#mexico 2019 sunday

[umseb]

sebastian vettel and lewis hamilton during the post-race press conference, mexico - october 27, 2019 📷 f1tv

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 31, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 01, 2024

House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has responded to news stories about his plan to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) by claiming his comments at the closed-door campaign event on Monday were taken out of context. But they weren’t. The tape is clear. Johnson said that Republicans want “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” When an attendee asked, “No Obamacare?” Johnson laughed and agreed: “No Obamacare. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” 

MAGA Utah senator Mike Lee reposted the video of Johnson and commented: “Kill Obamacare now[.]”

Trump today posted on social media that he never mentioned repealing the Affordable Care Act, “never even thought of such a thing.” But this was either a memory lapse or a lie, because in 2016 he ran on repealing the ACA and his 2016 platform called for “a full repeal of Obamacare.” Within hours of taking office in 2017, Trump issued an executive order weakening the law, and when the Republican-dominated House voted to repeal the law, Trump held a celebration in the Rose Garden and declared the ACA “essentially dead.” 

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) bucked Trump to protect the ACA then, and Trump began this year’s campaign with a promise to get rid of it before backing off. Even still, the vague promise in the 2024 platform to “increase Transparency, promote Choice and Competition, and expand access to new Affordable Healthcare” sounds a lot like Johnson’s promise to restore “the free market” to health care. 

While Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has been campaigning in the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Trump today held a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a state President Joe Biden won by almost 11 points in 2020 and that Democrats are likely to win in 2024. Trump had to hold the rally at a private airplane hangar after city officials refused to rent the Albuquerque Convention Center to the campaign because it still owes Albuquerque almost $445,000 from a similar rally in 2019.  

Once there, he made it clear he was trying to repair some of the damage caused by the extraordinary racism and sexism on display at his Sunday rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, where a comedian called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” 

Courting offended voters, he said: “Don’t make me waste a whole damn half a day here, OK? Look, I came here. We can be nice to each other, or we can talk turkey. I’m here for one simple reason: I like you very much, and it’s good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community.” That outreach might not be enough to bring back the voters lost after the Madison Square Garden event.

The campaign is seeing other weaknesses, as well. Meredith McGraw and Jessica Piper of Politico reported today that nearly half of the ballots already cast in Pennsylvania have come from voters over the age of 65, and although the numbers of registered older voters are divided evenly between the parties, registered Democrats have made up about 58% of Pennsylvania’s early votes, compared to 35% for Republicans. Those numbers might well simply reflect different approaches to mail-in ballots, but they also might explain why Trump is already claiming fraud in Pennsylvania. 

He is also seemingly nervous about Pennsylvania because women are voting there at a much higher rate than men in the early vote: 56% to 43%. And Democratic women are the biggest group of new voters in the state. New voters who were too young eight years ago to hear the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, have been hearing it on TikTok lately, as younger users record their reactions to it and call out their older male relatives for voting for anyone who would talk as Trump did. 

“I moved on her, and I failed,” Trump says in the tape. “I’ll admit it. I did try and f*ck her…. I moved on her like a b*tch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married,” Trump said. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful— I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p*ssy. You can do anything,” he said.

The Harris campaign and pro-Harris organizations leaned into the history of women’s suffrage today with videos highlighting those who fought so that women could vote and reiterating: “We are not going back.” To assist those women who might not feel safe letting their husbands know how they voted, women have been posting notes in women’s public bathrooms assuring other women that their vote is secret. A Democratic advertisement voiced by actress Julia Roberts powerfully makes the point that women do not have to tell their husbands how they vote.

Right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk have expressed alarm at the gender gap in voting. As well, there has been a right-wing backlash to the idea that women will vote for Harris while letting their husbands assume they’re voting for Trump.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who famously cheated on both of his first two wives, expressed dismay at the idea that a woman might need to keep her vote secret from her husband. “For them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption,” he said. “How do you run a country…saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?”

On the Fox News Channel’s The Five this morning, host Jesse Watters said that if he found out his wife “was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair…. That violates the sanctity of our marriage.” Christian pastor Dale Partridge posted: “In a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction. He is the head and they are one. Unity extends to politics. This is not controversial.” But, he added, “submission does have limits. A wife doesn’t need to submit to her husband in sin (in this case voting democrat).”

Tonight, at an event with right-wing host Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, Trump seemed to move beyond misogyny to murderous intent. He turned his increasingly violent rhetoric against former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has urged Republican women to vote against Trump. “She’s a radical war hawk,” he said, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”  

Carlson is friendly with authoritarian Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has undermined democracy in his own country and is close to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Today Orbán posted that he had “Just got off the phone with President [Trump]. I wished him the best of luck for next Tuesday. Only five days to go. Fingers crossed[.]“

Meanwhile, a lot more major endorsements for Harris have been coming in. 

Today basketball legend LeBron James released a powerful one-minute ad with clips of Trump’s many racist statements and drawing a straight line from him back to the most violent days of the civil rights movement. “HATE TAKES US BACK,” it says. In a post sharing the video, James wrote: “When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!” James has 53 million followers on X. 

The Economist today endorsed Harris, warning that “a second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks.” Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg also posted on social media that he had voted for Harris “without hesitation,” and added that he hoped undecided voters would join him. “Trump is not fit for high office,” he wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed. He praised Harris’s positive vision and bipartisan outreach. 

Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published an op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday, titled: “My Fellow Republicans, It’s Time to Say ‘Enough’ With Trump.” The former president is unfit for office, Luttig wrote. “When we entrusted our Constitution and our democracy to him before, he betrayed us.” Luttig assured readers that “[t]here  could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate” Trump.

He reminded his fellow Republicans that they had always “proudly claimed they would be the first to put the country above all else when the time came. That time has come…. ​​All Americans, but especially Republicans, will live with their decision the rest of their lives.” “The choice for America next Tuesday,” Luttig wrote, “could not be clearer.”

Ever since Vice President Harris tapped Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, Democratic governors have been demonstrating their support for one of their own. Today, for Halloween, Democratic  governors Wes Moore of Maryland, Janet Mills of Maine, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Phil Murphy of New Jersey each dressed to match a photograph of Walz.

“No tricks this Halloween!” Whitmer posted. “Just dressing up as our friend [Tim Walz]—excited to elect him and [Kamala Harris]. If you haven’t yet, make a plan to vote: http://iwillvote.com[.]”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[aydann-runs]

A little soft, smutty Malex for your Sunday

[remembertheplunge]

A Christmas Eve Miracle

12/24/2023I can’t recall if I have blogged this story before or not. But, being that it’s Christmas Eve, I thought it would be worth writing up and publishing here today.

A Christmas Eve Miracle happened Christmas Eve 2015, eight years ago.

Since my first years of criminal law practice up until about 2019, I would act now and them as pro term judge in traffic court, meaning, I would fill in for the actual judge.

Christmas Eve 2015, I did this out in traffic court on Floyd Ave in Modesto, California.

The afternoon session ended at about 2:30pm . At the stop light at Oakdale Road and Floyd, I looked out about 2 miles to the north west to see intense black low clouds. They seemed to be in the area where two significant events in my life had taken place.

I was in a grocery story there when the Loma Prieta earth quake hit at 5:04pm. October 17, 1989. The store floor began to have a rolling motion and things fell from the shelves. I thought the roof was going to give.  And in 2013 a man was killed in front of some apartments behind the store. I would be appointed to represent Lisandro Mendosa, one of 5 codefendants charged with a gang related murder of the man. A 6 month jury trial resulted in a hung jury and a New York Times article about the trial, “”How do you define a gang member?   New York Times Sunday Magazine 5/27/2015. The trial was long and emotionally violent.

I continued my drive down Floyd Ave toward home. I decided to stop at the Star Bucks for a hot chocolate at Coffee road and Floyd. It sits across Coffee Road and a parking lot from the store I was in during the 89 quake. Just beyond and behind the store is where the man was killed resulting in the Mendoza trial.

Before entering Starbucks, I stood about 40 feet from Coffee Road and leaned my head back. Fine mist was falling now . I closed my eyes, felt the mist on my face and sent a healing prayer out across the store and the seen of the killing beyond it. 

Just then, unbeknownst to me,  about a mile west on Coffee road, a  storm related microburst caused a tree to to fall into telephone wires causing 50 foot tall telephone poles to one by one collapse into Coffee Road headed in my direction.

I finished my prayer, unaware of the collapsing poles, and walked 17 seconds to the Star Bucks. Inside , the power was out and there was a general sense of panic . The staff locked the door and wouldn’t let us out. Starbucks had no windows facing Floyd or Coffee Road, so we couldn’t see that the pole 40 feet from where I said the prayer had collapsed into the street as well the one just beyond  that I had just driven by.

