#Five-Percent Nation

[ourladyofomega]

Rakim wearing a Five-Percent Nation jacket during the photo shoot of Eric B. & Rakim's Follow The Leader album.

🖌️: Drew Carolan + 🧥: Dapper Dan

[bigmellyme]

[fivepercentgodsandearths]

“- Indians have been waiting for Kalki for 3,700 years.

- Buddhists have been waiting for Maitreya for 2,600 years.

- The Jews have been waiting for the Messiah for 2500 years.

- Christians have been waiting for Jesus for 2000 years.

- Sunnah waits for Prophet Issa 1400 years.

- Muslims have been waiting for a messiah from the line of Muhammad for 1300 years.

- Shiites have been waiting for Mandi for 1080 years.

- Drussians are waiting for Hamza ibn Ali for 1000 years.

Most religions adopt the idea of a “savior” and state that the world will remain filled with evil until this savior comes and fills it with goodness and righteousness.

Maybe our problem on this planet is that people expect someone else to come solve their problems instead of doing it themselves! ”

Riccardo Dablah

[ausetkmt]

Allah supreme: how Pharoah Sanders found freedom and rebellion in Islam | Pharoah Sanders | The Guardian

The day the music died was 24 September 2022. On that Saturday, the legendary tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, a man who blew his horn “as if he was a dragon breathing fire”, passed on, at age 81. With his death came the end of a majestic era, a time of saxophone spirituality and musical mysticism that will probably never be surpassed or even replicated. Sanders, like so many of his generation, channeled spirit into song, drawing inspiration from a panoply of sacred sources.

For a while, younger hip-hop generations also found words and meaning in a similar kind of search, and the music –along with the quest – continued.

But jazz has changed and hip-hop has changed.

Never mind that only some of these artists adopted the faith itself. It was their notes and their tones that counted. Plaintive, modal, quarter-toned and chromatic, these aural landscapes of east and west and everything in between stretched the imaginations of both players and audiences. Inside the music, new alliances were forged between people and with all that was holy.

To some people, though, the music just seemed cacophonous and angry. White critics often didn’t understand. Even as astute a thinker as the English Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote, in 1959, that jazz’s “flight into Mohammedanism or some other non-white culture” was a way to “sidestep” a rising avant-garde jazz that was seeking white acceptance. Describing the era, Hobsbawm explained that “the marvelous political awakening of all the oppressed and underprivileged in Roosevelt’s America put a new tone into the jazz musician’s instrument: open resentment”.

If all you heard during the long civil rights era was an endless blow of rage, you were missing out since you weren’t listening. The love was everywhere and all over the music. The piano player Ahmad Jamal told an interviewer: “I get my approach to life from the Holy Qur’an. I belong to the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. Our motto is, ‘Love for all; hatred for none.’” (Many of the jazz musicians of that era came to Islam through the Ahmadiyya movement, a religious revivalist movement that began in late 19th-century India. It was led by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a charismatic reformer who believed he had received divine revelations that required him to promote the unity of all religions as manifest through Islam. Ahmadis came to the USA in the 1920s and found receptive audiences in African American communities.)

And it was a love supreme. I’ve argued elsewhere that Coltrane’s most famous song, A Love Supreme, has its own Islamic echoes (the chant “a love supreme” starts to sound a bit like “Allah supreme” after a while). Pharoah Sanders, who played with ’Trane starting in 1965, extended Coltrane’s legacy after his death in 1967.

Meanwhile, Sanders continued to build his own spiritually inflected, religious ecumenical style. His 1969 hypnotic track Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah meditates on the words “Prince of peace / Won’t you hear our pleas / And ring your bells of peace / Let loving never cease” for an enveloping and achingly beautiful 15 minutes. His classic The Creator Has a Master Plan had its own second coming when it was re-released in a trip-hop remix in the mid-90s. The Trance of Seven Colors, Pharoah’s work with the master Gnawa musician of Morocco Mahmoud Guinia is simply transcendent on an interstellar plane.

And it was a way of connecting to Africa. “The Christianity of the slave represented a movement away from Africa,” Amiri Baraka wrote in this classic text Blues People. “It was the beginning of Africa as ‘a foreign place’.” For the jazz musicians of this long and spiritual era, to reconnect with Africa was more than idle curiosity. It was a way of suturing back an essential part of you that had been forcibly torn from your collective body generations ago. By the mid-1950s and 1960s, African-themed events at nightclubs and restaurants in Brooklyn and Harlem abounded, with UN diplomats from newly independent African countries frequently dropping in. The jazz pianist and composer Randy Weston described the era: “Many of the African countries were just getting their independence. And the wonderful thing about being in New York, the United Nations is there. So I had an opportunity to meet many African diplomats. Many people from Kenya, from Nigeria, from Ghana, from Egypt, many parts of Africa. And I would always talk to them to try to understand a little more about the continent.”

