#fifty billion dogs

[differentnerddiplomatopera]

Romance

I hate it.

no but I saw a tumblr post talking about forced-romances and how we can’t just have a equal balance of found family and stuff like that (if I find the post again I will tag the original)

I’m aroace, (on the spectrum of it) and I will choose found family and platonic relationship over romance like 60/40. Depends on the day. I’m am now just realizing Odydio is the first, (maybe) romantic? relationship I’m indulging in. Not really, cus I see them in a aromantic spectrum type way. But yeah, I am just realizing that this is the first time (that I can remember) that I am allowing a romantic? relationship to take up my brain space.

Not that it’s bad to write, indulge, daydream about all romantic relationships or all platonic relationships. If you like it, I love it.

just something to think about for me.

huh.

wow.

Ancient Greek gay men got me.

But honestly..

My personal opinion…

be aromantic so you can start a cult so you can make a huge found family and take over the world, and get vegan cookie dough and make fifteen health food stores for your mom nearby and-

[bigbarabelly]

Lmao lets see if this is ok to post

Jimcurly 👊🫡

If you like my art and want to support me consider hucking a few bucks at my Kofi!

[kitkatcadillac]

that last post does make me think of how much i dont think about how fkn hard it is to make Anything Human. i can make them human shaped. i can make them pretend. but human so rarely sticks to any of my characters or muses, but of course fjdj

i grew up obsessed with drawing dragons and pokemon. i have a fursona. all my first ocs were dragons pokemon and various other mythical creatures and monsters. where do you think my brain feels homiest fejfj

[necromancelena]

Generally speaking while I would personally tack on at least an extra five or so decades to the typical human lifespan had I gotten a say in it, mortality is generally something I'm cool with. That said, the one thing that does make me upset that I'm gonna die someday is that I can't play every video game that has ever been made. All the other more important stuff is kind of like. meh that's normal I've had my whole life to process and accept that things are finite and there is a certain beauty in allowing things to end but for this one thing it's like okay if I don't enjoy a game my time is better spent just doing something else. there are tens of thousands of dog shit games that I will simply have to go "no it is best if i don't touch this it is a waste of my limited earth time". How am I supposed to become an expert on this artistic medium that I care about if I'm only experiencing the good ones that I like?

Anyways if I was a immortal vampire the inside of my spooky gothic castle walls would be lined with shelves filled with games called stuff like "Shitto Quest" for the commodore 64 and I would have a billion things to say about each one at my giant fifty foot dining room table dinners I have with my victims (happens after the orgies and before the blood sucking). And it would kind of suck for anyone who wasn't into that sort of thing but my vampire cleavage would be out and i would be so hot they would listen anyway and I wouldn't even have to use hypnosis.

[cable-salamdr]

Why do I relate to a silly stop motion dog more strongly than to most real people what is this bullshit

Me when that isle sure has dogs

[mania-sama]

december fic recs!

this is part of a preliminary trial for making fanfiction recommendations for the year of our savior, 2025, each month. regardless that this is only a trial run, these are still serious recommendations! i don't follow just one fandom, so there will be an array in here sorted by fandom with a short description about why i liked it so much! and finally, a quote from the fic that i chose because it stuck out to me, represents the fic well, etc.

featured fandoms: haikyuu | six of crows | all for the game | voltron: legendary defender | jujutsu kaisen | bungou stray dogs

➼ haikyuu

✎ Astrophilia by KingsHighway ❧ teen and up, 22k ❧ sawamura daichi/sugawara koushi, iwaizumi hajime/oikawa tooru, kozume kenma/kuroo tetsurou, tendou satori/ushijima wakatoshi, kita shinsuke/ojiro aran, akaashi keiji/bokuto kuroo ❧ the captain squad are astronaut deep space explorers, and suddenly one of their engines explodes. a really good look into human reactions to problems, the leadership it takes to maintain peace and order, and the overwhelming, melancholic acceptance as you realize that there is simply nothing more you can do to improve your situation. also, i was taught a fair few things about space, which is always a joy. ❧ "This is Captain Sawamura Daichi of Tsuru One. We've got our nose pointed to you, and we're beginning our journey home. Estimated distance to cover - thirty-eight quadrillion kilometers, as calculated by our navigator. Estimated time of arrival... fifty-three billion years. Give or take. We're coming home to you."

✎ over the edge of my bones by ionica01 ❧ mature, 47.9k ❧ miya atsumu/sakusa kiyoomi, miya atsumu & miya osamu, msby 4 ❧ my guilty pleasure? single parent aus. this fic did an incredibly good job at portraying what life may look like as a single parent, glorifying it in some aspects but also putting in the reality of the intense, over-protective feelings one may have over their child. sakusa loves that kid as much as atsumu does and it really just made me smile the whole way through. ❧ His name is Miya Atsumu. He became a father the day he found out his girlfriend was pregnant, and for the last year or so, he's been the best dad. Pretty sure you know the rest.

✎ at the corner of our shelves by ionica01 ❧ mature, 13.9k (in-progress) ❧ miya osamu/suna rintarou, miya atsumu & miya osamu, miya osamu & sakusa kiyoomi ❧ the sequel (technically third fic but idgaf) to over the edge of my bones. this takes a much sadder, darker tone than the first fic, but i think that's part of what makes it so good. while the first fic is a getting together and established parenthood, this is an established couple that has tried over and over again but failed to adopt a kid. but then they do - only, these kids did not get the treatment that atsumu gives his son. 100% worth the read, even without the prior context of the first fic. ❧ "I just wanna give him a kid so badly, Tsumu, and it kills me that I can't." He looks up, at the shop where it all started, at this place that used to feel like his child, and realizes how naive his twenty year old self was. "I'm ready to love someone enough to let all of this go."