Despite the fact it was Christmas Eve afternoon, and that Coffee Road is a busy four lane road, no one was hurt or killed inn the mile long collapse of polls and live wires into the road.

We had been told during the Mendosa jury trial that the trial had been cursed by people in Vera Cruz, Mexico. The man who was killed was hispanic. Not sure who placed the curse or why.

I drove to the jail after leaving Starbucks to meet with Mr. Mendosa who was incarcerated there.

I told him about the telephone pole incident and asked him if he thought it was as a result of the curse. He said he didn’t thinks so. He said he thought it was a sign he would get a break in the case. He did. In 2016, he received a 16 year sentence instead of life in prison via a negotiated plea. Recently, due to a change in sentencing laws, he was re sentenced and released!

[nysocboy]

Is There Sex After Death?: A Scotty and Gideon Story

April 21, 2019. Easter Sunday.

Light. Intense, golden light, surrounding him. Not bright, like sunlight, just warm, comfortable, loving -- how can light be loving? -- like sitting on your mother's lap when you are a kid. Scotty wonders if he is a kid. Maybe he has gone back to the womb?

No, there are others around him, some that he once knew, and loved or hated, some who are strangers. Except they aren't strangers now -- he sees the most important moments of their lives, and they, in turn, see Scotty's. At random, not in chronological or thematic order:

Going out to dinner at the Shem Creek Restaurant in Mount Pleasant -- pizza and beer -- and Scotty calls Gideon "Little Lord Fauntleroy." They smile and joke, and hold hands under the table, and the song on the radio, or in his mind, is "You Knock Me Out.” :

The way you talk when you say what you see

Your smile breaking my words – you knock me out.

The way you shake it, baby, the way you get when you get down -- yo u knock me out

The memory of the song, of his smile, fills Scotty with so much joy that he he feels like he will burst. He looks around -- or the equivalent when you don't have a body -- and feels the others sharing his joy.

The Old Man, Jesse Gemstone, takes them all out on his yacht, and in the glittering of the waves, while the kids sit in the wading pool -- a pool on a yacht? -- Jesse offers to become his Daddy, and they hug. He eases into the hug, actually considering the crazy idea for a moment. They could just walk away from the scheme to steal the Easter offering from the Salvation Center, $3,000,000, and settle into lives as a good Christian Gemstone and his boyfriend.

Then he laughs to himself. No way will the Old Man ever admit Scotty to the family, knowing that Scotty has been intimate with his son every night. Evangelicals hate gay sex even more than they hate thinking for yourself. The Easter Offering plan is the only way they can walk side by side into the future.

Driving from California to South Carolina so they can blackmail his father, the world-famous Jesse Gemstone, with a video of his sex-and-drugs party, get even for a childhood of neglect and abuse, and fund their happily-ever-after life in Thailand. They spend the night in a Motel 6 somewhere in New Mexico. Lucy is snoring, and Gideon sits up in the other bed, playing on his cell phone, his face illuminated, as if he is already in the plane of endless light. He must be an angel -- nothing in this shithole world -- sorry, Mom -- could be so beautiful.

One of the others has taken on form -- not really a corporeal form, more like a recognizable presence: a young woman with 1980s helmet hair and circular glasses, a little girl in pigtails standing on a country road, a middle-aged woman holding baby Gideon on her lap. Scotty knows who she is -- Aimee-Leigh Gemstone, the Gospel singer that his mom liked so much. Eli Gemstone's wife, Jesse's mother, Gideon's grandmother!

Scotty retreats into himself, fearful that she has come to judge him. But all he feels from Aimee-Leigh is love.

"Are you ready to go, darlin'?" she asks, smiling. "We've got work to do."

Calling him "darlin'," as if she is really his grandmother! Wait -- of course she is. Scotty understands everything now. There are no lies in the endless light. "But how? Gideon must hate me. There's no coming back from what I've done."

"Of course there is. He's already forgiven you. But now you need to forgive him."

Link to the full story on Archive of Our Own

[lola-andheruniverse]

One-Shot Monday - Caryl Fanfiction Rec

Note: I completely lost track of my week count. I've got no idea if this is week 13 or 14 of our rec project LOL So I'll just keep posting and on Dec 31st I'll post a complete list of everything recommended this year. Oh, yesterday we had no #your turn sunday because I'm still reading your last recs. I intended to post everything that's siting on my inbox/DM in 2023. Wish me luck! Beloved carylers, today I bring you again two stories because I couldn't decide each one to recommend. Both are from the same author: Michelle Del Vale, known here on tumblr as @theresnosafeharbor4myships, who excels on writing missing scenes and headcanons. A Hellcat of a Dixon is posted on 9Lives. Summary: My headcanon on the aftermath of the s3 deleted Carol and Merle scene. Rated: T / Teen and Up Audiences Word count: 544  Published: December 29, 2015 Every caryler loves the deleted scene where Carol threatens Merle and agrees that it should've been kept in the episode. Our author here shared with us how she imagined the aftermath of that little talk would go with Daryl. It's adorable, it's fun, it's everything we wish we got back then. Great, really great Merle's voice! Light in the Dark is also posted on 9Lives. Summary: Missing scene from 10x04. Daryl's thoughts about his conversation with Carol on the steps of their house.  Rated: T / Teen and Up Audiences Word count: 1203  Published: October 28, 2019 If the first rec is all light and fun, this one is so bittersweet and quite emotional. It feels like an organic continuation of the scene we've got on the show. Daryl's POV about how they should have left to New Mexico when they had a chance as opposed to his desire to stay and protect Lydia is beautifully written. I hope you give these works a read and, from there, go explore our author's other fics. Don't forget to leave reviews while you're at it, I'm sure she'll be happy to know you enjoyed her work! Caryl on!

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 8.1

Holidays

African Emancipation Day (Trinidad and Tobago)

Air Force Day

Armed Forces Day (China, Lebanon)

Azerbaijani Language and Alphabet Day

Basil Day (French Republic)

Battle of Athens Day

Bitcoin Independence Day

Caribbean Day

Chopsticks Day

Clergy Sexual Abuse Awareness and Prevention Day

Cross-Quarter Day

Cycle to Work Day (UK)

Day of Azerbaijani Language and Alphabet

Day of Pachamama (Peru)

Day of the Rear Services of the Armed Forces (Russia)

Day of the Telephone Operator (Mexico)

DOGust

Earth Overshoot Day 2024 (a.k.a. Ecological Debt Day)  [ website ]

Ectopic Pregnancy Awareness Day

801 Day

Emancipation Day (UK; British Commonwealth)

Freedom Day (Belize)

Freedom to Marry Day (Minnesota)

Friendship Day

Gold Star Children’s Day

Girlfriends’ Day

Good Sportsmanship Day

Grain Marketing Freedom Day (Canada)

Guca Brass Bands Day (Serbia)

Harriet Quimby Day

HitchBOT Remembrance Day

Homowo (a.k.a. Hooting at Hunger; Ghana)

Indigenous Peoples Day (Taiwan)

International Adaptive Activity Day

International Can-It-Forward Day

International Childfree Day

International Mahjong Day

International Marine Protected Areas Day

International Sri Lankan Leopard Day

International Woo-Ah Day

Jerry Day

Laa Luanys (Isle of Man)

Laughter Day (Southern California)

Led Zeppelin Day

Liberation of Haile Selassie Day (Rastafari)

Memorial Day for the Victims of World War I (Russia)

Minden Day (UK)

Minority Donor Awareness Day

MTV Day

National Alpaca Day (Peru)

National American Family Day

National Andrew Day

National CBD Day

National Girlfriends Day

National Huddle Ledbetter Day

National Mahjong Day

National Minority Donor Awareness Day

National Mountain Climbing Day

National Non-Parent Day

National Poll Worker Recruitment Day

National Promise to Care Day

National Spritz Day

National Waifu Day

National Warsaw Uprising Remembrance Day (Poland)

National Wedding Day (UK)

National York Day

Odaiba Day

Oxygen Discovery Day

Parents’ Day (Democratic Republic of the Congo; Zaire)

Planner Day

Play Ball Day

Pod Body Day (Portland, Maine)

Respect For Parents Day

RNA Day

Rounds Resounding Day

San Francisco Cable Car Day

Scout Foundation Day

Scout Scarf Day

Social Resistance Day (North Cyprus)

Spider-Man Day

Sports Day

SSN 801 Day

Startup Day Across America

Swiss National Day

Technical Support Worker Day (Russia)

