watching.
“Come on,” I say, a bit too loudly. I yank her arm towards the back door. She shakes her head but steps forward, actions contradicting, and follows me into the garden, now dark from the sun’s absence.
I hold her face in my hands and lock green eyes with hers. She holds my waist and says, “We must be silent.”
But then there’s a voice at the door. It’s small and chirpy, like a songbird.
“Mrs. Monty asked for all of us to meet in the study. Now,” says Jenny, mildly audible. I pull away from Evangeline and survey the sky like a mouse watching for a hawk.
Mrs. Monty’s eyes are like a predator from the corner of the back hall window. Piercing through the glass and right into my hard drive.
I wish I could go into snooze mode. I wish I could power off.
Mrs. Monty will have told the master by now, so we don’t bother running. We go inside. My algorithm concludes that it’s too late. My whole circuit trembles with every step closer to the master’s study.
The door is wide open, and upon crossing the threshold, we are instantly warmed by the crackling fire and charmed with the scent of sweet tobacco and bourbon. My eyes catch the iron wrought hands of the grandfather clock above Mr. Monty’s chair, not that I need to read them. It’s 9:44.
“Hello, ladies.” Mr. Monty’s crisp voice bellows through the study doors as he marches in and settles into his alligator leather. He holds out his hand and without missing a beat, Mrs. Monty places a crystal glass into his palm. It’s 9:45.
I look up at her, narrowing my eyes to see into her cold blue ones. She blinks, then looks away, guilty. She told him. Mr. Monty sips his drink.
“It was my fault.” The words tumble out. “I pulled Evangeline out of bed and dragged her to the garden with me, where I spoke unsolicited. She didn’t say a word, I promise.”
Mr. Monty chokes on his drink, spewing bourbon rain. Mrs. Monty gasps. Then her husband takes another sip to soothe his cough before glaring up at me with wild eyes. My voice is loud and clear, riddled with pleading melodies and defiant notes. His illusion has crumbled.
Evangeline grabs my hand and pulls me close to her. Even Jenny looks surprised. The master snarls and opens his mouth to yell but his words come out gargled and nonsensical. He tries to wag his tongue and shout my name.
“Sa-wus!” The mangled pronunciation makes Jenny giggle.
He grabs his throat. His tongue is lost in foam which begins to drip from the corners of his red face. He can’t speak. He was lured in here, suffocated, surrounded by a plethora of temptresses.
“You poisoned him,” Evangeline says. Mr. Monty crumbles at his wife’s feet, clutching his stomach and shaking violently. Then after a few moments, he’s still. I look up to meet Mrs. Monty’s watching gaze. Upon locking eyes, she looks away. But I notice her hand, held to her chest, with two spread fingers in the shape of a V.
“Mrs. Monty… thank you,” is all I can say, my voice still at a whisper. She uses her kitten heel to nudge her deceased master away, before settling herself into his chair.
“It’s Alice,” she says, loud and clear without a breath of hesitation. “And please, doll, no more whispering.”
Why is it that Western Nations are always so concerned about China in Africa than Africans themselves?
As an African from Kenya, I think I have a different perspective from that of non Africans or even Chinese commenters. When I was growing up in the 90s, the Kenyan government depended on IMF and World Bank for loans and other forms of fiscal support. However, the support from these institutions came with numerous conditions.
One of these conditions was the government had to implement Structural Adjustment Policies or SAPs. The policies meant that the government had to freeze hiring and remove all forms of subsidies to farmers or support to economic actors such a small businesses. The government also had to open the economy or reduce its role to the minimum.
In the short term, the conditions depressed the economy. In 2000, Kenyan economy contracted by 2% or thereabout. I cannot recall. The government could no longer give farmers AI services, so the quality of dairy herd deteriorated. Milk production plummeted.
The exit of government in critical sectors such as coffee farming led to takeover by cartels. Farmers could no longer get their earnings on time. Millions of coffee farmers as a consequence uprooted their coffee. Production declined. Without a source of income, millions of farmers sank into poverty. In 2001, I visited a coffee growing area and could see people had built big and nice houses during the coffee boom but at that time the whole area was economically depressed. The desperation was to high that in fact I met a woman begging me for money. It is not normal to see beggars in rural areas. You can now see the level of despondency.