✎ This is Not the End by KingsHighway ❧ mature, 268.4k (in progress) ❧ sawamura daichi/sugawara koushi, iwaizumi hajima/oikawa tooru, hinata shouyou/kageyama tobio, tsukishima kei/yamaguchi tadashi, tendou satori/ushijima wakatoshi, kozume kenma/kuroo tetsurou, kita shinsuke/ojiro aran ❧ thought i should recommend this one time before it concludes in the future. this is easily one of the best post-apocalyptic stories out there. set fifty years after the end of the world in a zombie apocalypse, the author does a phenomenal job of exploring how communities build and thrive, the ways government and order may be established, the rule of kings, and how, when, and why humans discovered the things that they did. additionally, and i would suppose most importantly, is record-keeping, and how vital the written word always will be. the zombies and gore are added bonuses. incredibly thought-provoking; each chapter leaves me with something to ruminate about for days on end. it is not you that makes it to the end of the world - it's the impact you leave behind. ❧ It was the cowards and the killers that would survive.

✎ Reflex by hiuynth ❧ teen and up, 2.3k ❧ hanamaki takahiro/matsukawa issei ❧ top ten funniest fics i've ever read. i was full-bellied CHORTLING. what's the most stupid way you can write two characters first meeting? this author manages it perfectly. well-timed humor and wit. 10/10 for the unabashed naruto slander. ❧ “Over-easy,” says Hanamaki, at the same time Oikawa bursts into hysterical sobs. Hanamaki looks at him, and back to Matsukawa. He shrugs. “Oikawa likes scrambled more.”

➼ six of crows

✎ this house says my name like an elegy (echoing where all my ghosts used to be) by MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays ❧ not rated, 8.4k ❧ all of the crows, kaz brekker/inej ghafa, jesper fahey/wylan van eck ❧ kaz goes back to his hometown to close a loose end, but he is emotionally mature enough to know that he can't do it alone. he brings his family with him. it's a stunningly nostalgic fic, equal parts sad and beautiful, that does not shy away from showing both the positives and the negatives of lij. for any person that has fled the place they grew up in, it shows astonishingly well the dichotomy between wanting to be consumed by your own haunts and never wanting to return ever again. absolutely stunning. ❧ Kaz knows this place. He knows the grass, the hills, the way the sky moves when rain is on its way. He sees it as he treads down a path he hasn’t touched in years; a storm is coming.

➼ all for the game

✎ guilty feet by ParkeRose ❧ general audiences, 9.5k ❧ kevin day/jean moreau ❧ essentially, what it may take to become friends again with someone you left behind. their relationship is incredibly complex and packed with years of trauma, but the author handles it with grace and all of the care they need. they truly reconnect, step by step, and finally make something new on the ashes of their past. its sad and soft and heartbreaking and healing all it once. it hurt me and then carefully licked my wounds. they are everything and nothing and all that may lie between. ❧ "It will hurt less with time", Kevin insisted, eight years old with no knowledge of whether it would or wouldn't.

✎ the trick to falling by orionauriga ❧ teen and up, 15.4k ❧ kevin day/neil josten, kevin day & andrew minyard ❧ this fic takes all of the best kevneil scenes from the original books and makes it figure skating. and instead of it being from neil's point of view, it's kevin's, and the author wonderfully captures all of kevin's fragility, hesitance, yet determination to keep going, keep living, despite all of his fears and despite riko and despite the goddamn world. even if that living means falling down on the ice and staying there. even if it means being bitter and jealous and spiteful. it's his own recovery that the fic focuses on alongside his relationship with neil, and its beautiful every step of the way. ❧ Kevin experiences a burning pulse of jealousy for their health, their smiles, their ability to skate in a rink with windows that let in daylight, their apparent contentment with mediocrity.

✎ First Contact With the Enemy by Justthislazy ❧ teen and up, 9.5k ❧ neil josten/andrew minyard ❧ josten-minyard proposal gone hilariously wrong. while it is funny in the ways that andrew laments on his planning to propose to neil and the ways that they tend to fall through painfully, it also does a really good job in relating that back to the heavy themes of consent in their relationship. funny AND emotionally impactful and sweet. they are not without their problems, though, and i like that there is time spent to show how their arguments may go down. i recommend reading the other two parts in this series (Hatford Family Values) before this one though, but they are really short and REALLY funny. ❧ Andrew hadn't said it and Neil took his silence as a 'no' because Neil would never assume a 'yes'.

➼ voltron: legendary defender

✎ Kiss Me By The Campfire by Autumn_Ignited, infinitesongbird ❧ general audiences, 2.8k ❧ keith/lance ❧ super sweet fic about two menace kids who once terrorized each other every year at summer camp and now have grown up to be counselors of that very same camp. adorable and horrifically nostalgic and packed full of demon children. ❧ "We weren't this bad, were we?" Keith asked distractedly as he jostled his stick to keep his marshmallow from melting in the flames. "I mean, we weren't saints, but we couldn't have been this...feral."

✎ sleepless city nights by ShatterinSeconds ❧ teen and up, 6.8k ❧ keith/lance ❧ vampire keith and human lance fall in love during the victorian era. its more than just being in the victorian era, though (though i LOVE the victorians which contributes to my enjoyment of the fic) - i really like the way the author took their time to develop the monster/mythical world in such a short word span. i felt really immersed in lance's point of view as a human consistently traversing the monster world. then, of course, there is the endless, timeless love that they share. that's fun, too. ❧ "Lance McClain." He extends his hand for Keith to shake only to swallow a gasp at Keith's rather cold hand when it slides into his. "But I cannot say it has been a pleasure to meet you."