Treida de Santo Domingo de Guzmán (Nicaragua)

Thoroughbred Birthday (Southern Hemisphere)

Victory Day (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam)

White Rabbit Day

Wipe the Slate Clean Day

Woman Astronomers Day

Women’s Day (Thailand)

World Breastfeeding Day

World Day of Joy

World Fintech Day

World Lung Cancer Day

World Middle Finger Day

World Naked Sailing Day

World Scout Scarf Day

World Wide Web Day

Yaoi Day

Yorkshire Day (England)

Food & Drink Celebrations

Belgian Frites Day (a.k.a. International Day of Belgian Fries)

Homemade Pie Day

International Albariño Day

International Can-It Forward Day

Mars Bar Day

National Nutritional Yeast Day

National Raspberry Cream Pie Day

Old Vine Day

Independence & Related Days

Benin (originally Dahomey; from France, 1960)

Colorado Statehood Day (#38; 1876)

Guadalcanal Province Day (Solomon Islands)

Jennytopia (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]

Switzerland (a.k.a. Confederation Day; from Holy Roman Empire, 1291)

Toku (Declared; 2014) [unrecognized]

Vodopol (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

1st Thursday in August

August Thursday (Anguilla) [1st Thursday]

Emancipation Day (Bermuda; 1st Day of Cup Match) [Thursday before 1st Monday in August]

Kid Lit Art Postcard Day [1st Thursday]

National Dash Cam Day (UK) [1st Thursday]

National IPA Day (f.k.a. International IPA Day) [1st Thursday]

Weekly Holidays beginning August 1 (1st Week of August)

Brat Days (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) [1st Thursday thru Sunday]

Carnaval del Pueblo (London, UK) [1st Week]

International Assistance Dog Week (thru 8.7) [1st Week]

International Clown Week (thru 8.7)

International Mathematicians Week (thru 8.9)

National Albariño Week (thru 8.5)

National Cleanse Your Skin Week (thru 8.7)

National Fraud Awareness Week (thru 8.7) [1st Week]

National Minority Donor Awareness Week (thru 8.7)

National Scrabble Week (thru 8.7) [1st Week]

National Video Game Week (thru 8.7) [1st Week]

Satchmo Days [begin Thursday nearest 8.4 thru Sunday]

Simplify Your Life Week (thru 8.7)

World Breastfeeding Week (thru 8.7) [1st Week]

Festivals Beginning August 1, 2024

American Cured Meat Championships (Omaha, Nebraska) [thru 8.3]

August is Maine Lobster Month (Statewide, Maine) [thru 8.31]

Bear Lake Raspberry Days Festival (Garden City, Utah) [thru 8.3]

Castlefest (Lisse, Netherlands) [thru 8.4]

Clam Festival (Highlands, New Jersey) [thru 8.3]

Denver Burger Battle (Denver, Colorado)

Eden Corn Festival (Eden, New York) [thru 8.4]

Empire Farm Days (Pompey, New York) [thru 8.3]

Estherville Sweet Corn Days (Estherville, Iowa) [thru 8.4]

Gen Con (Indianapolis, Indiana) [thru 8.4]

Green Gathering (Chepstow, United Kingdom) [thru 8.4]

Houston Restaurant Weeks (Houston, Texas) [thru 9.2]

Katahdin Sheep Show (Mexico, Missouri) [thru 8.3]

Klamath County Fair (Klamath Falls, Oregon) [thru 8.4]

Lollapalooza (Chicago, Illinois) [thru 8.4]

Mammoth Festival of Beers & Bluesapalooza (Mammoth Lakes, California) [thru 8.4]

Mile of Music (Appleton, Wisconsin) [thru 8.4]

Minnesota Fringe Festival (Minneapolis, Minnesota) [thru 8.11]

Mobile Motion Film Festival (Zurich, Swizterland) [thru 8.31]

Official Star Trek Convention (Las Vegas, Nevada) [thru 8.4]

Outer Banks Watermelon Festival (Nag's Head, North Carolina)

Owensville Watermelon Festival (Owensville, Indiana) [thru 8.3]

Phelps Sauerkraut Weekend (Phelps, New York) [thru 8.4

Pol’and’Rock Festival (Woodstock Festival Poland; Czaplinek, Poland) [thru 8.3]

Saint Dominic Days (Managua) [thru 8.10]

Saskatoon Fringe Festival (Saskatoon, Canada) [thru 8.10]

Spicemas (Grenada Carnival; St. George’s, Grenada) [thru 8.13]

Sumner County Fair (Caldwell, Kansas) [thru 8.4]

Toronto Caribbean Carnival (Toronto, Canada) [thru 8.5]

Twin Cities Vegan Chef Challenge (Minneapolis, Minnesota) [thru 8.31]

Washington Wine Month (Washington State) [thru 8.31]

Wisconsin State Fair (West Allis, Wisconsin) [thru 8.11]

World Lumberjack Championships [thru 8.3]

XIT Rodeo & Reunion (Dalhart, Texas) [thru 8.3]

Zanzibar International Film Festival (Zanzibar City, Tanzania) [thru 8.4]

Feast Days

Abgar V of Edessa (Syrian Church)

Alan Moore (Australian War Artist; Artology)

Aled (a.k.a. Eiluned or Almedha; Christian; Martyr & Virgin)

Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori (Christian; Saint)

Æthelwold of Winchester (Christian; Saint)

Bernard Võ Văn Duệ (Christian; One of Vietnamese Martyrs)

Betty Lou’s Dad (Muppetism)

Cartoon Day (Pastafarian)

Chantal Montellier (Artology)

David Gemmell (Writerism)

Day of the Dryads (Macedonia)

Dormition Fast (Orthodox Church) [thru 8.14]

Drug Side-Effects Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Ethelwold of Winchester (Christian; Saint)

Eusebius of Vercelli (Christian; Saint)

Exuperius of Bayeux (Christian; Saint)

Faith, Hope, and Charity (Christian; Virgin Martyrs)

Feast of Faith, Hope, Charity, and their Mother, Wisdom (Christian; Martyrs)

Feast of Kamál (Perfection; Baha'i)

Feast of Ninlil (Sumerian Goddess of the Grain)

Felix of Girona (Christian; Saint)

Festival of Lugh (Celtic here god)

Festival of Xiuhtechuhtli (Aztec God of the Calendar)

Gerhard Hirschfelder (Christian; Blessed)

Herman Melville (Writerism)

The Holy Maccabees (Christian; Saint)

Imps Charity Scramble (Shamanism)

Isobel Lilian Gloag (Artology)

Jackie Ormes (Artology)

James Henry Govier (Artology)

Jan van Scorel (Artology)

Kalends of August (Ancient Rome)

Lammas (a.k.a. ... 

Feast of Bread (Neopagan)

Feast of First Fruits (England, Scotland)

Feast of the Wheat Harvest

Festival of Albina (Irish White Barley Goddess; aka Alphito)

Festival of the First Fruits

Gule of August (England, Scotland)

Imbolc (So. Hemisphere; Neopagan)

Lady Day Eve (Neopagan)

Lammas, Day 2 (Celtic, Pagan) [5 of 8 Festivals of the Natural Year]

Lammas Eve (a.k.a. Lughnassad Eve)

Lammas Sabbat

Luanistyn (Manx Gaelic)

Lithasblot (Norse Harvest Festival)

Loaf Mass

Loki and Sigyn’s Day (Norse)

Lugh (Celtic Book of Days)

Lughnasa

Lughnasadh (Grain Harvest) [Ends on Samhain]

Lúnasa (Modern Irish)

Lùnastal (Scottish Gaelic)

Sexon Hlafmaesse

Lobster Boy Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Mati-Syra-Zemlya Day (Slavic Goddess of the Earth)

Pachamama Rayni (Festival Celebrating Mother Earth) [Ecuador; Peru]

Pellegrini (a.k.a. Peregrinus), Hermit (Christian; Saint)

Peter Apostle in Chains (Christian; Saint)

Procession of the Cross and the beginning of Dormition Fast (Eastern Orthodox)

Quarter Day (Scotland)

Richard Wilson (Artology)

Rose Macaulay (Writerism)

Sebastiano Ricci (Artology)

The Spanish Romancers (Positivist; Saints)

Vhrsti (Artology)

Warsan Shire (Writerism)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Dismal Day (Unlucky or Evil Day; Medieval Europe; 15 of 24)

Egyptian Day (Unlucky Day; Middle Ages Europe) [15 of 24]

Fatal Day (Pagan) [15 of 24]

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Unlucky Day (Grafton’s Manual of 1565) [35 of 60]

Unlucky Monday (when Eve gave birth to Cain; Philippines) [1st Monday] (3 of 4)