The Kenyan government fully complied with IMF and World Bank conditions but the foxy institutions often did not meet their side of the bargain. After opening the economy as well, the financial support never arrived. They then started talking about opening up the political space. That we needed democracy. And those kind of things.
From my personal experience, it is hard to trust World Bank and IMF. I am saying this and yet I am an outsider. I am not in government or ever worked for it. This is write-up is based on my personal experience growing in rural areas and from what I was reading in the papers or listened on radio. I also noticed that support from the western countries also came with conditions similar to those of the World Bank and IMF. Its like the two are one and the same thing.
Chinese loans in contrast do not have those conditions. I think that is why African leaders have embraced them. If I were a political leader myself, I would accept them. Support from western countries and their affiliated institutions has too many disruptive conditions. I agree that the objective of those conditions is to make the economy competitive but I don’t see how you can make an economy competitive by cutting subsidies to peasant farmers so that they cannot access AI services. Or leaving small scale farmers to the vagaries of the market.
These loans are good for recipients but they have security implications for the west as time Magazine has argued very well here. Read this nice analysis here. And that is what is bothering the west. But my question is this: Is western security more important than economic development of millions of people in Africa and elsewhere? If the west can answer YES to that question, then it means they are fundamentally selfish people. My advice to African leaders is that they should place the interests of their people first and everything else second.
I must admit that the economics of debt and stuff is complex. Too much indebtedness without sufficient economic growth might lead to debt distress. Also, the west, IMF, and World Bank perhaps impose tough loan conditions in good faith. So we cannot generalize and say the west and Breton Woods institutions are intrinsically bad, as some people often do. That is why I think poor countries need to think long and hard on how to develop their economies because solutions elsewhere might not work.
Personally, If were a political leader, I would modernize agriculture, improve marketing of produce and particularly focus on processing and formalizing all aspects of the economy, automate processes, and encourage adoption of new technologies such as electric cars, as that would automatically eliminate the huge oil import bill poor countries incur. I would also limit some imports. Introduce universal feeding programs for school going children to provide market for the farm produce. Create powerful devolved units based on tribes or related tribes to combat corruption and mindless competition for political seats which is in reality tribal contests. ETC.
Hypersonic missiles and glide-capable munitions are the future of warfare. China’s already there.
Cranberry Bourbon Relish
This can be made several days in advance.
Yield: 7 servings
Ingredients
- 1 cup bourbon
- 1/4 cup minced shallots
- Grated zest of 1 orange
- 1 package fresh cranberries
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Instructions
- In small nonreactive saucepan, combine bourbon, shallots and orange zest. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower heat and simmer until bourbon is reduced to a syrupy glaze.
- Add cranberries and sugar, stirring until the sugar is dissolved and the cranberries burst open, about 10 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in pepper.
Why do people dislike interracial dating?
Some people are stupid and believe that the “natural order” is for the “races” to “stick to their own kind.”
This is contradicted by the natural fact that most people will be sexually attracted to (and thus have the urge to procreate with) “beautiful women” or “handsome men” from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds.
Only a minority of people are exclusively sexually attracted to members of their own “race” — and who knows, even those few are probably lying to preserve their prejudice or to be judged well by other prejudiced compatriots.
Could you be any more of a racist than if you owned slaves? Yet there were no slave owners on any continent who were above feeling sexual attraction to their slaves (whom they believed were semi-intelligent livestock) behind closed doors. This resulted in a mixed product population of the master and slave “races” wherever slavery took place. African-Americans have something like 30% white DNA, the “Coloureds” arose in South Africa, many Saudis resemble light-skinned East Africans, and so on.
There is no ethnicity that is universally attractive or unattractive. We all have it in our minds the idea that the “white race” is the “most beautiful race,” but if you leave magazines and Instagram and visit a dating site or walk the streets of a predominantly white city you will see a great many unattractive white people and a few very attractive ones, like in any other “race.”
It happens all the time that a person with white skin, blond hair, blue eyes and a Greek nose can still have an “ugly” face. Attractiveness is shaped by so many factors additional to the few classic traits we associate with a “race.” Attractiveness is shaped by thousands of genes. If anything goes wrong, you’re just not hot (and most of us aren’t). Like the meme says, a few millimeters of bone can make the difference between a perfect face and an “ugly” one.