✎ Silver Bells by heavily_caffeinated ❧ mature, 86.3k ❧ keith/lance, allura/romelle, adam/shiro, hunk/shay ❧ literally if hallmark was a really good fanfiction. lance makes a bet where if he can convince keith to like christmas, then keith has to take the christmas day shift at their place of work. queue 25 chapters of them participating in christmas activities together every single day from december 1st to Christmas day, with some hiccups along the way. mostly fluffy, with proper angst sprinkled in to make a very conclusive storyline. its SO cute and so worth the read. really glad i found this while it was updating because it was so fun to read every day. ❧ "Easy," Lance smirked. "You can't fall in love with me. This is straight out of a Hallmark movie, so I would be careful."

✎ Lukewarm by europa_report ❧ general audiences, 5.6k ❧ keith/lance ❧ another klance christmas fic, except they aren't really together for most of the fic. they video chat each other from two different planets while stuck on missions during christmas. it's not ideal, but they make it fun and memorable, curing each other's boredom and isolation by sharing childhood memories and challenging each other to complete tasks. it's very cute and strangely nostalgic in some ways. there is more than one way to enjoy christmas day. ❧ “The thing I miss,” Keith says. “The most. The thing I miss the most. It’s you.”

➼ jujutsu kaisen

✎ gojo satoru, teen dad by momochai ❧ teen and up, 17.6k (in progress) ❧ fushiguro megumi & fushiguro tsumuki & gojo satoru, gojo satoru & ieri shoko, fushiguro megumi & ieiri shoko just so sweet and so cute. the series (containing 5 fics so far) follows gojo and his potential trials and tribulations in raising the fushiguro children. it is not always easy, it is not always fun, and he is not always good at it - but he is trying, and the kids are better off for it. again, very cute and endearing with sprinkles of angst here and there. ❧ He's kinda getting the vibe that Megumi also thinks Satoru's in way over his head but that kind of thinking feels a little too judgy coming from a six-year-old. Then again, Megumi is probably the judgiest six-year-old in existence.

✎ Like the Moon Haunts the Sun by constellationqueen ❧ mature, 20.1k (in progress) ❧ fushiguro megumi/itadori yuuji ❧ A JJK X AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER AU!!! i cannot describe how cool this fic is - its a collab between an artist and an author, so each chapter has "official" art that is just as amazing as the writing! while not set in the atla storyline, the author has crafted a very intriguing storyline of their very own. itadori and nobara are eathbenders (with itadori as the avatar, but he doesn't know it yet), and megumi as a waterbender. i can't say much because much hasn't been revealed yet, but let's just say that it is VERY intriguing. lots of mysteries have yet to infold! ❧ It is a habit, at this point - muscle memory ingrained from an unfortunate amount of repetition. Similarly, he does not find it surprising to see - when he eventually forces his eyes open - that the hems of his sleeves are smoldering and charred, some of the blackened fabric seared to his skin.

➼ bungou stray dogs

✎ everything in halves by roadtripwithlucifer ❧ mature, 11.8k (in progress) ❧ akutagawa ryuunosuke/nakajima atsushi ❧ i trust this author's characterizations immensely, thus what i can say about this fic so far is that it has done justice to BEAST!akutagawa's character. he has switched places with akutagawa via a mysterious ability user, and it is safe to say that the differences between the two akutagawas are palpable. not much has happened yet, but I am very intrigued to see how this mystery is going to be solved going forward, and how the akutagawas are going to handle their alternate universes. ❧ For the first time in his accursed life, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, the boy born without emotions, bursts into tears.

[catch57]

i literally have no dog in this fight yet i am totally behind people not liking how it played out because that means they will create an insane amount of fan work. and i fucking love fifty billion interpretations of one premise

[evilblot]

Tagged Summoned by @fullmoondagger, thanks king!

Last song: Relax by Frankie goes to Hollywood. Another song that's been forever ruined by a movie I recently watched and now activates a pavlovian response everytime I hear it (<- starts foaming at the mouth but at least they don't want to kill the president of Malaysia. Yet.)

Fave color: FUCKIGN PURPLE BABYYYYYYYY

Currently watching: The entirety of Will Ferrell's filmography. All of it. I can feel my brain atrophying and shrivel with each one I manage to finish (with a few exceptions), but trust me: this suffering is not for nothing. I have a plan (<- the brain rot wrote this)

Last movie/TV show: Bewitched. The.. the 2005 version. It was cute I guess. It definitely didn't fill my brain with ideas about doing a themed AU but with werewolves or similar beasts ahahaha..!

Currently reading: Nothing, unfortunately. I got some titles I'd like to get back to now that I've got a little more time, but I still need to find the mental capacity to sit down and actually read :')

Sweet/Savoury/Spicy: All of them! Combined, possibly. Like hot honey-glazed spare ribs.... Hrrmrmm.. Dammit, I'm salivating like a starving dog now, help dhjshsjs

Relationship status: People say I'm a self-insert Mary Sue slut... but the truth is, I have fifty BILLION boyfriends. And they all love me. And you're just mad that I'm having WAY more FUCKING FUN than you EVER WILL. You know, what's your damage? Maybe you should try having fifty BILLION boyfriends too, because then you might not be such a salty, jealous bitch. I'm just sayin.