Premieres

Alfred, by Thomas Arne (Opera; 1740)

Alice the Peacemaker (Disney Cartoon; 1924)

American Graffiti (Film; 1973)

Bargain Daze (Heckle & Jeckle Cartoon; 1953)

Being and Time, by Martin Heidegger (Book; 1927)

Big Chief No Treaty (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1962)

The Big Money, by John Dos Passos (Novel; 1936)

Burning Love, by Elvis Presley (Song; 1972)

Cape Kidnaveral (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1961)

Charley’s Aunt (Film; 1941)

Cook and Stagger (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1956)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, by Judi and Ron Barrett (Children’s Book; 1978)

Concert for Bangladesh, hosted by George Harrison (Charity Concert; 1971)

Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, by Squeeze (Album; 1985)

Cowardly Watchdog (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1966)

Crazy with the Heat (Disney Cartoon; 1947)

Crusader Rabbit (Jay Ward Cartoon TV Series; 1950)

The Dog Show (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1950)

Driven to Extraction (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1963)

Dune, by Frank Herbert (Novel; 1965)

The Dusters, featuring the Mighty Heroes (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1971)

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe (Novel; 1968)

Eric, by Terry Pratchet (Novel; 1990) [Discworld #9]

Everybody’s Rockin’, by Neil Young (Album; 1983)

The Fabulous Firework Family (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1959)

The Final Countdown (Film; 1980)

Flebus (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1957)

Flight of the Navigator (Film; 1986)

The Four Musicians of Bremen (b Iwerks Cartoon; 1922)

A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (Novel; 2000) [A Song of Fire and Ice #1]

Gangsta’s Paradise, by Coolio (Song; 1995)

Generals and Majors, by XTC (Song; 1980)

The Genie with the Light Touch (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1972)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (Novel; 2008) [Millennium Trilogy #1]

Give Me Liberty (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1967)

Golden Egg Goose (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1951)

Guardians of the Galaxy (Film; 2014)

Heaven Can Wait (Film; 1943)

The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes (Poem; 1906)

The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle (Novel; 1901)

House Busters (Heckle & Jeckle Cartoon; 1952)

Howard the Duck (Film; 1986)

How to Catch a Cold (Disney Cartoon; 1951)

Jeremy, by Pearl Jam (Music Video; 1992)

Judo Kudos (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1968)

King Tut’s Tomb (Heckle & Jeckle Cartoon; 1950)

The Littlest Bully (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1960)

The Lyin’ Lion (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1949)

Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey (Children’s Book; 1941)

Meat, Drink and Be Merry (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1961)

Modern Man in Search of a Soul, by C.G. Jung (Philosophical Book; 1933)

Money (That’s What I Want), by Barrett Strong (Song; 1959)

The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey (Novel; 1975)

Mrs. Jones’ Rest Farm (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1949)

MTV (Cable Network; 1981)

MySpace (Social Media App; 2003)

96 Tears, by ? and the Mysterians (Song; 1966)

North Dallas Forty (Film; 1979)

Nothing in Common (Film; 1986)

Oil Through the Day (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1964)

Open House (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1953)

Paul Bunyan (Disney Cartoon; 1958)

Porky the Rain-Maker (WB LT Cartoon; 1936)

Pride of the Yard (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1954)

Rain Dogs, by Tom Waits (Album; 1985)

Rear Window (Film; 1954)

Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier (novel; 1938)

The Road Not Taken (Poem; 1925)

Robots in Toyland (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1965)

Rule Britannia, by Thomas Arne (Song; 1740)

Se��orella and the Glass Huarache (WB LT Cartoon; 1964)

Shadows on the Rock, by Willa Cather (Novel; 1931)

Shootin’ Stars (Modern Madcaps Cartoon; 1960)

Shotgun Shambles (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1962)

Sick, Sick Sidney (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1958)

The Snows of Kilimanjaro, by Ernest Hemingway (Short Story; 1936)

Steel Wheels, by The Rolling Stones (Album; 1989)

Superiority, by Arthur C. Clarke (Short Story; 1951)

A Swiss Miss (Mighty Mouse Cartoon; 1950)

The 39 Steps (Film; 1935)

Tot Watchers (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1958)

Trouble in Baghdad (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1963)

Truant Officer Donald (Disney Cartoon; 1941)

The Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White (Children’s Book; 1970)

Turning the Fables (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1960)

The Twist, by Chubby Checker (Song; 1960)

Video Killed the Radio Star, by The Buggles (Music Video; 1981)

A Wedding Knight (Modern Madcaps Cartoon; 1966)

The Wiggles, by The Wiggles (Album; 1991)

Wild and Woolly Hare (WB LT Cartoon; 1959)

Witchy Woman, by The Eagles (Song; 1972)

Today’s Name Days

Alfons, Kenneth, Peter (Austria)

Alfonz, Jonatan (Croatia)

Oskar (Czech Republic)

Maira, Maire, Mairi, Maris (Estonia)

Maire (Finland)

Alphonse (France)

Alfons, Kenneth, Peter, Uwe (Germany)

Efkleos, Elesa, Markelos, Solomoni (Greece)

Boglárka (Hungary)

Alfonso, Giacomo (Italy)

Albīna, Albīns, Dags, Jarmuts, Spekonis (Latvia)

Almeda, Bartautas, Bartautė (Lithuania)

Peder, Petra (Norway)

Brodzisław, Justyn, Konrad, Konrada, Nadia, Piotr (Poland)

Božidara (Slovakia)

Alfonso, Caridad, Esperanza, Fe, Pedro (Spain)

Per (Sweden)

Charissa, Charity, Chasity, Cheri, Cherie, Cherry, Cheryl, Esperanza, Faith, Faye, Hope, Nadia, Nadine (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 214 of 2024; 152 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 4 of Week 31 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Tinne (Holly) [Day 27 of 28]

Chinese: Month 6 (Xin-Wei), Day 27 (Ding-You)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 26 Tammuz 5784

Islamic: 25 Muharram 1446

J Cal: 4 Purple; Foursday [4 of 30]

Julian: 19 July 2024

Moon: 8%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 17 Dante (8th Month) [The Spanish Romancers]

Runic Half Month: Thorn (Defense) [Day 9 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 43 of 94)

Week: 1st Week of August

Zodiac: Leo (Day 11 of 31)

Calendar Changes

August (Gregorian Calendar) [Month 8 of 12]

[brookston]

Holidays 10.9

Holidays

Abolition Day (Saint Barthelemy)

Buckwheat Day (French Republic)

Commonwealth Cultural Day (Northern Mariana Islands)

Community Day (Spain)

Constitution Day (Sint Maarten)

Curious Events Day

Day of National Honor (a.k.a. Day of Dignity; Peru)

Earth Science Literacy Day

Fire Prevention Day (Canada, US)

Fungus Day

Give Peace a Chance Day

Hangul Day (a.k.a. Korean Alphabet Day; South Korea)

Indian Foreign Service Day (India)

Instant Karma Day

International Subscription Day

Leif Erikson Day (Iceland, Norway; Minnesota, Wisconsin)

Magic Lantern Day

Manhattan Project Day

Messenger Appreciation Day

Mop Fair (Tewkesbury, England)

National Absentee Ballot Day

National Chess Day (Original Date)

National Class Ring Day

National C60 Day

National Dance Marathon Day

National Day Commemorating the Holocaust (a.k.a. Ziua Nationala de Comemorare a Holocaustului; Romania)

National Day Without Stigma

National Digitool Day

National Heritage Day (Turks and Caicos)

National Nanotechnology Day

National Send a Booty Pic Day

National Sneakers Day

Nautilus Night

Pans/Pandas Awareness Day

Region of Valencia Day (Spain)

Samitinget Establishment Day (Norway)

Scrubs Day

Strawberry Fields Day

Tavistock Goose Fair (Devon, England)

Valencian Community Day (Valencia, Spain)

World PANS/PANDAS Awareness Day

World Post Day (UN)

Food & Drink Celebrations

Beer and Pizza Day

International Beer and Pizza Day

Cupcakes For Life Day

National Moldy Cheese Day

Submarine-Hoagie-Hero-Grinder Day

Yukon Gold Potato Day

2nd Monday in October

Bartolomé Day [2nd Monday]

Columbus Day observed [2nd Monday] (a.k.a. ... 

