#Urooj

[panelshowsource]

@guy_mont: Thank you all the spellers and audience members who came to the U.K. debut of Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee! I never thought a comedy show about language would find an audience at the Edinburgh Fringe but against the odds - we did it

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Source

[theancienttimesnews]

India becomes fourth country to land on the moon, first on the south pole, with Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft

India staked new claim as a national superpower in space, landing its Chandrayaan-3 mission safely on the moon’s unexplored south pole on Wednesday.The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft launched last month and touch downed on the lunar surface around 8:34 a.m. ET. The feat makes India the fourth country – after Russia, the U.S. and China – to land on the moon, and the first to land on one of the moon’s…

[blogbyameera]

- " Hum sab ki zindagi mei ek piano hota hai , jo humare dil ke kisey dark corner mei kisi khuwahish ki tarah chupa betha hota hai ..

Some of us apni chahat ke urooj mei usko pa leta hai and others uski khoj mei sari zindagi bhatakta rehta hai "

- " Khushnaseeb kon hota hai ? pa lene wala ya kho dene wala ? "

- " Of course , none of them .. jisne paya usne paa kr matti kar diya and jisne nahi paya wo khud khaak mei mil gaya "

- Parizaad

[qalbofnight]

Mere Ghar ki deewaron mein qaid hain,Hanste hue bacchon ki awazein , jaati hui scooter ka dhuwan , aane waley logon ke hathon ke nishanaat , baap ke munh se nikli teekhi baatein aur roti hui Maa ki awazein

In diwaron ne dekha hai budhey baadhey logon ka Jana Nanhey bacche ka aana , talkh e aab o Dana , zawal o urooj e zamana , aurat ka tanhayi mein gungunana,

Ghar ki diwarein musnif hoti hai aur Ghar ki diwarein hain shayar bhi , Ghar ki diwarein laaj e Adam ka parda hain , yahi to hifz -e- jaan mardaan hain ,

Meri darkhwast hai Apni aabayi asal Na chodi jaye Ghar ki dewaarein na todi jayein

[samcampbellfans]

Sam Campbell and John Robins presenting Urooj Ashfaq with an award at Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2023.

[mahamislamkhan]

"Mohabbate Zawal par nibhayi jati hain,

Urooj par toh paraye bhi apne ho jate hain"

[ayy-esha]

Zawal aata hai har shay ko magar,

Mere gham ko musalsal urooj hasil hai.

[ginazmemeoir]

i had this shayari event at college and this is my first ever so i thought i'd post it here (its about how i've never dated anybody and right now i don't even have a crush so i'd like to manifest a love story)

Ishq naam ke lafz ko itna bola ja chuka hai Ki ab honthon pe uska wazan aata hi nahi Ghalib, Daag aur Jigar ko bhi humne jhootha sabit kar diya Jo kehte hai ki dil diye bina zinda raha jata hi nahi.

Mohabbat ki nahi jisne, us dil ki tadap batlayen kaise? Jo tha hi nahi kabhi, uski judaai samjhayen kaise? Surkh seher, jo itna itarake aati hai Syaah shaam hi janti hai mere raaz use yeh batayen kaise?

Intezaar hai us mahvash ka Jiski tabassum ke liye hum mar jayen Us nazneen, us afreen, us rooh buland ka Jo humari duniya ki mehvar ho jaye

Musalsal alfaazon ka karwaan is tarah unki zubaan se behta jaye Ki us sahil ki aagosh mein hi rehne ka man kar jaye Unki zulfon ki khushbu is qadar sar chadh jaye Ki gulon ka bhi apni ana se aitbar uth jaye

Jaane kaisi hai yeh bechaini jo vusl se pehle hijr ka matam banati hai Jaane kaisa hai yeh samaa jo haal e dil ka ahsaas karata hai

Mom se is dil ko shamma kar jaye ab koi Qitabon ke qisson ko meri bhi dastaan bana de ab koi Dimaag ki tasveer ko haqiqat banade ab koi Mere pet mein bhi titliyaan bhar jaye ab koi Adhoore nahin, faqat akele se dil ka yaar ban jaye ab koi Nausikhiye se is qissago ko sikandar-e-sher bana de ab koi

Iss bahar-e-basant mein, iss shayaron ki bheed mein shayad ek akela hi hoon main Jo bina pankhon ke parwaaz karne aaya hai Ufaq ki doori dekh kar dar jaate hain bahut Humko toh bas urooj karna aata hai.