Current obsession: Do I... Do I even have to say it? Take a look around and take a wild guess. The hints are there I prommy fjsbxjdls BUT!!!! I'm also going back to being obsessed with 3D sculpting since I'll be soon finally able to carry out the insane ideas I got... SOON!!!!! *cackling like a mad man*

Last thing you googled: How to stream movies on discord. And once I figure it out, we're gonna watch the Barbie movie. Together <3c

Tagging @taonpest @smimon @dansdaughter @monochromatictoad @hedjblogr @amazinlei (no pressure guys, ignore it if y'all ain't in the mood, I just wanted to let y'all know ily <3)

[gymeagary-blog]

Tumbarumba Creek and the Goldrush

Tumbarumba Creek flowing past the town is idyllic - green grass picturesque bridges, monuments and artworks, a skatepark, and fitness walking trails - just a wonderful place for picnics and dog walking. It wasn't always like this though.

Ninety-nine years of Gold Mining in the Tumbarumba region.

In 1885 Gold was discovered in Tumbarumba Creek, four years before the Townsite was surveyed. Mining continued until 1954, although commercial mining ceased in the early 1930s. During that time 3,380 kg of gold was delivered to the Government Mint from the local mines. The current value of this amount of gold in one kg gold bars is over two billion dollars.

REFERENCE: Willis J.L. 1969. Mining History of the Tumbarumba Gold Field. Geological Survey of New South Wales - Bulletin 23

The Creek runs downstream under the bridge on Albury Street. Across the road, the Creek is restored from the ravages of more than fifty years of GOLD MINING.

One thing, I noticed about this restoration was the removal of the old large weeping willow trees common here fifty years ago. Willows are among Australia's worst weeds because of their invasive tendencies, the potential for spread, and economic and environmental impacts.

During floods, this creek rises quickly, sometimes causing evacuations from the Caravan Park, and blocking the bridge crossing.

Dawn light accentuates the beauty of the area.

During mining, however, the creek bank was lowered by many metres as a huge water cannon blasted out the sediments to be separated from the alluvial gold in sluice boxes and trenches.

This image gives some idea of the water power, even when the water level is low.

The Creek divides and then rejoins.

I started this post with some dog walkers and I would like to finish the same way. When this lady saw me approaching on the other side of the Creek, she stood till and the five dogs immediately sat still but at attention while we chatted and I took their "portrait". The dogs are three generations from one family ranging from an old male grandparent to a three-month-old pup. She reported that she has five different walks which the group does daily. Amazing dog training!

On Saturday 12/2/23 starting at dawn, I walked along Tumbarumba Creek from where it joins Pound Creek to near the Booth Street Council Depot. I took photographs on my Nikon D500 camera for 90 minutes, using a 35mm f1.8 lens and a tripod. Most images were taken in the reconstructed area of the old regions mined, at the bottom of the Hill, where Tumbarumba Hospital overlooks the town.

Map from Google maps. Comments, shares, and questions are welcome.

[imsodunwiththis]

“Don’t give up guys”

*a picture of a sidewalk somewhere*

*a picture of a billion dollar mansion on a private island with an indoor pool and a beach right next to the house and a yate and a private jet and an indoor aquarium with two living rooms and ten guest rooms and five bed rooms and a walk in closet and a library and the Mona Lisa on the wall next to a shelf with some gold trophies and silver metals and a kitchen with an island and a dining room with a red wood table and fifty chairs and an outdoor pool and people who work in the kitchen but don’t live with there and some maids that clean but also don’t live there and a dog who has its own dog house on another island and it’s own yate*

[inbarfink]

💫💕🏘️

Okay, so my current Special Interest is the Israeli Annual Hannukah Musical Stage Show 'Festigal' sooo....

💫- Favorite fact about your special interest?

Absolutely "Dog on a Dog", the Festigal 1987 Song about a kid and his parents coming across two dogs fucking in the street, while the parents struggle to explain to their kid what's going on in front of him.

I will just always cherish the feeling that I had when I first watched Festigal 1987 and slowly realized what This Song in the children's stage show is actually about. It is an absolutely bizarre moment but it's kinda hard to actually make fun of it cause the song itself is about justifying it's existance.

Like the punchline is that the POV kid DID understand what these two dogs are doing and didn't see what the big deal of it was - unlike his two embarrassed trying to bullshit something for him. He thought they straight-up didn't understand themselves and explained to them "that's how they love and make more puppies".

The, like, moral of this song is that it's silly to try and shield children from facts of nature like Two Dogs Fucking. Thereby justifying the existance of this Two Dogs Fucking Song.

💕 - What’s your fav thing about your special interest?

I love how weird and ridiculous it can get, espacially the way this weirdness can come from just like... thoughtlessness and stupidity and such a shameless attempt to chase trends that it circles back into being original.

Like how Festigal 2014 tried to mash together "The Hunger Games" and "Games of Thrones" into one child-friendly package and ended up with an Epic Furry Space Opera, or how Festigal 1999 had a romantic subplot between a spacefaring magical woman and a talking space blimp, or like... basically everything that happened on stage in Festigal 2000.

I also love that it has such a long and storied history, it had so many changes and evolution going from it's original "The Unofficial Northen Branch of the Children's Songs Festigal" origins to it's current "Jukebox Musical Starring Every Tween's Favorite Popstars" incarnation.

There's so much for me to explore in WHAT things did actually change and HOW and how these changes almost always tie back into bigger changes in media culture since the early 80's. There's a lot here to analyize and you can use it as a lens to analyize other things as well!

🏘️ - What was your first special interest you can remember?

Animals. I had like fifty billion nonfiction books about zoology and different animals. Some of them are so worn-down now that they're basically unreadable. I decorated my room with rainforest-themed drawings and pictures (and most of them are still up), I had imaginary friends which were just... whatever animal I thought was the coolest at the moment (spidermonkeys, aye-aye, hedgehogs). I'm actually really thankful for much following your blog has helped kinda re-ignite my love for zoology, @taggthewanderer!

....although I still can't talk about it as much as I can my stupid stage show lol.

