How to compliment me:
- Say something nice about Taylor Swift
I️ personally really related to this post.
(via taylorswift)
MORGAN HILL, CA—Having blown through nearly half the titles on the 20-book list in less than two weeks, chronically lonely fourth-grader Logan Parata is currently crushing the Santa Clara County Library’s summer reading program, sources confirmed Wednesday.
The bespectacled 9-year-old, who staff members say is a regular fixture at the library despite its greatly reduced seasonal traffic, is reportedly dropped off at the entrance of the building each morning at 9:50—10 minutes before the facility opens—and spends almost the entire remainder of the day alone at his favorite table quietly tearing his way through each of the recommended books for his age level.
“I swear, that kid’s in here seven, maybe eight hours every day, just knocking out books left and right,” said librarian Marna Atkins, who added that despite the warm summer weather and the fact that there is a community pool just two blocks away, the reclusive elementary schooler can almost always be found in the library with a Roald Dahl or Rats Of NIMH book in his hands, and several more stacked in a pile next to him. “And he always checks out the maximum number of books when he heads home at night, so you’ve gotta think he’s doing the exact same thing back at his house, too. There’s really no other way he could have taken down the entire Judy Blume Fudge series like that in under a week.”
This hits way too close to home
Obama Leaves Post-It On Counter With Quick Note Explaining How To Use Extralegal Surveillance Apparatus
WASHINGTON—Jotting down the instructions so the incoming commander-in-chief would be able to quickly and easily access the personal information of the American populace without any hassle, outgoing President Barack Obama left a Post-it note on the White House kitchen counter Friday explaining how to use the government’s extralegal surveillance apparatus, sources confirmed. “Domestic surveillance can be a little tricky—check to make sure NSA is connected to ISP servers first,” read the bulleted message in part, which went on to direct President Donald Trump to “keep trying” several times if a request for communications records from private internet and telecom companies didn’t work on the first attempt. “Select whether data will be collected by individual or in bulk. Download it. IMPORTANT: MAY NEED TO EXPAND STORAGE TO HANDLE ALL DATA. That’s it! Enjoy! P.S. If leak happens, you’ll have to wait a while, then reboot the whole thing.” Obama reportedly also left a stack of classified files regarding American citizens suspected of terrorism overseas on top of the Resolute desk with a note inviting his successor to “help yourself!” to any targeted killings.
In this temporally anomalous wasteland everything existential emerges through the physical: a bit of soccer, a lot of sex, still more violence. The material objects Zhadan describes with an almost grotesque precision—wooden icons of Christian Orthodox martyrs, a Manchester United pendant, a pair of Bosch electric scissors—serve as missing words amid laconic dialogue. It is not only words that are missing. People call the Donbas the “Bermuda Triangle,” Yevhenii Monastyrskyi, a twenty-three-year-old graduate student in history from Luhansk and fan of Zhadan, told me: objects, years, people—like Herman’s brother—disappear all the time there. Many of those who remain have survived beatings of various kinds. “We all wanted to become pilots,” Herman says, of his friends from childhood. “The majority of us became losers.” And not only losers, Zhadan wants us to understand, but damaged losers, their torsos, limbs, and faces inscribed with scars. “I looked more closely at the rest of my old friends, their bodies battered by hard lives and the fists of their rivals,” Herman says.
Today the former Voroshilovgrad falls within the territory of the self-declared Lugansk People’s Republic—an entity which, Zhadan wrote in May, 2014, “exists exclusively in the fantasies of the self-proclaimed ‘people’s mayors’ and ‘people’s governors.’ “ The latter form a cast of characters that could easily be drawn from his novel: Zhadan provides telling depictions of men in tracksuits with stretched-out tattoos, glass eyes, and missing fingers. (The missing fingers are not part of the magical realism: Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the forty-something separatist who in April, 2014, declared himself the “people’s mayor” of Slovyansk, has two fingers missing from his left hand.)