[beardedmrbean]

NEW YORK — Colinford Mattis’ trajectory from a working-class upbringing in East New York to the Ivy League and corporate law abruptly ended at about 1 a.m. May 30, 2020, when a Molotov cocktail ignited the center console of an empty police car during a Black Lives Matter protest.

On Thursday afternoon, Judge Brian Cogan of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn sentenced Mattis, one of two young lawyers who burned the vehicle during the protests days after the murder of George Floyd, to 12 months and a day in prison and a year of post-release supervision.

Mattis, 35, has lost his law license, having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson and having acknowledged he had broken the law he had sworn to uphold. Now he may lose much more: the guardianship and planned adoption of three foster children. The oldest is 14.

On Thursday evening, the Brooklyn courtroom was crowded with Mattis’ friends and family.

“I’m deeply sorry and embarrassed about the things I did and said in May 2020,” Mattis told the judge. He said he recently reread his text messages from that day. “I am more than horrified at the words I used,” he said.

“I am sorry that I hurt my three children that my mother had entrusted to me,” he added.

The judge told Mattis that the country needed attorneys to bolster faith in the rule of law and to reassure Americans that the legal system would hold Floyd’s killers to account. He told Mattis that his hard work had changed his station in life.

“You’re not one of the oppressed,” Cogan said. “You’re one of the privileged.”

Spectators in the gallery gasped at the judge’s words. “To make that comment, you’re not seeing the same things that I’m seeing,” said Taaj Reeves, a friend of Mattis’, after the hearing.

In November, the judge had sentenced Urooj Rahman, Mattis’ friend and a fellow lawyer, to 15 months in prison and two years of supervised release for the same crime. She was the primary caretaker of her aging mother. Cogan called the sentence one of the most difficult he ever had to impose. After a lifetime of hard work and conscientiousness, he said, Rahman’s conduct was a violent aberration.

“You are a remarkable person who did a terrible thing on one night,” the judge told her.

Cogan said Thursday that Mattis got a lighter punishment because he had not been the main instigator of the attack.

The sentences close a case that stunned the city, devastated two families and exposed deep fissures between the police and the community. They reflect a long negotiation with the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, which at first sought steep charges and had pushed to deny bail to Rahman and Mattis, both first-time offenders.

Rahman and Mattis had been high achievers, children of immigrant families who were raised in New York. Rahman pursued public interest law, co-authoring a paper on police reform in 2014 and working at Bronx Legal Services. Mattis followed a more lucrative corporate path. But he was already teetering in his career and personal life when the protests occurred.

The events that led to their downfall began in an unsettled spring.

Mattis had been furloughed in March from his job as an associate at the law firm Pryor Cashman, and the pandemic had cut him off from outside support as he took care of the children, his lawyer wrote.

Then, on May 25, video of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died in Minneapolis after his neck was pinned to the ground by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, ignited protests. There were demonstrations in at least 140 cities across the United States.

In New York, peaceful protests turned into confrontations with police. Throughout the weekend, demonstrators clashed with officers in Union Square in Manhattan and outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, resulting in injuries and hundreds of arrests.

On May 29, according to court documents, Mattis had been drinking throughout the day as he exchanged despairing messages over the murder of Floyd with friends, including Rahman, who were mobilizing to join a protest. That evening, Rahman, who was 31 at the time, met Mattis after he made stops to buy supplies, including gasoline, and joined a swell of protesters in Brooklyn.