[e-a-noe-henry]

OK , i really need help ... somebody please answer this for me .... i live alone with my dog and i keep coming up with an impossible number .... here it is : if you had 400 billion and you divided it by 1 million you would have

400,000 four hundred thousand right ! now if you put 1,000,000 one million in in 3' shopping carts you would have 1,200,000

one million two hundred thousand feet of shopping carts in a line cause they are 3' long

and a mile is 52,620' fifty two thousand six hundred and twenty feet than 1,200,000 feet divided by 52,620feet ( one mile ) then that will show you how many shopping carts butt to butt in a line if they were three feet long with one million dollars in each if you had $ 400,000,000,000 like elon musk how manymiles would it go down the road SEVENTY-SIX MILES of shopping carts each cart has one million dollars in it ! thats a line of one million dollar carts that go damn near from san antonio to austin .... thats impossible ..... right ? peace t. d. sooo , if you go past it at 76 miles an hour it takes you an hour to pass all his carts of a million dollars each ... crazy........elon could give every man woman and child in the san antonio texas metro area $ 1,000,000

[spaced0lphin]

Listen why the fuck does everyone pronounce this shit as Dozhecoin. Why. It is clearly dog-e-coin. The meme was doge, do-geh, as the dog was a Shiba Inu. The joke is "doggycoin." Dog e-coin. A digital dog currency.

I will die on this stupid hill, but my corpse will never be as dessicated as the man who's gonna lose two hundred and fifty billion fucking dollars, more than some country's GDP, on a dog joke

Why are English speakers like "I'm just gonna say this like it's French for no reason."

twitter changing their logo to doge really solidified how much of a garbage fire of a website it has become.

[nityarawal]

8/7/2024

Fly Gold Hearts

Morning Songs 

Is Elon Caged

We Are Wondering

Tethered Like A Dog

At Space X

Is Elon Caged

Herded By The Staff

Jaima And The Surrogates

Does He Work 9 To 5

While His Bots

Are On The Fly

No One Is Buying

The Rob Lowe Elon

He Goes Up And Down

Fifty Pounds

Sometimes Hundreds

In Hours

He Grows T.I.T.T.S.

With Hormone Blockers

Pumping

Plastics In His Balls

Sympathizing 

To Xavier Vivian Jenna's

Plight

As A Wilson

What More Do You

Want From Him

Eloning To Mars

Wheatberries Emerge

Hairballs

Infections

Lymes And Drug Warfare

No One Is A Saint

Indefinitely 

In Haste

Don't Waste My Best

Physicists

In Your War

Yeah He's A Billion

Dollar Slot Machine

You Been Pullin'

More Than His Arm

Partners

Harems Fleeced

Why'd Our Families

Get Surrounded

By Surrogates

And Have No Chance

Dyke Rapes

Airforce Displays

Not Who We Are

Was It As Good For You

As Ivana

And Melania

Caged

Was It As Good For You

As Stormy Daniels

What Didn't You Like

About The 2016 Crimes

Was It The Hit And

Run

Covid Ukranian Doctors Who

Said It Needs To Get

So Much Worse

Before They'll Dianose

And Treat

Was It The Starter 

Wife Murders

Or When My Landlord

Died With Mrs. Trumps

Library Books Late

Whilst We Wrote Librarians

From Holocoasts 

Was It The Unconscious 

Drugging

The Kidnappings

By Gay Cops

Was It The House

Raidings

The Militia

Slumlordings

Or The Gangs

That Murdered

Your Neighbors

That Put You Off

Was It The 6PM

Quarantine

Tucked In By

Cop "Meanies"

#FreeBritney

Retaliation

Her Daddy Lost His

Leg

Alec Baldwin

Shootings

Forgiven

The Brave That 

Died For Trumps

Ear

Or Is It Your

Sympathy

With Ivanka

Baron

And Little Donny Jr.

That Made You Out

Our Co-pilots

Is It A Con

Is It Shrapanel

In Vangogh Staged

Fun

Is It A Con

Or Is It Our Billions

Boiling In A War

Is It A Con

Elon Tied To His

Desk 'Till Dawn

While Dyke Colleagues 

Overtake X

Is It A Con

9 To 5

Robin' Elon

Is It A Con

Feels Like A Con

In A Political

War

Feels Like A Con

And Elon Lost

The Rights 

Who Has The

Octopus Head

To Optimus Storm

Feels Like A Con

Of The Old Greek

Tales

Feels Like A Con

When Our Billionaires

Can't Fly No More

And Lost Their

Wings

Despite The Shiniest

Eternal

Gold Hearts

Fly

Goldhearts

Fly

Peace & Love Eternal,

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal 

Encinitasbeachhome.com 

[televinita]

Reading Triage

(I love being in the middle of ten billion books.)

CURRENTLY READING

1. Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands - Heather Fawcett: 2nd time through, now in audio. I've decided this series demands to be read twice, once in each format, before you've really wrung the full feeling out of it.

2. Safekeeping - Karen Hesse: audio, because it's under 5 hrs & the theme is Walking A Lot, so I figured it would be a good choice for exercise motivation. (but now I have to at least track down an ebook too because according to reviews the real book has photographs)

3. Bound For Home - Meika Hashimoto: a modern-day Incredible Journey but this time the third member of the party is the girl the pets belong to (also the cat isn't a pet yet, but she's considering adopting the family).

4. A Hundred Pieces of Me - Lucy Dillon: rather randomly fished this out of a bag (bought at a book sale a couple of years ago) and decided I'm in the mood for it now, 8 12 yrs after last reading one of her books. To my surprise I am SUPER enjoying it! It's quite long, though; I've put in a good 3 hours of reading time and I'm still not at the halfway point.