Weston eventually relocated to Morocco for about five years and traveled throughout the African continent before returning to the USA in 1972. “I went on a spiritual trip back home,” he told DownBeat magazine in 1998, referring to Africa. “I wanted to hear where I came from, why I play like I play, why we play music like we do. We went to about 18 countries, and wherever we went we asked to experience the traditional music of the people. Hearing the traditional music was like hearing jazz and blues and the Black church all at the same time.”

Weston also joined forces with master Gnawa musicians in Morocco. (He was playing with them and learning from them before Sanders did the same.) Others, such as Alice Coltrane, were moving in more eastern directions while still others, like Sun Ra, lived in intergalactic space and called us all to move in with him.

The spiritual jazz movement continued, but it didn’t take long for it to be eclipsed by other trends, everything from commercially accessible fusion, launched by the likes of Miles Davis, to the less accessible avant-garde innovations of Cecil Taylor or Albert Ayler. By the 1990s, jazz was also firmly ensconced in the ivory tower, featuring at prestigious arts institutions such as Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center.

Still, the Islamic influence in American popular music never went away, though it did change addresses. Shifting from sound to word, Muslim references could now be found more in the new hip-hop than in the new jazz, even if hip-hop Islam was a yet more heterodox creed than the one found within the Ahmadiyya community. Foundational hip-hop artists including Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and the Wu-Tang Clan were invoking the words and numbers of the Nation of Gods and Earths, an offshoot of the Nation of Islam.

Five Percenter language has permeated the pop cultural lexicon. For example, the “G” in “wassup, G?”is not “gangsta”, as many might think, but “God”. In this creed, Five Percenter men are considered Gods, and Five Percenter women are known as Earths. “Dropping science” is a term from the Five Percenters, as is the emphatic term “word”, a short form of “word is my bond”.

Scholars have written on the important influence of Five Percenters on early hip-hop. But there are also other, more mainline Muslim influences on the American scene. Five Percenter doctrine was foundational in hip-hop, but it operated as an esoteric language among the educated and enlightened. The way the language and numerology (with an emphasis on the number 7) operated was to signify kinship and belonging, which was particularly important in the early hip-hop years. But other Muslim rappers, often associated with Sunni Islam, performed their deen, their faith, more in line with the jazz tradition that preceded it, as a search for self.

Mos Def is hardly the only one who invokes this devotional search. A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip (Kamaal Fareed) is another. “Praise the Lord of the worlds that’s unseen / Respect me for that and let me do my thing,” we hear in the song Get a Hold. More recently, the Five Percenters, the Nation of Islam, and Sunni Islam (and more) tentatively unite to find a home in the lyrical power of Jay Electronica. “All I have in this world is my flag and my sword / I’m on the battlefield with the flag of my Lord,” rhymes Electronica in Fruit of the Spirit. “My shahada is my cantada / My heart chakra light up when I make sajda at fajr.”

While spiritual quests such as Jay Electronica’s aren’t as common in today’s hip-hop, the search hasn’t disappeared entirely. After all, the history of Black music shows us time and again how the journey seeking the divine produces such a profound musical experience.

And that’s what Pharoah Sanders leaves behind. His was an unyielding search for a way to transcend the secular ugliness of this world, and with his passing Sanders may have finally achieved that goal. Yet music – like all that is holy – never dies. And Pharoah’s saxophone will honk and shriek and envelop all our senses, reverberating to heaven and back, and maybe even beyond.

[precisereflections]

Supreme Mathematics: A Framework for the Righteous Understanding of Life

Supreme Mathematics, as interpreted by the 5% Nation, provides a clear lens through which reality and the self can be understood. It is not merely a system of numbers, but a symbolic code that offers insight into the universe, human potential, and the order of existence. Each number from 1 to 9, and the cipher (0), represents a concept that correlates with the natural laws and functions of life. This system serves as a practical tool to navigate life, providing guidance rooted in truth, knowledge, and self-awareness.

Origins and Purpose of Supreme Mathematics

Within the 5% Nation, Supreme Mathematics is not a religious doctrine but rather a method of uncovering the "right and exact" truths of existence. This knowledge is used to "civilize" the uncivilized, providing the keys to understanding the universe and one's place within it. Unlike the traditional religious practices of the masses, Supreme Mathematics teaches that the Black man is God, and that knowledge, wisdom, and understanding are the tools needed to unlock one’s divine potential.