Got to meet him and hear him do a reading. He complimented my Ukrainian :)
BRAG BRAG BRAG BRAG
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, NYU President Andy Hamilton, Chaplain Khalid Latif, and other community and multi-faith leaders gathered in Washington Square Park today to condemn acts of hate in NYC, show support for NYU students, and reinforce the University’s values of tolerance, civility, and respect.
Anthropologists Discover Isolated Tribe Of Joyful Americans Living In Remote Village Untouched By 2016 Election
WALDPORT, OR—A team of anthropologists announced Friday it had discovered an isolated tribe of blissful Americans who have never been exposed to the current presidential campaign or its candidates, noting that the newly identified population lives contentedly in a remote village completely untouched by the 2016 race.
According to researchers from Lewis & Clark College, the peaceful, secluded community along the outskirts of Oregon’s Drift Creek Wilderness remains uncontacted by political canvassers, pollsters, and the election media, allowing its generally cheerful and affable inhabitants to go about their daily lives without ever encountering a political poll, election news story, campaign ad, soundbite, or stump speech.
“Upon first entering the village, we immediately noticed how relaxed and upbeat the inhabitants appeared, but it wasn’t until speaking with them directly that we understood how insulated they were from the country’s political climate,” said professor Elizabeth Letts, adding that the tribe’s levels of stress, depression, and anxiety were far lower than those recorded over the past 18 months among the broader American populace. “They actually seem to lead gratifying, well-balanced lives. The adults enjoy eight hours of sleep each night, and in place of discussing politics or the latest revelations about the candidates, they were seen regularly smiling or laughing—not cynically, or as a defense mechanism, even, but out of genuine joy.”
“In my 30 years studying human cultures, I’ve never come across a people so happy,” she continued.
According to Letts, when tribe members were asked their thoughts on major-party candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, they looked puzzled for a moment and then shrugged their shoulders before grinning warmly and continuing on with their day. Similarly, villagers reportedly appeared confused but at ease when asked about the national mood, saying that as far as they could tell, people were feeling pretty good about everything.
The anthropologists confirmed this sense of tranquility permeated all aspects of life in the tribe, observing that when extended families gathered for mealtimes, the tenor of their conversation remained pleasant and amicable, with no subjects deemed off-limits. Moreover, scientists noted that the village lacked any signage, clothing, or other paraphernalia bearing divisive words or imagery, and residents appeared to trust one another and appreciate time spent interacting.
“When I brought out my iPad to show them footage of the recent presidential debates, they immediately became agitated, and several of the children started to cry,” said graduate student Lester Reinhold, who explained that the perplexed villagers kept asking him why the people on the screen interrupted each other so often when they didn’t even have anything of value to say. “I explained that one of the two people onstage would be their next leader, and they all gasped and recoiled in horror, with many saying they didn’t see how that could possibly be true.”
More.
"We don’t have the right to take their history away,"
—
Vasyl Rasevych, a Lviv-based senior researcher at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences on Ukrainian de-communization laws.
“Alex is just six years old. He lives in Scarsdale, New York. Last month, like people around the world, he was moved by the heartbreaking images of Omran Daqneesh, a five-year-old boy in Aleppo, Syria, sitting in an ambulance, in shock as he tried to wipe the blood from his hands.
So Alex sat down and wrote me a letter. This week at a United Nations summit on refugees, I shared Alex’s moving words with the world.
Alex told me that he wanted Omran to come live with him and his family. He wanted to share his bike, and teach him how to ride. He said his little sister would collect butterflies for him. ‘We can all play together,’ he wrote. ‘We will give him a family and he will be our brother.’
Those are the words of a six-year-old boy—a young child who has not learned to be cynical or suspicious or fearful of other people because of where they come from, how they look, or how they pray.
We should all be more like Alex. Imagine what the world would look like if we were. Imagine the suffering we could ease and the lives we could save.
Listen to Alex, read his letter, and I think you’ll understand why I shared it with the world.” —President Obama. Find out how you can help at wh.gov/refugees.
Not crying. Not crying. Not crying.