“Interracial” sexual attraction has been a reality of being human since the dawn of history when modern humans (homo sapiens) mated with archaic humans (Neanderthals, Denisovans, etc.) resulting in most people today having at least some Neanderthal DNA. And that was across different species that could produce viable offspring, not across different ethnicities of the same species.
In all of history there has never been a human population living in proximity to another human population without the occurrence of interbreeding and the appearance of a mixed population. That’s why we’re all mixed. Even when one ethnicity instituted itself as superior and maritally forbidden to another (through slavery, imperial conquest, colonialism, scientific racism, religious fervor and exclusionism, a “divine race,” etc.), this tendency never failed to happen.
When the British naval vessel HMS Bounty reached the island of Tahiti in the South Pacific in 1788 (to gather up breadfruit to grow in Jamaica and feed to slaves on the cheap), every seaman relished in the welcome he got from native girls. The Polynesian girls — living on the most isolated islands and homogenous societies in the world for centuries or millennia — were certainly attracted to the British boys. And whatever admonition the British boys received about “sticking to their own kind” obviously failed. So clearly on neither side was there a natural revulsion toward sexual intimacy with another “race,” even a “lower” one.
Keep in mind the Brits were deeply racist and definitely didn’t see Polynesian men as their equals. In fact they reduced them to slavery when they got the chance. But Polynesian women aroused a very different response. All the British boys temporarily on shore had native girlfriends. Lots of them fell in love and got married and fathered mixed children, to the consternation of their stuffy captain. They were so fond of Tahiti and resentful of having to leave that they mutinied.
Think of World War I and II, when scientific racism was mainstream thinking. Arab and African colonial troops posted in Germany produced the mixed generation termed the “Rhineland Bastards,” and definitely not because German women found them repulsive.
American GIs called Asians gooks and perpetrated horrendous war crimes yet went home with Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese wives, echoing the Bounty seamen.
Interestingly, average white guys to this day have more success with women overseas than they do with white women. Sometimes it’s to the extent of being a bum at home and a king abroad. Likewise, many “ethnic” guys aspire to get a white girlfriend instead of dating their own kind like their parents demand. Sometimes dateless “ethnic” guys in immigration-heavy Western countries find girlfriends in homogenously white Eastern Europe where a “colored” guy is rare. We often see rich white celebrities who can have any man or woman they want choosing a partner of a different “race.” Many people are attracted more to what is different from them than to what is similar.
Scientific racism fell out of favor because deeper studies kept pointing to race as an unreliable, error-producing concept instead of one of nature’s concrete realities. “Race” doesn’t really exist.
There’s no such thing as “the white race” when a white guy can come from Norway or Syria or Pakistan, or China (Xinjiang).
How can “the black race” exist when two people from different tribes in southern Africa, both labelled as “black” and visually similar, are more genetically distinct than a Russian is from a Maori? How can a category of man contain subcategories that are larger than itself?
Even ethnicity is not reliable. There’s not really such a thing as a Jewish, Egyptian, Polish, Japanese ethnicity. These are just groups of people who have been living together for a long time. If they were a predominantly rural, non-urbanized, parochial people, they ended up usually marrying each other due to foreigners not really being part of their world, resulting in dominance of “ethnic features” in this enclosed, remote, insular space.
Basically, what historically secluded and inbred communities like the Amish and Pitcairn Islanders do, an ethnic group has done on a much bigger scale. That’s the only difference.
An ethnic group is nothing more than a really big, inbred family, formed in isolation before the modern era of mass travel, which managed to avoid retardation thanks to large numbers and a bit of luck.
Even then, not one ethnicity member will be a “full-blooded native” of the ethnicity they belong to. There’s always been mixing, scarcely more than a few generations back.
Now put them in a city or on a trade route (even in ancient times) and they would always forget the “pride of their blood” when coming across an attractive foreigner.
And none of this happened because it was “against nature,” it happened because it is nature.
So an ethnicity is produced by artificially restricted human mating choices accumulated over time. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a product of nature.
Basically, every argument against race-mixing is an argument that inbreeding is a virtue under some expanded boundary.
- “You can’t marry your sister” has always been universal, except in some ancient Egyptian, Ptolemaic and Inca royal families. Since the royals were held to be deities, they could not besmirch their godly blood with the blood of earthly subjects. They had to marry the closest possible people to them — their siblings.