Clarence 13X, righteously known as Allah or Father Allah, developed Supreme Mathematics to offer practical solutions for daily living, a system of empowerment for the oppressed, and a means of fostering unity. Each number in Supreme Mathematics corresponds to a foundational principle that governs both the physical and metaphysical realms, and when applied correctly, leads to the elevation of consciousness.

Breakdown of Supreme Mathematics

1. Knowledge

Knowledge is the foundation of all things in existence. It represents awareness, understanding, and the seed from which everything grows. In the 5% Nation, knowledge is the first step toward self-realization, as it opens the door to truth and the acquisition of more knowledge. Knowledge is seen as the light that dispels ignorance.

2. Wisdom

Wisdom is the reflection of knowledge in action. It is the wise application of one’s understanding, often symbolized by the Black woman, who is the complement of the Black man (knowledge). Wisdom represents the ability to speak and act from a place of knowledge, creating balance and harmony.

3. Understanding

Understanding is the clear mental picture that arises when knowledge and wisdom are properly aligned. It is the realization of truth and the ability to see things for what they are. Understanding is often equated with vision and is essential to achieving a higher state of consciousness.

4. Culture (Freedom when applied to 40 or more)

Culture represents one’s way of life, while freedom is the absence of mental and physical oppression. In the 5% Nation, the culture is I-God, which acknowledges the divinity of the Black man and woman. Living in accordance with this knowledge liberates the mind from false teachings and societal control.

5. Power

Power is the ability to influence and control reality based on knowledge and wisdom. Refinement is the constant purification of thoughts and actions to maintain clarity. Power in Supreme Mathematics is the ability to enact positive change in oneself and others, while refinement ensures one remains righteous.

6. Equality

Equality is the state of balance and fairness in all interactions. It represents the mutual respect and harmony necessary for collective progress. Within the 5% Nation, equality is achieved when all individuals recognize the God within themselves and treat others accordingly.

7. Allah God

The number 7 represents Allah God, symbolizing the completion and perfection of man. In the 5% Nation, Allah God is understood as the Black man, who possesses the true knowledge of self, the power to create and destroy based on his knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. This principle elevates the importance of self-awareness and personal responsibility. Allah is not a mystical or external force however resides within the Black man. Each Black man is the embodiment of Allah (Allah meaning “Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head”).

8. Build or Destroy

To build is to elevate and create, while to destroy is to tear down falsehoods and negativity. Build/Destroy represents the dual process of growth and deconstruction necessary to achieve a higher state of consciousness. The aim is to construct a righteous existence while eliminating harmful behaviors or mindsets.

9. Born

Born is the manifestation of all that has been built. It is the point at which knowledge, wisdom, and understanding give birth to new ideas, creations, or states of being. The number 9 represents the completion of a cycle, signifying that through proper application of Supreme Mathematics, one can manifest their reality.

0. Cipher

Cipher represents a complete circle, 360 degrees of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. It signifies the wholeness and interconnectedness of all things. The cipher is the environment in which all actions occur, and understanding the cipher allows one to move in harmony with the natural order.

Practical Application of Supreme Mathematics

Supreme Mathematics is not an abstract philosophy but a practical guide for living. It can be applied to every aspect of life—personal development, relationships, community building, and education. By understanding the meanings behind the numbers and their corresponding principles, one is able to navigate life with clarity, purpose, and self-determination.

For example, in a conflict situation, knowledge (1) can lead to wisdom (2) through the understanding (3) of the root cause. This allows for a constructive outcome that aligns with the principles of equality (6) and build (8), avoiding the destructive tendencies that come from ignorance or misunderstanding.

Supreme Mathematics is the key to unlocking the truth of existence within the 5% Nation. It is a comprehensive system that offers not only a metaphysical understanding of the universe but also a practical guide for righteous living. Through knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, the principles of Supreme Mathematics provide a foundation for personal and collective growth, empowering individuals to manifest their divinity and live in accordance with universal laws.

Todays Supreme Mathematics

Today's Supreme Mathematics is Wisdom (2) Cipher (0), being the 20th of the month. Wisdom Cipher emphasizes using insight and experience to shape and move within your environment, the Cipher. Wisdom is more than just knowledge; it's how you apply that knowledge in your life to guide yourself and others. The Cipher, representing your surroundings and the complete cycle of life, demands awareness, and it's through wise decisions and actions that you can build or transform what surrounds you. In this light, today's focus is on how you're using what you know to navigate your Cipher and make constructive moves. It’s about seeing where your actions can positively influence your environment and taking responsibility for those actions.

[reasonsforhope]

Kamala Harris just announced that her vice president will be Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Based on the coverage so far I'm really reassured by this decision.

The Washington Post did an obviously great job of making a prepared article for each option, considering how long an article they had up 7 minutes after the announcement.