5. Top Ten - Katie Cotugno: a recent purchase, grabbed when I needed a summery-feeling book to read outside. Right now it's back to dull and rainy so this book is off to the side, but there will be plenty of good days ahead.

UP NEXT

1. Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs - Cara Sue Achterberg: sign me up!!

2. Half Broke - Ginger Gaffney: a memoir of a woman who helped facilitate the mustang training program at a prison. Reviews are mixed, especially from people disappointed in the horse content (which is the ONLY reason I'm reading it), but perhaps I'll be surprised.

3. I Know What You Did - N.L. Hinkens: taking the new I.L.L. site out for a spin with this thriller, in which "what if baby-crazed Terri Schuester struck that baby-adopting deal w/ Quinn, but also Terri was slightly more like Emma -- aka the school guidance counselor -- and Quinn was potentially insane or at least murderous."

4. Bird Brain - Joanne Levy: I just read The Sun Will Come Out on a whim (book sale purchase), and in looking up her back catalog I see a children's book ft. a girl bird-sitting an African gray parrot. Sounds fun! Also nice & short.

5. Out of the Valley of the Horses - Wendy Orr: I've been waiting on this children's book to be published in the U.S. since last year, at last it's here!

6. Monarch Manor - Maureen Leurck: may or may not get to this one right now, but it's been on my TBR for a few years and both this and Wendy Orr's book are only in the county next door. I always try to grab at least 2 items when I make the trek over here, so: cleaning out late grandmother's dilapidated mansion for an estate sale it is! [edit: my mistake, the hoarder grandma and the dilapidated mansion are different houses. interesting]

edit 2: see, so many I forgot one!

7. Freaks, Geeks & Dawson's Creek: How Seven Teen Shows Transformed Television - Thea Glassman: waiting for the audio but I have the ebook checked out because I'm that impatient (no physical copy). I've only actually watched 3 of them, and only two while they were airing/with understanding of the chronology, but I'm still interested to hear about these shows because most of them are at least on my TBW.

[reasoningdaily]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-clintons-haiti-development-plans-succeed--and-disappoint/2015/03/20/0ebae25e-cbe9-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html

How the Clintons’ Haiti development plans succeed — and disappoint

Hermain Jean Pierre looks through a fence at the Caracol Industrial Park on Haiti’s Caribbean coast. Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton had touted the park as a model that would change the economy of this impoverished country, but it has not done so. (Andres Martinez Casares/for The Washington Post)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Deep in the Haitian countryside, peanut farmer Wismith Moricette epitomizes the success of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's charitable work: Through an innovative program backed by the Clintons, the 23-year-old has doubled the yield from his one-acre plot. Along with all those peanuts, Moricette said, have come visions of a brighter future for his wife and young son.

Fifty miles away on Haiti’s north coast, Anelle Germinal exemplifies another reality of the Clintons’ work here: disappointment. The 33-year-old mother of four has been standing in the baking sun every day for months waiting for work in the struggling Caracol Industrial Park, which the Clintons have touted as a model that would change the economy of this impoverished country.

“They said we would have work,” Germinal said, “but I have nothing.”

Moricette and Germinal are two faces of the Clintons’ increasingly complicated relationship with Haiti, where their high-profile development efforts after a devastating earthquake in 2010 have produced both success and disillusionment.

As Hillary Clinton moves toward a second run for the White House, her family's global charitable work, mostly through the Clinton Foundation, has come under intense scrutiny. The foundation has accepted large donations from corporations and foreign countries, raising concerns that the Clintons are creating conflicts of interest by blurring the lines between their political, business and charitable interests.

The Washington Post reported last month that the foundation’s donors include seven foreign governments that contributed millions during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. Among those donations was a $500,000 contribution from the Algerian government for earthquake relief in Haiti that the foundation has acknowledged violated the terms of an ethics agreement with the Obama administration.

The Clintons’ defenders have dismissed concerns about the donations as political sniping, saying the test of the foundation is not where it gets its money but how it spends it. They said their work has created economic opportunity, improved lives for women and girls, raised health standards and fought the effects of climate change across the developing world.

The work has been especially visible in Haiti, where the Clintons first traveled as young newlyweds in 1975 and where many people credit them with drawing the world’s attention immediately after the earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people

With former president Clinton assigned by the United Nations to head up the emergency recovery effort and Hillary Clinton guiding official U.S. assistance as secretary of state, the couple helped a relief effort that has included some of the world’s richest people, biggest celebrities and most successful businesses. The Clintons also helped mobilize an effort in which international donors pledged $10.4 billion, including $3.9 billion from the United States.

Greg Milne, director of the Clinton Foundation’s Haiti Program, said projects include efforts that have helped more than 2,000 small farmers, an artisan-goods company that employs more than 300 people, a fish-farming operation, a cholera treatment center and improvements to schools in some of Haiti’s poorest slums.

Clinton supporters also point out that their successes have come amid Haiti’s chaotic political situation — parliament is not functioning and President Michel Martelly, dogged by scandal, is ruling with virtually no checks on his power — which is marked by endemic corruption, weak institutions, poverty, poor public education, terrible roads and other factors that have historically made it extremely difficult for development efforts to succeed.

The country has long had a fraught relationship with foreigners who come to invest and provide aid. Haitians often regard them with gratitude for desperately needed resources and, at the same time, with suspicion that their motives are more to make a profit in Haiti than to help it.

Nevertheless, the Clintons are facing a growing backlash that too little has been accomplished in the past five years and that some of the most high-profile projects they have backed — including a just-opened Marriott, another luxury hotel and the industrial park — have helped foreign investors and Haiti’s wealthy elites more than its poor.