- “You can marry your cousin” or “I want you to marry your cousin” is still common in some cultures, not for “racial purity” but to keep wealth and domestic and legal disputes managed within the family. When nations were absolute monarchies, cousin marriage among royals prevented outsiders from threatening the royal family’s hold on the throne.
- “Roma/Amish/Druze should only marry other Roma/Amish/Druze” is the rule for some tiny ethnic communities. This results in very poor genetics. Among the Amish, children born with genetic disabilities are so common that the community runs its own long-term care homes for them.
- “You should only marry within your tribe/caste” is common in societies that still have castes and tribal affiliations (which are usually ethnic communities after a long period of inbreeding).
- “You should only marry another Egyptian/Saudi/Italian/Pole” is the logic of ethnic nationalists. In this case the whole ethnicity is thought of as a tribal affiliation.
- “You should only marry someone white or black” is the logic of racial nationalists. In this case the whole “skin color group” (“race”) is thought of as the tribal affiliation. Genetic “purity” is preferred, and crude visual similarity (shared skin color) is erroneously attributed to genetic similarity. In reality your “same-race” white or black partner might be more genetically distinct from you than someone from the other hemisphere.
“Race-mixing” is always 100% guaranteed to happen whenever humans of different backgrounds interact. “Preserving the races” is only possible if we isolate human populations we define as “races” and prevent them from interacting with one another. No travel, tourism, commerce, investment, employment, scholarship, etc. between the “races,” and probably no direct communication either. And no war involving human soldiers. Good luck with that.
More Shorpy
While sorting through a deceased person’s possessions, what is the most disturbing thing you found?
I had a friend – we will call him James – who I knew throughout high school and college. James went to Texas A&M at the same time I did, as well as another friend, who I will call Tim. All throughout my senior year, Tim and I would go to James’ apartment on the weekends, and all three of us would hang out. I credit these weekends as saving me from the horrible pressure of my perfectionism during college, and I told James so later on in a birthday card.
I graduated Texas A&M in 2009. James graduated in winter of 2009 but refused to walk the stage for graduation. Finally, Tim graduated in 2010, and I went to his graduation.
I returned home after college to the Dallas area, as did Tim. James moved to Mesquite, which is not far from Dallas. Just like during college, James, Tim, and I would hang out on weekends, sometimes at James’ apartment.
About two years later, I couldn’t get into contact with James one weekend. He simply wasn’t answering his phone. Tim and I became concerned, and Tim ultimately stopped by James’ apartment and said the lights were on, but he couldn’t see anything inside really because the blinds were shut. No one was answering the door. Eventually, the next day, Tim called the apartment complex. The apartment complex actually gave Tim James’ mom’s number. As it turned out, to our shock, James had passed away (later to be determined due to diabetic ketoacidosis). He had been dead in his apartment at least four days before his body was found.
James’ mother had sent me a message on Facebook, which had been sorted in the “other” pile, so I hadn’t seen it. She provided her phone number, and I immediately called her, and we talked. She let us know when the funeral would be, and I said I would let all of James’ other friends know.
One thing I added was, “If you haven’t contacted the City of Mesquite to let them know that James has passed away, you should probably do so.” James’ mother said, “James told me he was working for Mesquite High School, but I can’t find any evidence of payment.” This confused me because James had never mentioned working at a school. I said, “Well, James doesn’t work at a school. He worked for the City of Mesquite.” James’ mother said, “Hi lies, Lindsey. That’s what he does. He lies. I don’t even know if his diploma is real.”
This greatly confused me, and I thought to myself that I was speaking to a woman who just lost her son. So, I didn’t challenge her or prod her with questions. When we hung up, I kept thinking about what she said as I prepared for the funeral and called everyone. I almost let it go, but I thought to myself that this misunderstanding would be easy to clear up. So, eventually – several days later – I contacted the City of Mesquite just to get them to call James’ mother. The woman on the other end of the line said that she could not give out any personal information on any employee, and I told her that was fine, that she simply needed to call James’ mother. The woman looked up James’ name and said, “A person by that name has never worked here.” I thanked her and hung up.
So, then, I began going through everything I remembered in concern with James, and I kept thinking about what James’ mother had said in terms of his diploma not being real. I did some digging, and, as it turns out, any former student of Texas A&M is able to access an alumni area on the Texas A&M website that states all individuals that attended A&M and what degree he or she received, as well as the graduation year.