Shortly after midnight, with Mattis at the wheel, according to court filings, they drove in a tan minivan to a police precinct in Clinton Hill. After trying to persuade a bystander to throw a bottle that she was holding, Rahman got out of the van herself, walked toward an empty police patrol car that had already been damaged by protesters and threw the Molotov cocktail through its broken window before fleeing.

She and Mattis were arrested shortly afterward and held in jail for several days before they were released to home confinement.

It was a politically fraught moment after New York police officers had arrested hundreds of people during the protests, many on charges of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and unlawful assembly. District attorneys said they would not prosecute many of the nonviolent cases.

Brooklyn federal prosecutors, then part of the Trump Justice Department, appealed twice to keep them behind bars, saying that the two lawyers had tried to incite others to similar attacks. But more than 50 former federal prosecutors signed a public letter urging the appeals court to reject the U.S. attorney’s office’s argument for detention, saying it contradicted settled bail law.

In June 2020, a grand jury returned an indictment against Mattis and Rahman that included seven counts, including arson, use of explosives and civil disorder.

In November 2021, after President Joe Biden had taken office and new leadership had taken over in the Department of Justice, Rahman and Mattis each pleaded guilty to one count of possessing and making an incendiary device. Last June, those charges were dismissed as part of a deal with prosecutors, and both pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit arson.

At Rahman’s sentencing, she faced up to five years under federal guidelines, and the government had asked for 18 months to two years. Her lawyer, Peter Baldwin, asked the court to impose only supervised release, saying his client had experienced “a dangerous and reprehensible lapse of judgment.”

“Urooj’s emotions — her anger, her despair, her rage — got the better of her,” he told the judge. Since the incident, Rahman had been in therapy and Alcoholics Anonymous, Baldwin said.

Rahman was born in Pakistan and grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; she graduated from Fordham Law School and had always been drawn to public interest work, a commitment for which Cogan praised her.

When she addressed the court, Rahman cried as she spoke about her mother’s grief. “I don’t think there are enough words to express my sorrow and regret,” she told the court. “My sole intention was to lend my voice to other New Yorkers in the pursuit of justice. I completely lost my way in the emotions of the night.”

She is to report to federal prison in Connecticut on Tuesday.

Mattis has already spent nearly a month in jail, has taken a leadership role in his Alcoholics Anonymous chapter and is at no risk of reoffending, his lawyers said in the memorandum to the judge.

Sabrina Shroff, his defense attorney, told Cogan in a presentencing letter how Mattis, the son of immigrants from Jamaica and St. Vincent, grew up in a chaotic home. Although early on he struggled academically, he went on to graduate from boarding school, then attended Princeton University and New York University’s law school.

When he was in his second year of law school, his father, Kingcolinford Mattis, was stabbed to death during a robbery in St. Vincent. His son used alcohol to dull his pain, Shroff wrote.

After law school, when he took a job at a law firm in 2016, he was often late or absent, court documents said. His yearslong dependency on alcohol worsened. He was asked to leave the firm just as his mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and he became her primary caregiver until her death in 2019, even as he worked at another firm.

After she died, Mattis took over her role as the foster parent for the three children he is now in the process of trying to adopt. He is also the primary caretaker for his 15-year-old nephew.

Shortly after the pandemic hit in March 2020 and Mattis was furloughed, his drinking increased, according to court filings.

On May 29, 2020, hours before he joined the protests, Mattis watched the video of Floyd’s murder for the first time and began to cry.

Within hours, court records said, Mattis was driving the minivan quickly away from the burning police sedan with open bottles of Bud Light, a funnel, a half-full red gas can and rolls of toilet paper.