American Indian Heritage Day

Amerigo Vespucci Day

Anti-Columbus Day

Descubrimiento de América (Mexico)

Día de la Hispanidad (a.k.a. Fiesta Nacional de España; Spain)

Dia del Respet a la Diversidad Cultural (Argentina)

Dia De La Raza (a.k.a. Day of the Race; Mexico)

Dia de la Resistencia (a.k.a. Day of Indigenous Resistance; Venezuela)

Dia de las Americas (a.k.a. Day of the Americas; Uruguay)

Dia de las Culturas (a.k.a. Day of the Cultures; Costa Rica)

Dia del Descubrimiento de dos Mundos (Chile)

Dia del Respet a la Diversidad Cultural (Argentina)

Discoverer's Day (Hawaii)

Discovery Day (Bahamas, Colombia)

Encuentro de Dos Mundos (Ecuador)

Fraternal Day (Alabama)

Indigenous People's Day

Leif Erickson Day

National Heritage Day (Turks and Caicos Islands)

Native American Day (South Dakota)

Native Americans Day

Pan America Day (Belize)

Piomingo Day (Chickasaw Nation)

Two Worlds Day

US Virgin Islands-Puerto Rico Friendship Day

Federation Day (Star Trek) [2nd Monday]

Health and Sports Day (Japan) [2nd Monday]

Lotu-a-Tamaiti (American Samoa) [Monday after 2nd Sunday]

National Heroes Day (Bahamas) [2nd Monday]

National Kick-Butt Day [2nd Monday]

National Online Banking Day [2nd Monday]

Thanksgiving (Canada) [2nd Monday]

World Rainforest Week begins [2nd Monday]

Yorktown Victory Day (Virginia) [2nd Monday]

Independence Days

Frivia (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]

Guayaquil Independence Day (Ecuador)

Malvern (l.k.a. Malvern and Roslyn; Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Republic of Skovaji (Declared; 2014) [unrecognized]

Uganda (from UK, 1962)

Union of Piedmont (Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Abraham the Patriarch (Christian; Saint)

Atilla the Hun Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

The Count (Muppetism)

Day of Tuonela (Pagan)

Denis (Christian; Saint)

Denis Ghislain (Christian; Saint)

Dionysius the Areopagite (Christian; Saint)

Domninus (Christian; Saint)

Felicitas (Old Roman Goddess of Good Luck & Joy)

Festival for Venus (Ancient Rome)

Frank Duveneck (Artology)

Ghislain (a.k.a. Guislain; Christian; Saint)

Innocencio of Mary Immaculate and Martyrs of Asturias (Christian; Saint)

Jean-Baptiste Regnault (Artology)

John Henry Newman (Christian; Saint)

John Leonardi (Christian; Saint)

Knot Day (Pastafarian)

Luis Beltran (a.k.a. Lewis Bertrand; Christian; Saint)

Nicholas Roerich (Artology)

Robert Grosseteste (Church of England)

Roger Bacon (Positivist; Saint)

Simeon Solomon (Artology)

Takayama Autumn Festival begins (Japan)

Wilfred Grenfell (Episcopal Church (USA))

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [47 of 57]

Premieres

Babe, by Styx (Song; 1979)

Big Top Scooby-Doo! (WB Animated Film; 2012)

Boulder Wham! (WB MM Cartoon; 1965)

The Boy Bounders or Plane Punchy (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 61; 1960)

Buzzard Bait or The Carrion Call (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 167; 1962)

Carry On, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse (Novel; 1925)

Couples Retreat (Film; 2009)

Dance Dance Dance,, recorded by The Beach Boys (Song; 1964)

Holy Man (Film; 1998)

The Iceman Cometh, by Eugene O’Neill (Play; 1946)

Libeled Lady (Film; 1936)

Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger (Novel; 1964)

Little Einsteins (Animated TV Series; 2005)

Microcosmos (Documentary Film; 1996)

Mogambo (Film; 1953)

The Olympic Champ (Disney Cartoon; 1942)

A Peek at the Peak or Your Climb is My Climb (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S2, Ep. 62; 1960)

Phantom of the Opera (Broadway Musical; 1986)

Prisoner of Love, recorded by Russ Columbo (Song; 1931)

Pursuit of the Po-Ho (Animated TV Show;Jonny Quest #4; 1964)

Rocky Rides Again or Small in the Saddle (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S4, Ep. 168; 1962)

Rover’s Rival (WB LT Cartoon; 1937)

Rushmore (Film; 1998)

Thomas & Friends (Animated UK TV Series; 1984)

Timewasters (BBC TV Series; 2017)

Under Siege (Film; 1992)

Wild Night, by Van Morrison (Song; 1971)

Today’s Name Days

Doings, Dionysius, Günter, Johannes, Sara (Austria)

Abraham, Dionizije, Sara (Croatia)

Sára, Štefan (Czech Republic)

Dionysius (Denmark)

Mariina, Riin, Riina, Riine (Estonia)

Ilona (Finland)

Denis (France)

Doings, Elfriede, Günter, Sara, Sibylle (Germany)

Avraam, Lot (Greece)

Dénes (Hungary)

Abramo, Dionigi, Ferruccio, Lorenzo, Sara (Italy)

Elga, Elgars, Helga (Latvia)

Dionizas, Virgailė (Lithuania)

Leidulf, Leif (Norway)

Arnold, Arnolf, Atanazja, Bogdan, Dionizjusz, Dionizy, Jan, Ludwik, Przedpełk (Poland)

Iacob (Romania)

Dionýz (Slovakia)

Abraham, Abrahán, Dionisio, Héctor, Juan, Luis, Sara (Spain)

Inger, Ingrid (Sweden)

Rebecca (Ukraine)

Denice, Denis, Denise, Dennis, Denny, Dion, Gunnar, Gunther, Leif (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 282 of 2024; 83 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 1 of week 41 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Gort (Ivy) [Day 7 of 28]

Chinese: Month 8 (Xin-You), Day 25 (Geng-Zi)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 24 Tishri 5784

Islamic: 24 Rabi I 1445

J Cal: 12 Shù; Fiveday [12 of 30]

Julian: 26 September 2023

Moon: 22%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 2 Descartes (11th Month) [Roger Bacon]

Runic Half Month: Gyfu (Gift) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Autumn (Day 16 of 89)

Zodiac: Libra (Day 16 of 30)

[mariacallous]

“I don’t forget where I come from,” Senator Catherine Cortez Masto declared early on Sunday morning, flanked by union workers at the Carpenters International Training Center, in Las Vegas. Dressed in a navy suit with her hair in a sleek bob, the fifty-eight-year-old Democratic senator spoke from a makeshift podium hours after winning reëlection. She invoked her immigrant roots: her paternal grandfather, a veteran of the Second World War who had immigrated to the U.S. from the northern state of Chihuahua, Mexico, and her father, who, in his youth, had parked cars at the Dunes Hotel and went on to lead the local government body that oversees the Strip. “It’s the story of so many Latino families across our state,” Cortez Masto said. “When far-right Republicans said they knew better, I knew we would prove them wrong.” Her words drew chants of “Sí se pudo”—Yes we could.

Cortez Masto’s defeated opponent, Adam Laxalt, who is forty-four, had also campaigned on an appealing origin story—and a familiar last name. After spending five years in the Navy, during which he deployed to Iraq, Laxalt chose a political path, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who were both Republican senators. (From 2015 to 2019, he served as Nevada’s attorney general.) In the weeks leading up to the election, Laxalt and Cortez Masto were virtually tied in the polls. The ballot-counting process, which stretched on for days, initially favored Laxalt, who performed strongly across the state’s rural counties. But, after those results were in, his lead narrowed; mail-in ballots from the counties of Clark and Washoe—Nevada’s largest—broke for Cortez Masto by a margin of two to one. Until Saturday evening, when the Senate race was called, a looming question was whether her support among Latinos would exceed sixty per cent, a requisite in the eyes of many of the state’s Democratic operatives.

“You just can’t win Nevada without Latinos,” Mari Urbina, a senior adviser to the late Senator Harry Reid, told me. Judging by the exit polls, Cortez Masto’s support among Latinos seems to have reached sixty-four per cent. “If these numbers hold once the voter files are updated, Cortez Masto will have outperformed President Biden’s numbers in Nevada with Latinos,” Urbina said.

Cortez Masto is a protégée of Reid, and has followed his example in placing Latinos at the center of her campaign—a tactic that helped Reid clinch his last reëlection, in 2010. Reid was known to spend many Christmas Eves visiting Latino families, but he courted the community year-round. When people questioned his approach, arguing that Latinos were low-turnout voters, he usually responded, “Just you wait.” In 2015, when Reid announced his intention to retire, he anointed Cortez Masto as his successor. The following year, Cortez Masto narrowly won, becoming the first Latina senator in U.S. history. She was dubbed la Senadora at home.