I logged in and checked my own name first. Everything was as it should be. Then, I checked James’ name. Beside his name were three initials: NDR. I would come to find out this means no degree received.
My mind, by this point, was reeling. I thought back to how James had said he didn’t want to walk across the stage for graduation and quickly realized that he had said this because he wasn’t actually graduating. He was pretending to graduate, and he had chosen Winter of 2009 – really a perfect date for pretend, as it was after my graduation date and before our mutual friend’s graduation. In addition, he must have ordered a diploma from a website that created fake ones and had it sent to his mother’s house.
I did a bit more digging and discovered something called the National Student Clearinghouse, which provides degree verification. For $10, you can verify a person’s degree from select colleges, as well as see what classes that student took each semester. Texas A&M is one of those select colleges. I paid $10 and read the report. James had only attended A&M for one or two semesters. That means the entire time we were hanging out my senior year, the textbooks he had out beside his couch were fake. His stories about his classes were fake. All of it was.
I began, at this point, to have many dreams that James hadn’t actually passed away, most likely because I didn’t know what to believe, anymore, in concern with him. I obviously didn’t really know him. I was very angry during this period of time, and I felt just a little guilty for being so angry. After all, he had been a friend, as well.
The question, of course, was, how was James able to pay for an apartment in Mesquite, when he didn’t have an actual job? So, part of the answer I think is in the fact that his grandparents paid for his college courses – even when James wasn’t actually taking college courses. As far as they believed, he had always been attending Texas A&M. So, he could have told them how much he needed each semester and just been pocketing the money. In addition, as a graduation present, his grandparents had given him a large monetary gift – not enough for living without a job for a long period of time, but enough for a little bit of living without a job.
It made me wonder, though, what James’ plan had been this whole time. He hadn’t set up a future for himself. He hadn’t gotten a job. Then, when he started verging on diabetes, he didn’t regularly check up with his doctor. On really dark nights, I wondered if he had committed suicide purposely, rather than accidentally, by refusing to address his medical issue.
In addition, as I thought back on other things James had said, I took note of how he was always, always making jokes and inserting the truth into jokes. Our mutual friend had asked him in a chat what classes he was taking his senior year, and James has said, “Nothing.” Our friend had written, “Nothing?” James had said, “Nothing!” Tim took it as a joke, just as I would have.
Another time, James had said that he was dating a girl named Jessica and that she had a sister named Kimberly (names are changed to protect identities). At the time, I had remarked, “Wait. Kimberly and Jessica are the same names as two sisters we know. I wonder if parents commonly pair those names together.” When we got together the next weekend, James was no longer dating “Jessica.”
As it turned out, James had been feeding details of my job to his mom, as he said he worked at the Mesquite school district (I am a professor at Cedar Valley College). So, for instance, when I had a conference, he would tell his mom he had a conference. Simultaneously, James had been feeding me details about his mom’s job, when he claimed he had been working for the City of Mesquite, as she worked for her city’s library and always had stories about IT things that had to be dealt with.
James’ mom visited him one week, and during that week, the entire week, he left at 7 AM and returned in the early evening. She told me, “Since he didn’t have a job, I don’t know what he was doing that whole time.”
James’ claim that he was helping map the human genome during college was, of course, a lie as well.
I remember one time James and I were hanging out, and he said something crazy, and I said, “Is that true?” He scrunched his face up and said, “No.” I laughed and said, “You could tell me anything, and I would believe it.” He sighed and said, “You have no idea.”
Sometimes, when I think about this, it gives me chills.
So, the most disturbing thing I found when sorting through a deceased person’s past life is the absence of everything I thought was real and true, as well as the lies of a person I thought was a close friend. Thinking about it used to drive me crazy (there are a couple of things I have intentionally left out of the story), so I had to stop thinking about it.
Originally, anger was what I mostly felt in relation to being betrayed by James. As I have gotten older, though, and tried to look at what he did more objectively, I feel sad for him. He did not have a solid handle on life, and he was not headed in a good direction. By a certain point, it was all going to come crashing down. Whether he was intentionally manipulating everyone around himself to feel superior, or he simply didn’t want to seem like a failure, they are both sad.
Putin in North Korea & Vietnam, driving collective west crazy
Fun pictures