[faithful-diaries]

Koi urooj de na zawaal de

Mujhe sirf itna kamaal de

Mujhe apni raah me daal de

Ki zamana meri misaal de

Teri rehmato ka nuzool ho

Mujhe mehnato ka sila mile

Muje maal or zar ki hawas na ho

Mujhe bas tu rizq e halaal de

Mere zehn mein teri fiqr ho

Meri saans mein tera zikr ho

Tera khauf meri nijaat ho

Sabhi khauf dil se nikaal de

Teri baargah mein Aye khuda

Meri roz o shab ho yahi dua

Tu raheen hai Tu kareem hai

Mujhe mushkilon se nikaal de🤲

-Allama Iqbal

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Fucking right!! Okay, I usually try to avoid talking about this, but fuck it, I have to say, I have heard this show, and it is absolutely amazing. One of the very best I’ve heard, from anyone, ever. No, I didn’t see every single show at the Fringe, but I cannot imagine this one did not deserve that award. Of almost 40 (it’s high 30s at the moment, anyway, and I’m still waiting for a couple more NextUp streams to happen) Edinburgh 2023 shows I have heard, and then given ratings in a spreadsheet, Ahir Shah’s was the only show that I gave a 9.75. And that’s only because I went into this rating thing by telling myself I won’t give any show a 10 unless it’s literally as good as the best comedy show I’ve ever heard by anyone. And, okay, it did not quite equal Daniel Kitson’s Where Once Was Wonder. But God, it was fucking good.

That’s why I was surprised to not have read more about it. Because I have been meticulously reading every post on a comedy message board about the 2023 Edinburgh Festival, and there was a lot of talk about a lot of shows, some of which I’ve familiar with and many of which I’m not, but almost no mention of Ahir Shah.

I couldn’t tell if this was a weird oversight on everyone else’s part, or if it’s a sign that I just don’t know enough about comedy. I mean, I haven’t heard a lot of the shows they were talking about, so I guess it’s possible, I thought, that all those were somehow even better than this, and I just think Ahir Shah’s is the best because I don’t know what’s really good. But I have seen and heard a lot of other stand-up comedy shows, by many people in many years (to be fair, I have actually seen in person only a few comedy shows, I mainly mean I’ve seen and heard recordings of a lot of them, and I realize that’s different from being in the room, so that may mitigate whether I can use the claim of “I’ve seen and heard a lot of comedy shows” to give me any cred in knowing about comedy), and Ahir Shah’s Ends is one of the best I’ve ever heard. Including being better than some shows I’ve heard that have previously won the main Edinburgh award, under whatever title it had at the time. So the point is… look, the comedy judges agree with me! They gave the award to the whole festival to the same person who won the top grade in my spreadsheet rankings! I do know what I’m talking about!

I realize it’s a bit hypocritical of me to accept this as a sign that I know what I’m talking about, when at other times I’ve disagreed with comedy award picks, and that makes me say, “Giving out awards for something as subjective as comedy is ridiculous, that one didn’t deserve that award, why do those few people get to say who’s the best?” But when the show that I thought was the best actually wins, I say, “See, this official panel has officially declared that I am correct.” I’ve written plenty before about how I got into comedy as a coping mechanism to deal with a reduction of sports in my life, and this is one instance where the parallel seems obvious, because right now, I feel a lot like my sports team just won. It’s fucking great.

Anyway, seriously, I really think Ahir Shah deserves this and I hope his career only gets better from here, though it’s been on a strong trajectory for a while anyway. I’ve only seen one previous stand-up show by him, which I thought was also brilliant, though not as good at the 2023 one. That one was Dots, his 2019 Edinburgh show that was filmed for HBO in 2021.

I saw that one at the very beginning of 2023, which was a good time for it, I think. I was in a really rough place at the end of 2022/beginning of 2023, not that things are going very well now, but I’ve been sort of steadily climbing out of that absolute breakdown since January. And in January, watching that Ahir Shah special did help. There a bit in there where he says he went off his anti-depressants – “And doing that,” he said, “it turns out is a pro-depressant” – and then he went back on them after having a mental health crisis, and that didn’t make everything better, but it helped. And that is pretty well exactly what I did – I went off antidepressants in 2021 because I thought they weren’t helping, and then in late 2022/early 2023, I was wondering why I couldn’t function and I broke up with my girlfriend because I was so miserable I thought I didn't deserve her, and that absolutely shattered me and I wanted to die for the first time in a few years.