Nevada has more than four hundred thousand eligible Latino voters, almost twenty per cent of the electorate. Over the years, the vast majority of these voters have sided with Democrats, but that support has eroded in recent elections. In 2020, Biden earned roughly sixty-one per cent of the Latino vote, less than Hillary Clinton’s margin four years earlier, as Latinos in Las Vegas surged toward Donald Trump.

Early on in his campaign, Laxalt tried to exploit this trend by zeroing in on Latinos. In the spring of 2020, when the pandemic shut down the Strip and the streets of Las Vegas emptied, the state’s unemployment rate surpassed twenty-eight per cent. In the days before the election, according to AP VoteCast polling, ninety-five per cent of likely Latino voters cited inflation as an important factor; eighty per cent cited crime. Laxalt ran on these twin issues, casting Democrats as responsible for both. He blamed Cortez Masto and Steve Sisolak, Nevada’s Democratic governor, for the economic hit, arguing that the state’s current problems—among them record-high gas prices—could be traced back to their poor decisions.

But Cortez Masto, with the aid of unions she has worked with for years, was able to counter that argument. “The question of who fought for us during the pandemic really matters to us,” Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of Nevada’s Culinary Union, told me. Pappageorge represents sixty thousand hospitality workers, mostly Latinos, employed by hotels and casinos in and around Las Vegas. In 2020, ninety-eight per cent of the union’s members lost their jobs. (About a fifth are still unemployed.) Pappageorge told me that Cortez Masto made it a priority for them to receive unemployment benefits, mortgage forbearance, and health care. “She’s been a leader that has been behind us,” he said. “The idea that you’re in the worst health crisis in the last century, which became an economic crisis, but wouldn’t provide health care for folks is just crazy. That’s where a lot of the Republicans were, and the senator was a champion for us on that issue.”

Ultimately, Cortez Masto’s support among the union and the broader Latino community proved to be two of her most powerful political assets. According to Equis, a Latino research firm, Democrats spent more than ten million dollars on Spanish-language ads in Nevada. (Republicans spent three million.) The message that Cortez Masto managed to convey was that she would continue to be a champion for working-class families—a message that resonated with Latinos and helped propel her to unexpected victory. “She was the most vulnerable incumbent, and the entire national G.O.P. apparatus was out to unseat her,” Jon Ralston, a political analyst in Nevada, told me. “She was helped by the Democratic machine built by Harry Reid and by facing a flawed candidate with a much inferior campaign team.”

Last week, I spoke with dozens of Latino voters—few could name any of Laxalt’s accomplishments or concrete proposals. The vast majority identified him simply as the “election denier.” He campaigned alongside Trump and repeatedly raised the spectre of voter fraud—to many, a reminder of Laxalt’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Nevada. (On Tuesday, Laxalt conceded, blaming “massive ballot harvesting and votes dropped off at dropboxes.”) His affinity for Trump was a rallying cry for Nevada’s immigrant community, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Elizabeth, a native of Guatemala, left her home country in 2018 and was separated from her children at the U.S. border. Now in her forties, she works as a cleaner, and told me that she knocked on hundreds of doors ahead of the election, as part of the group Make the Road Action. Elizabeth shared her story with voters, spoke of the sense of fear that continued to haunt her three children, and made a plea to them. “Remember the day when you came to this country,” she told them. “The day when you, too, were an immigrant. Think about those of us who came after you, and please make your voice heard.”

For Latinos, Laxalt came to represent a return to the past. As attorney general, he vehemently opposed the expansion of DACA, and, more recently, called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade a “historic victory.” Across the country, Latinos cited abortion as the second most important issue in this year’s midterms. In Nevada, eighty-six per cent of likely Latino voters surveyed by the Associated Press said that it had factored into their decision to vote. Among those voters, sixty-one per cent cast their ballots for Cortez Masto and thirty-six per cent did so for Laxalt. “It feels like our rights are being jeopardized,” Jesús Vargas, a twenty-five-year-old who also canvassed for Cortez Masto, told me. Over and over, voters told Vargas that they feared the country was caught between extremes. “A lot of people are genuinely scared,” he said. “They worry that we’re regressing as a nation.”

Until precinct-level vote data become available, the extent to which Latinos can be credited for Cortez Masto’s win remains unclear. When her victory speech drew to a close, the crowd dispersed and people in the audience got on with their day. For Diana Valles, the president of the Culinary Union, that meant driving back to her neighborhood to cure ballots—insuring that her community’s votes were duly counted. Valles, who had stood next to Cortez Masto onstage, told me that she could identify with her family’s story. A native of Chihuahua, Valles had moved to Las Vegas in the late eighties and found a job as a guest-room attendant at the Stardust Casino. She raised her children by herself, built a strong reputation as an organizer, and rose through the union’s ranks. She had helped steer the union through the pandemic, and felt that Cortez Masto’s policies saved lives. “She stood up and said, ‘I’m here with you,’ ” Valles said. “That’s one of the things that people never forget: the people who are with you in the hardest times of your life. She’s been with us. She has always been one of us.” ♦

[umseb]

wait f1 itself made a sewis fancam 📷 @.f1 / facebook

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Beijing

The past week or so has been spent in Beijing with my best friend from college, Irene. Irene has been living in Beijing since 2019 and teaches English at a high school here. I’ve really enjoyed getting to see her neck of the woods and have been so grateful to have her as a guide because China, especially Beijing, is very overwhelming.

I’ve been to Beijing before, in 2018, but it was just for a day and a half and things have changed a lot since then. Beijing is definitely comparable at least in my experience to Mexico City. It is absolutely enormous and a beast to get around in, but there is so much to see and do and every neighborhood is so interesting and different. After being here a week I’ve barely scratched the surface, but I’ll go through by day.

Day 1, Sunday

We spent most of the day traveling from Macau to Beijing and getting ourselves situated. I was very nervous about flying into Mainland China as they are quite strict at border control and only very recently reopened the border to foreigners. Things only recently opened back up about 3 months ago. I made it through without a problem though and we made our way to the place I’m renting for the week. China does not allow foreigners to stay with residents without going through a long and arduous registration process, so I’m staying in an apartment about 25 minutes away from Irene, which is considered very close by Beijing standards.

Absolutely everything in China is done via apps and QR codes. Everything from riding the bus to ordering food in a restaurant to getting a taxi to paying your water bill; it is all done via apps that are mainly in Chinese. Thank goodness for Irene helping me get all the right apps set up showing me the ropes. After a week here I’ve finally figured out how to do most things by myself. It is certainly very convenient, you don’t need to talk to anyone or even carry around a wallet in most places.

In the evening we did a food tour with Lost Plate tours, it was really cool because they took us around to a lot of off the beaten track restaurants you’d never be able to find on your own and we tried some really amazing dishes.

All of the restaurants were in the Wudaoying Hutong, one of the historic neighborhoods in central Beijing. In total we visited 4 restaurants.

We tried 炸酱面 (zhajiangmian) hand pulled noodles with savory plum sauce and fresh vegetables (my personal favorite), 烤肉(kao rou) old school Mongolian style barbecue cooked with hot briquettes right on your table with a flat grill top. The style originated with soldiers building cook-fires literally inside their helmets, laying their shields on top, and cooking on that. We also had 门钉肉饼 (men ding rou bing) gigantic pork buns, fried on both sides and 春饼 (chun bing) spring pancakes with a variety of fillings. We rode on rickshaws around the hutong to get in between the different restaurants, it was so much fun. By the time we finished at a brewery after the fourth restaurant, we were absolutely stuffed, and made our way back for the night. Beijing is in a heat wave right now, with temperatures ranging from 95-104 degrees every day for the past 2.5 weeks, but in the evening in the hutongs it finally cooled down a bit and it was really lovely to walk around and see the neighborhood.

Day 2, Monday

Today was a lot more laid back. Irene had to work today, that meant that I stayed in my apartment in the air conditioning to rest and recover from the last crazy few days. I ventured out a bit in the afternoon to a nearby mall to find food. Malls in Asia are no joke, they are like small cities with every single kind of store you can think of. In the evening Irene and I walked back to that same mall and ate at a Mexican restaurant, then we walked a bit and explored the Chaoyang area I’m staying in. Even this one small area is enormous, we’ve been averaging about 20,000 steps a day even without doing all that much today. We saw the local river, the Liangma River, and visited another mall. It was very beautiful.

Day 3, Tuesday

Today was another rest day, I did not leave my room until 5pm today. It’s hard feeling like I’m missing out on things when I take rest days; but I’m in China for about 3 more weeks, and know that if I don’t take these rest days I will burn out from exhaustion very quickly. Especially with our trend of walking 8+ miles every day in 90+ degree weather.