((Okay technically it's not an official announcement yet it's "according to three people familiar with the pick, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that is not yet public." But listen. I am 99% sure this is a weather balloon. (Meaning: a deliberate leak to gauge reaction.) Because the sheer weakness or incompetence on the part of the Harris campaign that it would take for three people to all confirm that within a few hours hours of each other and the planned announcement it is massive.))

-via The Washington Post, August 6, 2024

Honestly this decision, from everything I've read and can tell, looks like it's brilliant politics.

Important Context: The vice president(ial candidates)'s job in an election is not to be similar to the president. The vice president's job on the ballot is very, very much specifically to be different from the president. Why? So they can cover each others' weaknesses. Especially regionally.

(Sidenote: I feel a bit ridiculous saying this. But genuinely if you want to get a stronger understanding of how US elections really work. Go watch seasons 6 and 7 of The West Wing. Genuinely, a lot of politicians have said - especially back in its day - that that was the most accurate depiction of an election they'd ever seen. Also specifically features an entire arc about a contested Democratic primary convention, so also very good if you're interested in understanding weird nominating convention shenanigans.)

From the article:

"Harris’s choice for a running mate was among the most closely watched decisions of her fledgling campaign, as she sought to bolster the ticket’s prospects for victory in November and rapidly find someone who could be a governing partner. In picking Walz, she has selected a seasoned politician with executive governing experience and signaled the importance of Midwestern battleground states such as Wisconsin and Michigan.

Walz’s foray into politics came later in life: He spent more than two decades as a public school teacher and football coach, and as a member of the Army National Guard, before running for Congress in his 40s. In 2006, he defeated a Republican to win Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District--a rural, conservative area--and won reelection five times before leaving Congress to run for governor.

Walz was first elected governor in 2018 and handily won reelection in 2022. Though little-known outside his state, Walz emerged publicly as one of the earliest names mentioned as a possible running mate for Harris, and in the ensuing days he made the rounds on television as an outspoken surrogate for the vice president...

“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room. … They are bad on foreign policy, they are bad on the environment, they certainly have no health care plan, and they keep talking about the middle-class,” Walz told MSNBC in July. “As I said, a robber baron real estate guy and a venture capitalist trying to tell us they understand who we are? They don’t know who we are.”

Walz also has faced criticism from Republicans that his policies as governor were too liberal, including legalizing recreational marijuana for adults, protecting abortion rights, expanding LGBTQ protections, implementing tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans and providing free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren in the state.

But many of those initiatives are broadly popular. Walz also signed an executive order removing the college-degree requirement for 75 percent of Minnesota’s state jobs, a move that garnered bipartisan support and that several other states have also adopted.

“What a monster. Kids are eating and having full bellies, so they can go learn, and women are making their own health-care decisions,” Walz said sarcastically in a July 28 interview with CNN when questioned whether such policies would be fodder for conservative attacks, later adding: “If that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the [liberal] label.”

Walz also spoke at a kickoff event in St. Paul for a Democratic canvassing effort, casting Trump as a “bully.”

“Don’t lift these guys up like they’re some kind of heroes. Everybody in this room knows--I know it as a teacher--a bully has no self-confidence. A bully has no strength. They have nothing,” Walz said at the event, sporting a camouflage hunting hat and T-shirt.

Walz has explained that he felt some Democrats’ practice of calling Trump an existential threat to democracy was giving him too much credit, which prompted his decision to denounce the GOP nominee instead as being “weird.”

“I do believe all those things are a real possibility, but it gives him way too much power," Walz said on CNN’s “State of the Union” regarding the Democrats’ rhetoric. “Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter, shocking sharks, and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind.”

If Walz is elected vice president, under state law, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) would assume the governorship for the rest of his term. Minnesota Senate president Bobby Joe Champion, a Democrat, would become lieutenant governor."

-via The Washington Post, August 6, 2024

--

This guy. Sounds like. fucking Moderate swing-state/rural/Midwestern/southern/"heartland"/working class white voter catnip. He sounds like he's also a very smart politician and strong campaigner. And he's apparently genuinely a good guy with a good record, too.

He sounds like he's going to do a really good job of appealing to voters in several of the big deal swing states without being from any of them specifically. Which means it doesn't feel like pandering to one of the states involved (and thereby spurning the others), which is also great.

(Also he was the one who started "weird" @ conservatives and I think we should take that seriously as a very good political instinct/move. Judging in large part by how it has so clearly hit an actual nerve with conservatives like so little else. Also hugely relevant: that post going around about how part of why conservatives are so upset about "weird" is because in the Midwest, "weird" specifically also implies anti-social or harmful behavior.)