I’d been thinking for a while anyway about going back on medication – I wrote a whole long post at the time about this, in which I repeatedly said “I’m going back on antidepressants because Ahir Shah told me to”, but then also repeatedly said that I’m reducing it to that to be kind of amusing, obviously that is not literally the main factor, no one should take medical advice from comedians. But also, it did kind of give me the push I needed, seeing someone else say there is a way back even if you’ve gotten this bad, just because you stopped them once doesn’t mean you can’t start them again, going off anti-depressants is a pro-depressant that can be undone. And that wasn’t the main factor in my decision to do it, but it was kind of the last factor, the thing that gave me the final push I needed and I did actually call my doctor the morning after I watched that show. If I hadn't seen that Ahir Shah show, I would still have gone back on medication, but not as soon as I did. It would have taken me longer to make that phone call, and I'm glad I didn't end up waiting.

I’m actually not back on anti-depressants. I met with my doctor and talked about what happened and she suggested that my main problem is the extreme anxiety, and if I could curb that I’d be better at functioning and less depressed, so I’m now on anti-anxiety pills. I started taking those very night, alongside like four different vitamins plus iron pills, and I can actually credit Ahir Shah with that too. Because in his show Dots, he talked about going back on anti-depressants and starting to feel better, and he complained that he has to take a whole stupid fucking cocktail of pills every night because his body doesn’t just produce the right stuff naturally and it turns out that you have to get enough iron and shit like that or your body doesn’t function and you’re miserable.

And I thought of my prescription for iron pills that had been sitting in my drawer for nearly 18 months, ever since I had blood work done that said I was severely anemic and should take iron about it, and I’d just never bothered to do so because, I don’t know, I dislike taking meds and I wasn’t functional enough to take care of that and it felt like it was stupid to think something like that would help. Like taking supplements is something happy functional people to who know how to take care of themselves properly, and that's not for me. That line in Ahir Shah’s show did help, hearing that it is normal for someone my age (he’s almost exactly my age, to within a couple of months) to have to take supplements for physical stuff as well as mental health meds, even if we're cynical about it, and if that’s what our bodies need then we should just do it even if it’s annoying, and if I want to then every night I can take my cocktail of pills while rolling my eyes about how annoying it is to take my stupid little pills for my stupid little physical and mental health, and I can think of Ahir Shah being annoyed about it too but doing it anyway. And I do that now. I started taking iron and some other vitamins where I'd been found deficient, as well as these anti-anxiety things. I’ve been doing it since January, and I do occasionally think of Ahir Shah when I take my cocktail of pills. But it helps. Like I said, not everything’s fine now. I still feel pretty fucking bad a lot. But I’m no longer absolutely exhausted all the time. And I no longer want to die.

Last week, I had blood work done for the first time since a couple years ago, when it said I was severely anemic, and then they prescribed me iron but I didn’t start taking it until nearly 18 months later. The previous four or five times that I’ve had blood work done before that, it’s also come back as low iron, once in the anemic range, but not in the severely anemic range until the most recent time. Well, the second most recent time. Because the most recent time was last week, and I got my results back yesterday, and for the first time since my early twenties, it did not say low iron at all! In fact, it was fine! They specifically said every test they did on my blood said it’s fine! My health anxiety has been abated! That’s something I’ll be able to think about for months when I lie in bed at night panicking that I have cancer. It’s fine, I started taking pills and now my blood is fine.

Okay, this post has veered wildly off topic, even by my standards. I know I tend to jump around in focus on these posts, but I don’t think I’m usually this bad. I just really wanted to explain why I have thought about Ahir Shah weirdly often in the last year. Because he often comes into my head at night, when I go to take pills, and the cynic in me immediately wants to think “this is stupid and annoying and won’t work and why am I bothering trying to do something stupid like this as though it will help anything?”, and I think of Ahir Shah saying he also finds it stupid, but he got over that and did it anyway.