In the evening we met up with a former student of Irene’s, Vicki, for Beijing style hot-pot. If you’re not familiar with hot pot it is exactly as it sounds, you’re given a hot pot of broth or hot water and tons of ingredients that you can add in as you choose to cook in the pot and take out as they become ready to eat. Beijing style is a little different because instead of being heated from underneath on a hot plate or stove; a very tall burning hot cylinder is with hot briquettes is placed directly inside the pot, with a little chimney at the top for the smoke to escape. It’s hard to describe, so see the video above to see what it’s like. We ate so much food and were absolutely stuffed.

Later we walked to the Central Business District (known as CBD in Beijing 😆). There were tons of skyscrapers and interesting buildings, its where all the major Chinese corporations have their headquarters. We took photos at a famous building known as the “Pants” building because it looks literally like a pair of pants.

Day 4, Wednesday

Today was my last partial rest day for a while. Irene got off work early today so in the afternoon I met up with her and we went to 798, which is the former industrial area turned trendy artists’ neighborhood. There were a lot of abandoned factories here that have been turned into artists’ residences, studios, and galleries and is near Beijing’s major art colleges. There was a lot of public art that was cool to see. We ate at a giant shaved ice place and ordered way too much food. Who knew ice was so filling 😂

Later I got to visit Irene’s apartment, and then she packed a bag to come stay the night at my place as we had an early start tomorrow. We ordered dim sum delivery and watched dramas which in my book is an excellent evening.

Day 5, Thursday

Today was spent visiting Irene’s school. Back when I was teaching university level English in Mexico City, Irene was able to visit me and spend the day at my school so it was really cool to do it the other way around today.

Irene’s school is absolutely enormous. It is a K-12 private boarding school on the outskirts of Beijing. It reminded me a lot of a US college campus. Most of the students except for the young students and students who come from other provinces live on campus during the week and go home on the weekends. Most of these students plan on attending college abroad at prestigious universities in places like the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia after graduating. They get English instruction from a very young age and are thus very fluent by the time they graduate.

Irene teaches grade 10-12 English, with between 8-20 students per class. I was amazed by how self-sufficient and responsible the majority of the students were (compared to my absolutely feral first graders back home). They were doing a study of the story The Most Dangerous Game and then created characters to role play in a DnD campaign based on the story; which I thought was really cool. Irene’s prep period was right before the lunch break, so we had a full 2.5 hours for lunch. We ate Xinjiang cuisine at a mall nearby the school, Xinjiang is in northwestern China bordering Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan so the cuisine was a unique mix of Middle Eastern and Chinese food; it was really really good. We didn’t realize we were eating there on the Eid holiday though and the restaurant was packed.

Later after teaching 3 classes Irene introduced me to a student of hers that wants to be an elementary school teacher after graduating. I hope I didn’t scare her off too much from the field. It was really cool but weird to talk with someone that age who is considering colleges and careers; I’m 29 and still feel like a kid most of the time, but thinking back to being 16/17 and thinking about how much I’ve learned and grown and experienced since then was very eye opening. Irene and I gave her a lot of advice about college etc. and we remembered being 21 and having all these anxieties about graduating and finding a job and all that and wow it is crazy how time flies and we are able to actually give advice about that stuff, it feels like just yesterday we were stressing about the exact same things she is stressing about.

In the evening we went to one of Irene’s favorite restaurants, The Taco Bar. Way back in 2013 Irene studied abroad in Beijing and was missing the easy access to Mexican cuisine we have in the US (specifically burritos) and went on a legendary search we now refer to as The Burrito Quest where she searched out and tried every single Mexican restaurant in Beijing, which is harder than it sounds. The Taco Bar didn’t have burritos, but it was hands down the winner of best Mexican restaurant in Beijing according to Irene. She has been coming here since 2013 even when their original location closed down, to their new location, and through the pandemic. We had an enormous amount of food and again ended the day extremely stuffed.

We had planned on this being our goodbye dinner, but we had discovered that Irene’s apartment had had a power cut. Rather than spend the night in darkness in 103 degree heat she decided to stay at my place again. But this meant embarking on an odyssey across Beijing to her apartment to get her stuff since she is traveling again this weekend; and then going back to my place for the air conditioning; this journey on Beijing public transport at rush hour during a heat wave was a major feat.

After 19,000 steps and a 2.5 hour trek we finally collapsed back at my place to sleep.

Day 6 Friday

Early in the morning I said goodbye to Irene as she headed off to work, she is traveling this weekend so she was going to the airport straight from work. I’ll really miss traveling with her, although I love solo travel, the best way to travel I think is with a close friend.

Today was my sightseeing day. I’ve been to Beijing before and have seen The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Great Wall before; and given the heat had no desire to confront the crowds there again.

So on Irene’s recommendation today I visited the Summer Palace. It is an enormous complex where the emperor would visit in the summer months in northern Beijing. It is much smaller than the main palace at the Forbidden City in central Beijing, but even so it was enormous. The emperor had it constructed when the capital of China was moved to Beijing in the 1300’s and many elements of the palace were modeled after areas in other places in China that the emperor liked.

There was a shopping street modeled after a town in southern China that I’m visiting later on in this trip. It is famous for being built on the water and it was my favorite area in the palace. There was an enormous manmade lake that was built to be Beijing’s emergency water supply and modeled after a famous lake in Kunming and was used to train naval officers. It was truly enormous. The land excavated from building the lake was used to create a 200ft tall hill upon which the palace itself was constructed. There were also literally thousands of smaller structures built throughout the massive forest grounds. I sat next to an old man on a bench for about 40 minutes while I ate a snack and did some people watching. Everyone else was moving so much and there were so many people but me and that old man were just vibing.

Most of the palace was looted by the British in the late 1800s, but the buildings themselves and natural structures were in amazing condition and it was really cool to see, albeit the heat.

Then I headed over to Nanluoguxiang hutong, another historic neighborhood in central Beijing. This is considered to be rather touristy, most of the original buildings were destroyed in renovations of the city, but were reconstructed to look like traditional neighborhoods in Imperial China, called hutongs. It is a very beautiful area, with streams and lots of people walking about. I visited here in 2018 and it was my favorite area of Beijing to just walk around in. I had some lunch and explored for a while and did some shopping.

My final stop of the day was Baiyunguan, the White Cloud Temple in southern Beijing. It is one of the oldest Taoist temples in China and is nearby a famous Taoist College. By this point in the day I was pretty exhausted from the 103 degree heat and having spent about 6 hours on public transportation and walking in crowded tourist sites. It was incredible to walk into the temple from the loud crowded street and immediately felt how calm and quiet it was. It was literally completely silent except for the wind and the birds.

I walked around the temple for a while. Taoism is one of several traditional Chinese religions, which work in synch with each other. Many Chinese people practice elements of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and animism. Taoism is all about finding balance and peace in the natural world. The temples themselves are actually called 观 (guan) which translates to look at or observe. This comes from the Taoist belief that understanding comes from looking at or observing the natural world, so the temples are places to look and observe. There were lots of very beautiful areas, some statues of deities people offered incense to, and lots of displays of art and calligraphy. It was very peaceful and a nice way to end the day.

I made my way back and collapsed for the rest of the day.

That’s it for Beijing, I’m amazed if you made it all the way through this very long post. It was great to spend time here. I am writing this post on a plane ride to my next stop, Zhangjiajie in Hunan province in south central China. Stay tuned!

[dr-lizortecho]

It’s festive. Every single week without fail. Arturo goes all out as soon as the Crash Down’s doors are closed. Their best dishes and silverware laid out, candles lit and happy music playing. Sunday dinners are something that mean the world to him. Because it’s a set aside time for his daughters.

It’s mainly their little family, the Ortechos and Max. But on occasion, if schedules allow, it sees rotating members of all their families. Kyle and Michelle, Max’s siblings, Alex and Maria. And every so often a member of the Crash Down family, whether Carlos and his eight or so children, or Vanessa. Though this week is much smaller, just the Ortechos and the Evanses.

Which of course doesn’t keep it from being loud, between the clanging of pots and pans as they cook and Liz and Rosa scream-singing along to the jukebox.

“And I'll do anything you ever dreamed to be complete, little pieces of the nothing that fall!” Liz and Rosa sing, Rosa spinning Liz in a circle. “Oh, Mayyyy.”

And then Liz is dancing towards Max, wrapping her arms around her waist and pressing a kiss to the back of her shoulder.

“Hey babe,” Max smiles, turning in her arms to grab at Liz’s waist and press a kiss to her forehead.

“Dance with me?” Liz quirks a brow.