Officially feeling more optimistic about Trump not winning in November

[ashthenerdtheythem]

Have you ever had to run?

Have you ever had to flee and hide and carry your children with you. Have you ever had to spend hours desperate to get to a "safe zone" still not be safe. Because where's the water, wheres the food? Wheres the five minutes of relief. It doesn't come. Not even when you check your evacuation funds because it has been three months and you have only reached 1% of your evacuation funds. ONE PERCENT!!!

But you can't scream, you can't cry, because you have to stay calm for your kids, your little babies who are already scared enough, who are already terrified and tired and just want to go home. But your home's not there anymore. Nothing of your old life is left anymore, except your family. And you don't know if you can save them. Because if it has taken 3 months to get 1% of the funds needed to evacuate, it will be decades before you have the funds to save all of them. Unless people help and donate, but nobody is listening!!!

When you are begging for help to save the lives of your sweet innocent kids who you would do anything for, when you are pleading for help to protect the woman that you love, the mother of your children, and nobody hears a sound.

How do you not let that break you? How do you stay sane? How do you stay kind? Because I haven't a clue, but somehow, Feras is still kind and is still calling out asking all of you to help protect his sweet little Mazen, before his baby gets hurt any further.

And he's not just campaigning for himself, for his wife, for his little girl and his little boy. He's trying to get his whole family to safety, his aunts who watched over him as a child, his cousins who he used to play with when they were just as small as sweet little Mazen. He just wants to protect the people he loves.

So please help him. It doesn't have to be a landfall, it just needs to be something, because otherwise none of then will get out of the hell scape that is the Palestinian genocide. Because people survive genocides because other people help them. Ireland survived our genocide because of people like those of the Choctaw Nation. And they helped save us during their own genocide. They raised what would now equal €5,000, right after the trail of tears. If they could do something so incredible and save my ancestors, why can't you do something amazing and help save this family

Verification by @/Apollo-olives

[batboyblog]

The governor was firm: Nebraska would reject the new federal money for summer meals. The state already fed a small number of children when schools closed. He would not sign on to a program to provide all families that received free or cut-rate school meals with cards to buy groceries during the summer.

“I don’t believe in welfare,” the governor, Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in December.

A group of low-income youths, in a face-to-face meeting, urged him to reconsider. One told him she had eaten less when schools were out. Another criticized the meals at the existing feeding sites and held a crustless prepackaged sandwich to argue that electronic benefit cards from the new federal program would offer better food and more choice.

“Sometimes money isn’t the solution,” the governor replied.

.......

The new $2.5 billion program, known as Summer EBT, passed Congress with bipartisan support, and every Democratic governor will distribute the grocery cards this summer. But Republican governors are split, with 14 in, 13 out and no consensus on what constitutes conservative principle.

One red-state governor (Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas) hailed the cards as an answer to a disturbing problem. Another (Kim Reynolds of Iowa) warned that they might increase obesity. Some Republicans dismissed the program as obsolete pandemic aid. Some balked at the modest state matching costs. Others hinted they might join after taking more time to prepare.

The program will provide families about $40 a month for every child who receives free or reduced-price meals at school —$120 for the summer. The red-state refusals will keep aid from about 10 million children, about a third of those potentially eligible nationwide.

......

As with Medicaid, poor states are especially resistant, though the federal government bears most of the cost. Of the 10 states with the highest levels of children’s food insecurity, five rejected Summer EBT: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

Like the school lunch program, it serves families up to 185 percent of the poverty line, meaning a family of three would qualify with an income of about $45,500 or less.

......

Some Republicans, in rejecting the aid, found critics in their own ranks. After Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina dismissed Summer EBT as a duplicative “entitlement,” State Senator Katrina Shealy, a fellow Republican, wrote a column with a Democratic colleague warning that “hunger does not stop during summer break.”

In an interview, Ms. Shealy said the state should not reject $65 million “just because Biden is president,” and perhaps just partly tongue-in-cheek wrapped her plea in Trumpian bunting: “Everyone wants to say, ‘America First’ — well, let’s feed our children first.”

Oklahoma initially said it rejected the program because federal officials had not finalized the rules. But responding to critics, Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, sharpened his attack, calling Summer EBT a duplicative “Biden administration program” that would “cause more bureaucracy for families.”

Tribal governments, which have influence over large parts of the state, stepped in. Already feuding with Mr. Stitt, they promised to distribute cards to all eligible families on their land, regardless of tribal status, while bearing the $3 million administrative cost. The five participating tribes will cover nearly 40 percent of Oklahoma’s eligible children, most of them not Native American.

“I remain dumbfounded that the governor of Oklahoma would turn down federal tax dollars to help feed low-income children,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

-------------------------

some of the most stunning highlights of this story.