The show Dots was about recovery from a mental health breakdown, about finding a way to be functional despite justified cynicism, to want to get out of bed in the morning even though everything is absolutely shit. It was also about family and culture and stars and the different life paths people choose and being the child of immigrants and the mysteries of the universe and religion and all kinds of beautiful things woven together. It’s a really lovely show and everyone should watch it. I can’t share his 2023 show, but if anyone wants to see Dots (his 2019 show filmed in 2021), send me a message and I’ll share a link with you.

So, knowing how much I’d loved Dots, I was really excited to hear his 2023 show, Ends. And it wasn’t just because of Dots. I’ve seen Ahir Shah on TV, more and more in the last couple of years, and I really like him. I first heard of him when I saw him on The Mash Report, where he was great. Lately, he’s been turning up on other stuff, and I feel like he’s been tailor-made to be everything I specifically like in a panel show guest. It’s this perfect blend of cynicism and competitiveness, sardonic detachment but also what seems like a genuine excitement to be there, and getting really into it whenever there’s something to prove or win. He’s been a central figure in my favourite episode of QI, and at least one of my favourite episodes of Catsdown, from the last couple of years. And God, I would love him to be on Taskmaster.

Basically, his 2023 show was all the best parts of Ahir Shah, all the things I specifically love and all the things that are objectively great as far as comedy can ever be objectively anything, and he chose some excellent themes and topics and wove material around it with beautiful care. He had stuff to say, stuff that really mattered, and he told it in a way that made sense and was funny and brilliant. The word “funny” is important there – I know I’m getting lost in some flowery words about it being beautiful and important, so I want to clarify that it was also fucking funny. Funnier than Dots, I think. Dots I remember for the themes and I know I laughed a bit; Ends I remember for the themes but I also think of for how it made me laugh out loud repeatedly. And it made me cry, I will say, at the end. And that's what you want in a comedy show, right? It's the only stand-up show from 2023 that’s made me cry, so well done on that, Ahir.

I just think he’s amazing, I love that he’s got this recognition, I hope he gets lots more opportunities (Taskmaster, Taskmaster, Taskmaster, please). Also, just wondering, why hasn’t Ahir Shah been on The Bugle yet? I realize that’s not exactly the sort of huge high-profile booking that he maybe wants or deserves (Taskmaster, Taskmaster, Taskmaster, I think Sam Campbell should be the start of a trend where the winner of this award automatically gets a spot on the next Taskmaster), but he doesn’t have a high enough profile yet to be too big for The Bugle, and he’d be fantastic on there. He was so good on The Mash Report, shooting the shit with Nish Kumar about current affairs, I’d love to hear him do that again but in a longer form than the five or so minutes his segments got on TV, and also with Andy Zaltzman there.

On the subject of The Mash Report, there’s a line in this show Ends where Ahir Shah says Hindu South Asians live in Britain in massive numbers, but a lot of people don’t realize just how many of them there are, “Because our entire cultural output consists of my mate Nish.” Ahir Shah’s Ends is one of my favourite stand-up comedy hours I’ve ever heard, and another one of my top favourites is Nish Kumar’s Your Power Your Control, which finally aired on TV for the first time yesterday (I haven’t found a recording of it yet, I’m expecting it to go up in one of my usual spots soon, but if anyone has already found it somewhere… if you could send me a link, I would give you in exchange my eternal gratitude and also any stand-up I have that you might want). So while there might not be a lot of British South Asians doing cultural output (to be clear, I am aware that there are more than literally two of them, and so is Ahir Shah, he was using hyperbole for comic effect), the ones who are out there are fucking killing it. Also, happy birthday, Nish Kumar! Happy award winning, Ahir Shah! And happy feeling like my sports team just won to me!