"Bill Clinton is a good guy and well-intentioned, but the people here don't think so — they think he's here making money," said Leslie Voltaire, a former government official who worked with Clinton on post-earthquake reconstruction. "There is a lot of resentment about Clinton here. People have not seen results. . . . They say that Clinton used Haiti."

In January, Haitian expatriates picketed the Clinton Foundation’s New York headquarters, demanding to know why more progress has not been made with the billions in international aid pledged after the quake.

Said Raymond Joseph, a former Haitian ambassador to the United States: “People are asking, ‘What has Bill Clinton done for us?’ ”

The Clintons’ long influence in Haiti is hard to overstate.

As president in 1994, Bill Clinton deployed about 20,000 U.S. troops to Haiti to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been ousted in a coup in 1991. Clinton’s trade policies as president, which he later called a “mistake,” were devastating to Haiti’s rice production and made it harder for the country to feed itself.

In 2009, Clinton was named U.N. special envoy for Haiti, and he has visited the country 37 times since then.

After the earthquake, Clinton united with former president George W. Bush to create the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, which distributed $54.4 million in the two years after the earthquake. Separately, the Clinton Foundation has spent more than $30 million in Haiti and led efforts through the Clinton Global Initiative to persuade private companies to spend vastly more.

“What I think most people don’t know, even if they’ve been on the ground there, is these people are immensely talented,” Bill Clinton said in a 2010 interview with NPR. “They have suffered from 200 years of outside and inside abuses and neglect and misgovernment. And a lot of the people who’ve gone there even to help them in the best of faith have done so in a way that would never have allowed them to support themselves and to lift themselves up. And now there is a true consensus for and determination for a sustainable, comprehensive, long-term, modern society in Haiti. And they can do it.”

But as the initial emergency response has evolved into efforts to ensure Haiti’s long-term development, Haitians increasingly complain that the Clintons’ most ambitious plans are disconnected from the realities of most people in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

For instance, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund invested more than $2 million in the Royal Oasis ­hotel, where a sleek suite with hardwood floors costs more than $200 a night and the shops sell $150 designer purses and $120 men’s dress shirts.

One recent afternoon, the hotel appeared largely empty, and with tourism hardly booming five years after the quake, locals fear it may be failing. A spokeswoman for Occidental Hotels, the chain that runs the hotel, said that ­occupancy is up this year and that the project will “mature in the long run.”

Bill Clinton also introduced Marriott officials to Denis O'Brien, an Irish telecom billionaire who has contributed millions to the Clinton Foundation. The result is a $45 million Marriott hotel that opened this month in central Port-au-Prince. O'Brien said no Clinton money was invested in the project.

The ultra-modern hotel is adjacent to the headquarters of Digicel, a communications giant owned by O’Brien. When The Post visited recently, many, if not most, guests seemed to be foreign businessmen connected to Digicel.

Clinton defenders argue that hotels that cater to well-heeled foreign guests can still buy local products and provide local jobs, and those guests are often involved in business investments or aid projects that benefit the neediest Haitians.

O’Brien said his hotel employs 200 Haitians, is filled with locally purchased art and serves food from Haiti. O’Brien leads the Haiti Action Network, a collection of private businesses that have committed through the Clinton Global Initiative to spend $500 million on projects in Haiti. He and his company just built 150 schools and rebuilt Port-au-Prince’s historic Iron Market.

“I don’t know any modern leader that has spent more time helping a country and being so effective,” O’Brien said of Bill Clinton. “He works like a demon in the developing world. Nobody is doing that. Is Tony Blair doing that?”

Other Clinton-backed projects have not delivered on lofty promises: A 2011 housing expo that cost more than $2 million, including $500,000 from the Clinton Foundation, was supposed to be a model for thousands of new units but instead has resulted in little more than a few dozen abandoned model homes occupied by squatters.

Controversy surrounding the Clintons only deepened with the recent revelation, contained in an upcoming book by Peter Schweizer, that Tony Rodham — Hillary Clinton’s younger brother — serves on the advisory board of a U.S.-based company that in 2012 won one of Haiti’s first two gold-mining permits in 50 years. After objection from the Haitian Senate, the permits have been placed on hold.

“Neither Bill Clinton nor the brother of Hillary Clinton are individuals who share the interests of the Haitian people,” said Samuel Nesner, an anti-mining activist who thinks mining poses great environmental risks and will mainly benefit foreign investors. “They are part of the elite class who are operating to exploit the Haitian people.”

Clinton Foundation officials said Bill Clinton had been unaware of Rodham’s involvement in the mine project. A spokesman for Hillary Clinton said she does not know the chief executive of the mine.

“I strongly believe the Clintons came to Haiti in good faith and they wanted to have an impact,” said Jean-Max Bellerive, who was Haiti’s prime minister at the time of the earthquake and served as co-chairman with Bill Clinton on the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. (Bellerive is also on the mining company’s advisory board.)

But, Bellerive said, the former president was hampered by a “weak” staff of American aides who were “more interested in supporting Clinton than helping Haiti.” Echoing a common sentiment in Haiti, Bellerive also said Clinton should have listened more carefully to the opinions and needs of ordinary Haitians: “How do you want a guy coming from Davos or Dubai to get the real feeling for what’s happening downstairs?”

Milne, of the Clinton Foundation, said the criticism is wrong and unsurprising.

“President Clinton is one of the most dedicated and highest-profile advocates for Haiti, and he is still engaged while others have moved on,” he said. “So it’s not surprising that, for some, he is an easy target for natural frustration that the change we all want isn’t happening faster.”

Milne said the country has experienced strong economic growth in recent years, with more Haitians employed and more children in school.

“Is Haiti building back better?” Milne said, using a phrase that the Clintons frequently quote. “In many ways, yes, though challenges remain.”