All I got to say is, let's feed the children? every single Democratic Governor took the money to feed the kids, every governor who rejected it, every single one, is a Republican. If you don't vote for Democrats you are STEALING food out of kids mouths.

[macleod]

UPS has reached an agreement with the Teamsters union to avert a strike. These are the highlights of the tentative 2023-2028 agreement:

Historic wage increases. Existing full- and part-time UPS Teamsters will get $2.75 more per hour in 2023, and $7.50 more per hour over the length of the contract.

Existing part-timers will be raised up to no less than $21 per hour immediately, and part-time seniority workers earning more under a market rate adjustment would still receive all new general wage increases.

General wage increases for part-time workers will be double the amount obtained in the previous UPS Teamsters contract — and existing part-time workers will receive a 48 percent average total wage increase over the next five years.

Wage increases for full-timers will keep UPS Teamsters the highest paid delivery drivers in the nation, improving their average top rate to $49 per hour.

Current UPS Teamsters working part-time would receive longevity wage increases of up to $1.50 per hour on top of new hourly raises, compounding their earnings.

New part-time hires at UPS would start at $21 per hour and advance to $23 per hour.

All UPS Teamster drivers classified as 22.4s would be reclassified immediately to Regular Package Car Drivers and placed into seniority, ending the unfair two-tier wage system at UPS.

Safety and health protections, including vehicle air conditioning and cargo ventilation. UPS will equip in-cab A/C in all larger delivery vehicles, sprinter vans, and package cars purchased after Jan. 1, 2024. All cars get two fans and air induction vents in the cargo compartments.

All UPS Teamsters would receive Martin Luther King Day as a full holiday for the first time.

No more forced overtime on Teamster drivers’ days off. Drivers would keep one of two workweek schedules and could not be forced into overtime on scheduled off-days.

UPS Teamster part-timers will have priority to perform all seasonal support work using their own vehicles with a locked-in eight-hour guarantee. For the first time, seasonal work will be contained to five weeks only from November-December.

The creation of 7,500 new full-time Teamster jobs at UPS and the fulfillment of 22,500 open positions, establishing more opportunities through the life of the agreement for part-timers to transition to full-time work.

More than 60 total changes and improvements to the National Master Agreement — more than any other time in Teamsters history — and zero concessions from the rank-and-file.

Unions work, unionize.

[wilwheaton]

Frederick Douglass, who was born into Southern slavery, described the South as “a little nation by itself, having its own language, its own rules, regulations, and customs.” Fewer than 2000 families — six-tenths of one percent of the Southern population — owned more than 50 enslaved people and ruled the oligarchy that we call the Confederacy with an iron fist. The 75 percent of white people in the South during that era who did not own any enslaved persons generally lived in deep poverty. Women had no rights, queer people were routinely tortured and murdered, education for both enslaved Africans and poor whites was generally outlawed, religious attendance was often mandated, and hunger and disease stalked all but those in the families of the two thousand morbidly rich planter dynasties. Modern-day Red states are doing their best to recreate that old Confederacy, right down to state Senator Kathy Chism’s new effort to return the Confederate battle flag to Mississippi's state flag. Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence have both emphasized their presidential pledges to restore the names of murderous Civil War traitors to American military bases, celebrating their armed defense of the “values” of the Old South. Today’s version of yesteryear’s plantation owners are called CEOs, hedge and vulture fund managers, and the morbidly rich. They use the power of political bribery given them by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court — with Clarence Thomas’ tie-breaking Citizens United vote on behalf of his sugar daddy Harlan Crow — to lord over their Red states, regardless of the will of those states’ citizens.

Why are red state 'welfare queen' oligarchs allowed to mooch off of blue states?

[fivepercentgodsandearths]

Knowledge and Wisdom! In time You will gain an understanding!

[etherealstar-writes]

I WANNA BE YOURS | LIONESSES X READER | PT 5

pairings: lionesses x reader

summary: in which you're accidentally added to a random group chat, not knowing they're all actually famous footballers, and obliviously end up having many of them competing for your love and attention.

part: five

part one here

✦ ——— ✦ ——— ✦

THE NATIONAL DIVING TEAM

the REAL karate kid @ the imposter are you still a hundred percent sure bronze is your fav?

stairway yeah y/n do you really love this woman over all the rest of them?

this old grandma?

neev NAHH 😭 GRANDMA REALLY SEEMS TO BE HAVING TROUBLE HEARING

lotte HER FACE 😭

stairway

are you sure? her? over everyone else?

willybum LMAO  this is gold

earpsy HELP HER TOP 😭

rusty metal WHAT WHERE DID YOU FIND THAT??!