God, I needed this. Some comedians have been disappointing me lately, made me feel a bit cynical about comedy, I needed a win. You know when you find out your sports team is maybe not the sports team you thought they were, maybe your sports team actually kind of sucks, and then you get disheartened and lose faith in humanity? And then you need to counter that with something heartening, like one of your good sports teams getting a bit win? Am I stretching the metaphor too far? Can I make it more obvious if I say that when Ahir Shah talked in Ends about how he was about to get married... just, please, Ahir, I hope she's within a reasonable number of years close to your age, and please try to limit any cheating on her to at least less than three full years, okay? Please? Please be cool, I need my faith in humanity restored (disclaimer: do not take medical advice or faith in humanity from comedians, I know, I know, you're not supposed to do that, but still, surely "keep the affairs to under 3 years" isn't that high a bar).

[theancienttimesnews]

Entire Ladakh Knows...": Rahul Gandhi After China Rahul Gandhi question’s pm Modi

China’s “standard” map shows Aksai Chin, which it occupied in the 1962 war, and Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as South Tibet, as part of its territory. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today demanded a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in response to China’s release of a map that claims ownership of Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, which has been categorically rejected by India. On…

[thegirlandthewardrobe]

STUFF YOUR KINDLE DAY IS FRIDAY JUNE 30TH!!! (HUNDREDS OF FREE BOOKS)

There's going to be TONS of free romance books available on Amazon for download! The books can be also be downloaded/sent to Non-Kindle devices as well. The list of available books was released early and can be found here. I also took the time to scroll through some of the categories and compile a brief list of some of the books that I'm looking forward to downloading, in case anyone needs help choosing books😊 I also linked the Goodreads description for each and every book for those of you who want more info or reviews!

P.S. These are all spicy reads (with probably the exception of the YA ones), IYKYK😏

Happy Reading❤️

**=Reverse Harem/Why Choose

Young Adult Romance

Midnight Prince by Aisha Urooj

White by Angelina J. Steffort

Gravebriar by Casey L. Bond

Kingdom of Embers by Trina Copeland

Teaching the Teachers Pet by Sarah Sutton

Crimson Born by Amy Patrick

Her Dark Love by Isra Sravenheart

In the Dust by K.A. Gandy

Fire and Ice by Michelle Barrow-Belisle

Keeper of Dragons: The Prince Returns by J.A. Culican

Fantasy Romance

The Prince of Dragons by Tameri Etherton

Veiled by Michelle Areaux

Dragon Soul by L.J. Swallow

Empath's Lure by Jen Lynning

Wolf Shunned by Laurel Night

To Catch A Fae by Mila Young

Taming the Vines by Anita Primrose

The Gilded Survivor by Daniela A. Mera

Empath: The Tale of Flora and Cale by Meghan Shaltes

The Queen's Wings by Jamie K. Schmidt

Captured by the Fae by Vera Rivers

The Coven of Ruin by T.K. Tucker

The Lost Siren by Raven Storm

Death Wish by Harper A. Brooks

Maiden Flight by Bianca D'Arc

The Borderlands Princess by Ophelia Wells Langley

Blade and Rose by Miranda Honfleur

Princess of Thorns by Amberlyn Holland

The Captive and the Cursed by Alexa Saint

Lord of the Hollow Court by C.K. Beggan

**Queen of the Stars by Catherine Banks

**Captive Beauty by Cassia Briar

Queen of Roses by Brior Boleyn

**Psychotic by Elle Lincoln

Night Elves of Ardani by Nina K. Westra

The Gardener and the Water-horse by Mallory Dunlin

**Our Fae Queen by Traci Lovelot

Sun Serpent by Geneva Monroe

**Torn Apart by D.E. Chapman

Paranormal Romance

Never Say Never by Sarah Spade

**Daughter of the Sun by Laura Greenwood

**The Stalking Dead by Eva Chase

Forbidden Wolf by CR Robertson

**Splintered: Brookview Academy by A.J. Moran

**A Monstrous Claim: Part 1 by R.K. Pierce

Breaking the Lovers' Curse by Lore Nicole

The Dragon's Reluctant Sacrifice by Ines Johnson

**Monsters by Katie May

Night Revelations by Godiva Gleen

**Scarred Wolf by Elizabeth Blackthorne

**Vampire's Kiss by Atlas Rose

**Red by Tracey H. Kitts

**Dark Spirits by N.A. Jameson

Feral by Trish Heinrick

Her Primal Love by Rianne Burnett

**Magic Claimed by Charmaine Ross

**Life's a Witch by Skyler Andra

**Vampires Don't Give Hickeys by Holly Ryan

[ahlulbaytnetworks]