Paul Farmer, a doctor whose Partners in Health has helped provide medical care in rural Haiti since the 1980s and whose health network has received more than $1.8 million from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund for a medical residency program, also praised the Clintons’ work. He said he forged partnerships at CGI meetings with private businesses and other charities for a variety of projects he said would not have taken place without the Clinton connection.

He said that by any objective measure, Haiti has been improving, in part because of the Clintons’ efforts.

"Is the whole country built back better? I doubt it," Farmer said. "Water insecurity and food insecurity are very pressing problems. But if you look at the health statistics for Haiti . . . infant mortality, child mortality — they're all improving."

Still, even some who have benefited from Clinton-backed programs have grown disillusioned.

"I read that Bill Clinton is the most popular politician in America, but he couldn't get elected mayor in Haiti today," said Jacky Lumarque, rector of Quisqueya University, a private school that was damaged in the earthquake and received $914,000 from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to create an entrepreneurship center.

Lumarque said the program has helped hundreds of Haitians turn their informal street businesses into formal entities that keep records, pay taxes and have potential for growth.

He said it has been a huge success — but stands apart from the usual strategy of foreign groups, including the Clintons, who tend to favor projects imposed by well-meaning foreigners that are more “about Haiti” than “for Haiti.”

The entrepreneurship center, Lumarque said, “is an example of what Clinton can do, in spite of himself.”

When Bill Clinton came here late last month to help inaugurate the new Marriott, he made a side trip by helicopter to Haiti’s central plateau to have a look at a Clinton-backed program that is revolutionizing the peanut-farming industry.

The Acceso Peanut Enterprise Corp. was started with a $1.25 million grant from the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which is headed by Bill Clinton and Canadian mining executive and philanthropist Frank Giustra, as well as the charitable foundation of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.

Acceso buys feed, fertilizer and fungicide at bulk rates, then sells them to farmers for far less than normal prices. Acceso also hires tractors for farmers who otherwise would be using an ox and plow.

Robert Johnson, an American who runs the program, said the improvements are vastly increasing yields, quality and farmers’ profits.

He said Acceso worked with about 1,000 farmers last year and bought about 120 metric tons of peanuts. This year, it expects to triple the number of farmers and buy almost five times as much peanut tonnage.

At least half of Acceso’s sales have gone to two large Haitian factories that produce a peanut-based paste that is given to malnourished children. Most of the rest goes to local peanut-butter producers, he said. The program’s success, Johnson said, comes from its market-driven approach: It’s not a charity, it’s a business with a charitable purpose.

“We’re building something that is going to be sustainable,” he said. “We talk to the farmers. We’re not going to just bring in something that someone thought up in ­Davos.”

The program is branching out into lime-growing, and Clinton visited a site last month where thousands of seedlings are being cultivated by dozens of workers.

Benel Auguste, 32, is one of the small landowners who rented his plot, about a third of an acre, to Acceso to plant limes. “It’s a good idea; it’s going to work,” he said. “We know limes and we need them. We can do this.”

The Clintons also were enthusiastic backers of the Caracol Industrial Park, which was built on 600 acres of farmland just east of ­the port city Cap-Haitien.

They agreed with economists, particularly Oxford University development specialist Paul Collier, who concluded that Haiti is an ideal place to create mass jobs in garment factories because of its proximity to the United States, favorable trade agreements and cheap labor.

The Clintons helped Haitian officials identify Sae-A Trading Co., which operates factories across the developing world and sews garments for giants such as Target, Gap and Wal-Mart, as a potential major investor.

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, along with top aide ­Cheryl Mills, lobbied for the project with South Korean officials and hosted Sae-A executives in Washington to press the plan.

Bill Clinton attended the Sae-A contract-signing ceremony in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 11, 2011 — a day before the first anniversary of the earthquake. He later laid the first stone of the park’s construction. And then in October 2012, the Clintons, Martelly and other officials attended the ribbon-cutting.

Speaking to a group of investors at the ceremony, officials and celebrities that included actors Sean Penn and Ben Stiller, as well as business moguls Donna Karan and Richard Branson, Hillary Clinton said it represented “a new day for Haiti and a new model for how the international community practices development.”

“Haiti is truly open for business, and we want your help,” she said. “We see this partnership between governments like our own and the private sector as absolutely essential in promoting and supporting long-term prosperity in Haiti. We know very well that long-term prosperity cannot come from just the provision of aid. There must be trade and investment like we have seen here today.”

Today, Sae-A employs about 4,500 people. Company spokesman Lon Garwood said the operation has been steadily growing and will open a new facility next month. Henri-Claude Müller-Poitevien, a Haitian government official who works in the apparel industry, said the Caracol project is on schedule and continues to expand.

A power plant was built, but plans for a new port at the industrial park to carry finished goods to the United States have been shelved. Residents of the plant’s housing project say their land floods when it rains, and few said they think the plant will ever create the number of jobs originally promised.

“I believe that the momentum to attract people there in a massive way is past,” said Bellerive, the former prime minister. “You can do interesting things with Caracol, but you have to reinvent the concept. Today, it has failed.”

Each morning, crowds line up outside the park’s big front gate, which is guarded by four men in crisp khaki uniforms carrying shotguns. They wait in a sliver of shade next to a cinder-block wall, many holding résumés in envelopes. Most said they have been coming every day for months, waiting for jobs that pay about $5 a day.

From his envelope, Jean Mito Palvetus, 27, pulled out a diploma attesting that he had completed 200 hours of training with the U.S. Agency for International Development on an industrial sewing machine.

“I have three kids and a wife, and I can’t support them,” he said, sweating in the hot morning sun. “I have a diploma, but I still can’t get a job here. I still have nothing.”