stairway you shall never know i have my sources

the imposter HELP those photos of her were top teir but you guys i've already told you she's the only one i know yet i'm still learning okay and besides, i think she's a sweet old grandma

stairway dammit

rusty metal thank you y/n even tho i don't know if i'd take sweet old grandma as a compliment or not ... but just know you're my favourite

the imposter aw i appreciate that

the REAL karate kid NAHH someone kick that rust metal out of this chat she's getting too close to my liking

willybum i agree i don't like it either

rusty metal i'm just way more slay than you all are

stairway NO WAY DID SHE JUST SAY THAT 😭

neev THE WORLD IS ENDING

rusty metal chill my dudes i've got plenty more savage swag up my sleeve

willybum NAHHH 😭

lauren 1 WHAT DID I JUST WITNESS 💀

stairway @ rusty metal do us all a favour and delete the internet from all your devices

rusty metal i'm sending you all a reaction image

elton oh god we've turned her

willybum i swear if it's a minion meme i'm jumping out the window

the imposter i'm actually scared now

lotte so am i

rusty metal

stairway LMAO NOT JAMES CHARLES 😭💀

the REAL karate kid 😭😭

the imposter HI SISTERS

rusty metal sisters?

willybum I CANT-

neev WHAT DID MY EYES JUST WITNESS-

stairway @ rusty metal do you even know who that man in the picture is?

rusty metal that is a man?

elton

stairway IM DECEASED 💀 HELP

the imposter PLS 😭 ily even more now

the REAL karate kid HUH wHaT dammit rusty grandma everyone's stealing mah girl now 😔

kie WHAT DID I JUST READ 😭

part six here

[mcflymemes]

NATIONAL TREASURE (2004) PROMPTS *  assorted dialogue from the film, adjust as necessary

i'm gonna steal it.

who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?

if it's any consolation, you had me convinced.

you're not hurt, are you?

i am so getting fired for this.

is there a question in there?

we have no money.

how about a bribe?

it was cool. you should try it sometime.

we can't go back there.

i've never been so happy to be proven wrong.

you handled that well.

are you trying to steal that?

it's thirty-five dollars.

you know the key to running a convincing bluff? every once in a while you've got to be holding all the cards.

stop talking. start the van.

you're treasure hunters, aren't you?

i'm still working on it.

why don't you just come back down here and we can talk through this together.

don't speak again.

is that the hot girl?

are you with me?

what do you think? i'm a hostage.

do you trust me?

once we catch them, what do we do?

is this real?

i made something for you.

tell me what i need to know.

just another clue.

i can explain, but i don't have time.

i wasted 20 years of my life, and now you've destroyed yours.

what was the secret?

i found something!

i broke a shoelace this morning.

it can't be done.

i understand your bitterness. i really do.

i want you to have a chance to do that.

i've got some duct tape in the back.

promise you won't be any trouble.

i finally figured it out.

the treasure is a myth.

we need more juice.

you're all lunatics!

still a little on edge from being shot at, but i'll be okay. thanks for asking.

see? okay? now could you please stop shouting?

give me that!

you would do well, [name], to be a little more civilized in this instance.

who were those men?

we did the only thing we could do to keep it safe.

we probably deserved that.

i was thinking, what if we go public? plaster the story all over the internet.

it's not like we have our reputations to worry about.

people don't talk that way anymore.

beautiful, huh?

i have no idea what you said.

if there's something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.

what do you see?

what time is it now?

we missed it.

i know something about history that you don't.

i'd be very excited to learn about it.

hold on one second. let me just take in this moment.

this is cool. is this how you feel all the time?

[name], you're a genius.

how do a bunch of guys with hand tools build all this?

the aliens helped them.

i volunteered.

it's invisible.

i'm sorry for your suffering.

when are we gonna get there?

i'm hungry. this car smells weird.

i'm so sorry i dropped you.

i would have done exactly the same to you.

why can't they just say "go to this place, here's the treasure, spend it wisely?"

anyone crazy enough to believe us isn't gonna want to help.

we don't need someone crazy.

[name], are you crying?

look. stairs.

i'm guessing that's significant.

i'm just trying to hide from my ex-husband.

stay as long as you like.

you want something?

i see what you left him.

this isn't a day for "um."

we didn't find the information credible.

well, this might be possible.

i leveled with you one hundred percent.

everything i told you was the truth.

it's not a conspiracy theory.

you know what? i take it back.

i'm in a little trouble.

this... is huge.

you are gonna go to prison. you know that, right?

that would bother most people.

you know what you have to do.

i'm just trying to think if there's anything else we could do.

i'm not letting it out of my sight.

how do you look?

a toast to high treason.

here's to the men who did what was considered wrong in order to do what they knew was right.

why do you need them?

look... this is a waste of time.

i'm still not against you.

i really couldn't accept something like this normally.

we don't actually have it.

did bigfoot take it?

is there a door that doesn't lead to prison?

get out of there. get out of there now!