MUHARRAM MAJALIS from *Wednesday 19th July 2023 until Saturday 29th July 2023* to be held at *366A Stag Lane, Kingsbury, NW9 9AA* Daily Program is as follows:

7.30PM Tilawat Quran

7.40PM Soz o Salam

8.00PM Urdu Majlis: H.I Maulana Sayed Urooj ul Hasan Meesam SQ (Lucknow, India)

Followed by Matamdari & Namaz Jamat

*Ashura and Shame Ghareeban Program to be announced in due course*

[former-leftist-jew]

"On May 14, 2022, Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white man, traveled 200 miles to a supermarket in a black neighborhood, where he shot and killed ten people, yelling racial slurs the whole time.

Gendron was a lone wolf killer. He had no formal ties to any organization. Nor did he know his victims. All he had were his illusions, including the illusion of race. Many of his illusions came from abstract concepts he learned online, which Gendron later admitted.

Other lone wolf killers have also spent an inordinate amount of time online. They gain insight into the world not by learning about life and people first-hand, but through an online study of images and symbols—through language. In the U.S., over half of the deadliest mass shootings in the last 100 years have occurred since 2014, when social media took off.

Gendron sprinkled his pre-murder manifesto with abstract words such as “fascism,” “capitalism,” “nihilism,” “hedonism,” and “individualism,” in an effort to explain his thinking. As a teenager, he said he was committed to “communism,” then to “authoritarianism,” and later to “populism.” Connor Sturgeon, another lone wolf killer (and knowledge worker) who shot and killed five people in 2023, filled his manifesto with vague and ill-defined words from popular psychology, including “self-esteem,” “negative self-image,” and “self-improvement.”

All these words can exist without being connected to anything that does exist. They have no well-defined cognitive content. They lend themselves to illusion because a person can project his or her own desires, hate, and fears onto them. They can mean whatever the person says they mean.

...

Urooj Rahman was a radicalized knowledge worker in her thirties. She threw a flaming gasoline-filled beer bottle into a New York City police car during the 2020 George Floyd riots. Tending toward the anarchic despite being a lawyer, she shouted, “I hope they burn everything down. Need to burn all police stations down and probably the courts too.”

Rahman spent much of her life amid abstract concepts. She spoke “the language of abolitionist Twitter,” one writer observed. She was “steeped in the language of social justice and racial politics.” Ill-defined terms such as “race,” “gender,” “LGBTQI,” and “environmentalism” seem to have shaped her crude perception of reality. Life for her became a theater in which her own little plot, built upon abstract words, was always being played.

The old American students who celebrated the purposeful killing of innocent Israeli civilians revealed a similar obsession with abstract words, constantly referring to phrases such as “colonialism,” “apartheid,” “humanitarian,” and “identity.” The words reflect the same creepy simplicity of mind that chills the blood."

The reason the establishment is so terrified of Aaron Bushnell's protest, is because they understand a point many of you seem to have missed

Aaron wasn't sending a message to the government (we know they don't care)

No, I think Aaron's message was meant for other service people like him. Because if the military refuses to participate in the genocide, it's over

And if you thought YOU were moved by Aaron's actions...

imagine how Aaron's unit is feeling right now

Mutinies have started for less

The exact moment every protest turns into a revolution, is when the army refuses to defend the establishment any longer.

And THAT was the message Aaron was sending out. How many units now are ready to reject orders? How low does their morale have to sink before they say 'enough!' How long until they stop pointing guns at the protestors outside, and run over and join them instead?

This is dangerous territory for a government that is hellbent on ignoring every crisis it creates