[name], can you hear me?

can i marry your brain?

our evil plan is working.

why does that never happen to me?

meet me at the car. call me if you have any problems.

no broken bones?

a jump like that could kill a man.

[reasonsforhope]

"Two wild kiwi chicks were born near Wellington, New Zealand, about a year after a reintroduction program began in the city, the Capital Kiwi Project announced last week. The fluffy, brown babies are the first to be born near the country’s capital in at least 150 years. 

“This is very special for the team, which has been working hard for the last few years,” project founder Paul Ward tells the Agence France-Presse. The chicks are a “massive milestone for our goal of building a wild population of kiwi on Wellington’s back doorstep.”

These flightless, chicken-sized birds were once abundant across New Zealand, with the nation’s five species numbering an estimated 12 million individuals in total. But nonnative predators and habitat loss caused their populations to plummet. Today, approximately 68,000 kiwis remain....

Conservation and reintroduction programs, including the Capital Kiwi Project, have been working to restore a large-scale wild kiwi population for years. In 2022, the organization released 11 kiwis into the wild in Makara, a suburb about seven miles west of Wellington. Between February and May of 2023, another 52 birds were released, and 200 more are slated to be released over the next five years, reports Eva Corlett for the Guardian.

Along with reintroduction efforts, the project aimed to reduce threats from European stoats, also known as ermines. The mammals were brought to New Zealand in the 19th century in an attempt to eradicate another introduced creature: rabbits. But these weasel-like stoats are voracious predators and kill many of New Zealand’s native species, including kiwi chicks. Only about 5 percent of kiwi chicks survive to reach breeding age in areas where predators are not controlled, largely thanks to stoats. In areas under management, however, 50 to 60 percent survive. Knowing this, conservationists worked with 100 landowners across the bird’s 60,000-acre habitat to install 4,600 stoat traps.

Of the 63 adult kiwis now roaming the hilly farmlands of Makara, only about a quarter are being monitored—meaning more chicks will likely hatch in the near future. Conservationists will continue monitoring the two new chicks, though Ward tells the Guardian they still have a long way to go before they’re fully grown...

Over the years, the long-beaked birds have become a national symbol of New Zealand, with people who hail from the country often referred to as kiwis. The animals also hold special importance to the Māori people of New Zealand, who have cultural, spiritual and historic associations with the birds. Even the New Zealand dollar is sometimes referred to as the kiwi, and the bird is featured on the country’s dollar coin."

-via Smithsonian Magazine, December 6, 2023

[seat-safety-switch]

You've probably not heard of the Stockholm Divorce. It's a new thing, only innovated in the last couple years. Conventional court-based divorces are messy, expensive affairs, where both parties often attempt to cause the maximum amount of damage to each other. Things don't have to be this way, and the next generation of divorce attorneys has found a better method.

Initiating the Stockholm Divorce is simple, and it should be obvious once it's been explained. Ninety-five percent of marriages start to suffer serious problems after a trip to Ikea. The reason why is simple. Assembling cheap, particle-board furniture with your spouse is bound to drive a wedge into any slight schism or disagreement you may have with them. Many successful couples simply just don't do it together, breeding resentment when it turns out that the "handy" dude you married just operates a Dodge Ram and doesn't actually own a screwdriver.

Where the genius of this divorce comes is that it starts one step earlier, well before the Ikea assembly causes a cascade of emotional chaos. Ikea's stores are notoriously maze-like, so what you can do is take your partner to a corner of the store, tell them you're going to go grab something and will be "right back," then just walk out and get in the car. You'll be back to singles life immediately, and your formerly-significant other will be stuck wandering the store for all eternity, wondering if you did in fact leave them behind or just are also looking for them at the same time, maybe in rugs or lighting or something. Don't worry, they won't starve. There's a restaurant.

Is it cruel? Somewhat, but like in many other cases, the cruelty is offset by novelty. Already, Ikeas across this great nation are filling up with divorced folks, which means it's a good place to go to meet new folks. And it's been fantastic for the stockholders: a new study shows that for every 15 minutes someone is forced to wander the store, wondering if they will ever see the face of their loved ones again, they buy approximately $17 in goods. This new mechanism has been so profitable, in fact, that the corporate bigwigs have decided that all the stores will now be open 24 hours a day, so as to encourage more frenzied, anxiety-laden purchasing as the customers gradually come to terms with the end of their relationship.