Max laughs. “I’m in charge of simmering sauce.”

“No fun,” Liz pouts. She gets up on her tiptoes and presses a chaste kiss to Max’s lips.

“Yuck!” Isobel and Rosa say in unison.

read on ao3

[amberfaber40]

Kim Kardashian shows off her famous curves in hot pink bikini

Kim Kardashian shows off her famous curves in hot pink bikini

Kim Kardashian proved she likes to work hard and play hard on Sunday, as she got to work posing for a sexy photoshoot in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Every Unbelievable Look from the 2019 Met Gala

Stars were expected to pull out all the stops for the Metropolitan Institute of Art's Costume Institute Gala, where the theme was "Camp: Notes on Fashion." See what all your favorite A-listers wore to the biggest night in fashion

Kim Kardashian Lands Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover

Kim Kardashian has landed the cover for yet another magazine -- she's the star of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, which hits newsstands May 19.

Bodysuits are the unsung hero of any transitional wardrobe

Throw on and go.

Photos from Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson's Tahiti Vacation - E! Online

Photos from Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson's Tahiti Vacation

Kim Kardashian showcases her famous curves as she enjoys the beach

Kim Kardashian enjoyed a day dipping into the ocean at a Malibu beach.

Kim Kardashian stays up to study the law, Kanye creates new clothes

The 39-year-old reality TV star, whose father Robert was a lawyer, is studying the law with several California professors to prepare for the bar. And her husband wants to be the POTUS.

Dolce&Gabbana SS23 Women's Fashion Show

Kim Kardashian in Good Swim | Good American

GOOD SWIM GOOD SWIM If you want it – we got it. Our breakthrough swimwear comes in every size, style and color imaginable – welcome to the swim shop of your dreams! TOPS BOTTOMS ONE-PIECES COVERUPS COVERAGE TYPE TOPS BOTTOMS ONE-PIECES COVERUPS SHOP BY COVERAGE TOPS Swimwear made for real bodies BANDEAUS TINY TIES ONE -SHOULDER ALWAYS FITS VIEW ALL BOTTOMS Swimwear that loves your curves CHEEKY TINY TIES FULL COVERAGE HIGH-WAISTED ALWAYS FITS VIEW ALL ONE-PIECES Swimwear with core control & adjustable support ONE-SHOULDER MONOKINIS ALWAYS FITS VIEW ALL COVERUPS Designed for every size and every shape DRESSES MINI SKIRTS SARONGS ROMPERS VIEW ALL COVERAGE MINIMAL MEDIUM FULL Designed for every size and every shape because we love your curves SHOP ALL SWIM #GOODAMERICAN

Kim’s Dragonfruit Smoothie Bowl

Recipe straight from her chef.

Kim Kardashian shows off her famous curves in hot pink bikini EXCLUSIVE: Kim Kardashian shows off her famous curves in hot pink bikini as she poses for a sexy photo shoot after jetting to Mexico without Kanye West amid marriage woes By George Stark For Dailymail.com 18:29 24 Aug 2020, updated 19:45 24 Aug 2020 Kim Kardashian has been pictured taking part in a sexy photo shoot in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico The sighting comes after Kim, 39, reunited with husband Kanye West on social media over the weekend Kanye, 43, is currently based in Wyoming where he is said to be working on his unlikely bid for presidency  The couple's marriage has been under increasing pressure lately following his recent Twitter outbursts  Kim Kardashian proved she likes to work hard and play hard on Sunday, as she got to back to her professional duties posing for a sexy photoshoot in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.The 39-year-old reality star looked phenomenal showing off her famous curves in a barely-there hot pink bikini. The Keeping Up with the Kardashians personality was said to be taking part in a shoot for her KKW beauty range while showing off her assets.  Wow factor: Kim Kardashian shows off her famous curves in hot pink bikini as she poses for a sexy photo shoot after jetting to Mexico without Kanye West amid marriage woesKim was seen reuniting with husband Kanye West over the weekend on social media, amid reports of trouble in their marriage following his unlikely bid for presidency. Related ArticlesIt seems the pair are focusing on making things work, despite the fact she is based primarily in Los Angeles, while he spends most of his time working on his campaign in Wyoming. The couple were joined by Kim's sister Kourtney Kardashian this weekend, as the pair took a trip paddle boarding with their daughter North West.  All the glimmers: The reality star smoldered while posing in her bikini on the beachNo Kanye? It was unclear if Kim was with her husband for the beach excursionImpressive: The KKW entrepreneur showed off her famous physique on the beachGetting back to work! After spending time with Kanye and the kids over the weekend, Kim then headed to Mexico for a shootPretty in pink! Kim, 39, wows in a hot pink bikini while doing a photo shoot in MexicoGlow: The KUWTK star appeared to be catching rays from the golden hour sunsetStunning: Kim Kardashian proved she likes to work hard and play hard on Sunday, as she took a break from her vacation to pose for a sexy photoshoot in Cabo San Lucas, MexicoKanye, 43, did not appear to be present for the photoshoot however, after he reportedly flew back to Los Angeles to be with his wife and children this weekend. A source told PEOPLE on Sunday that the rapper had returned to LA to spend some quality time with his family. 'He is still busy working on his music and presidential campaign, but really missed the kids and flew to see them,' the source tells the outlet. Stunner: Kim showed off her derriere in a pair of pink bikini bottomsDangerous curves ahead! The star appeared to preoccupied with her iPhoneBack in action: Kim appears to have jetted to Mexico without husband Kanye West for a sexy new photo shootNew look: Kim showed off her hair in braids as she posed for a poolside shotTo infinity and beyond: Kim appeared to be at a luxury location in Cabo for the sexy shootWet and wild: The KUWTK star proved she's still fond of showing off in a bikini for the camerasTaking a dip: Kim looked every inch of a bombshell pin up as she struck a number of sultry posesAdding: 'They are all spending the weekend at their Hidden Hills house and catching up as a family.''Kimye' married in Florence six years ago and share four children - North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, one.The family recently returned to Los Angeles after a recent Caribbean trip that was reportedly to save their marriage amid his alleged bipolar struggle.Cartwheeling her cares away: Kim appeared to be game for a laugh as she attempted a cartwheel during the shootBracing herself: The reality star gets ready to fling her legs in the air on the beachAlmost! Kim practices her cartwheeling skills while taking part in a sexy bikini shoot in MexicoMeanwhile a PEOPLE insider previously claimed Kanye had been self-isolating at his Wyoming property away from his wife and children before the Caribbean trip and 'wants to live' there. However a DailyMail.com source clarified that Kanye, who is running for President Of The United States this year, was 'never living apart' from Kim. This insider explained: 'He does a lot of work in Wyoming and she works in LA. They're focused on their family now and rarely talk politics.'Enjoying a snack: The wife of Kanye West appeared to be enjoying a chocolate dessert while taking part in the shootCarrying on regardless: An insider close to Kim recently told DailyMail.com that she and husband Kanye West do not talk politicsMaking a splash: Kim sizzled in her pink bikini with seemingly no cares in the worldStriking a pose: Kim looked like a golden goddess posing in the sunsetGetting her stretches in: The shoot required quite a few different maneuvers from the reality star'They had a good family week in the Dominican Republic,' an insider dished to People after the family returned to America.'Kim and Kanye are getting along. They both seem much happier,' continued the insider on August 9, the day the family arrived in Miami.A source shed light on Kim's state of mind: 'Between the kids, work, and dealing with Kanye's bipolar episodes, it's been hard for her to think clearly.' Trim Kim: The KUWTK personality displayed her hour glass figure while taking a dipRisqué: Kim proved she's still not shy when it comes to revealing photo shootsQuick stop: It appears Kim jetted to Mexico for a one-off shoot after spending time with her familyDouble life: Kim used to balancing her busy career with her family commitmentsKanye praised Kim's mother Kris Jenner on Twitter after his return to America, just weeks after denouncing her on Twitter as 'Kris Jong-Un.''My mother in law Kris Jenner ... makes the best music playlist,' wrote Kanye, who slammed her multiple times on Twitter last month. During the Caribbean trip a The Sun insider said Kim 'offered to fully support a 2024 run for president if he got help and listened to the political consultants they hired.'However the source also claimed that he refuses to budge from the idea of running this year, saying: 'Kanye seems set on what he calls "God's plan" - that he becomes president. He's saying it's a higher calling.'Made it past the finish line: Kim appeared to be pleased when the photoshoot was over Most Read News Revealed: The 83 beaches Britons are warned to avoid due to SEWAGE being dumped into waters nearby -... Hunt unveils his 'back-to-work' Budget TODAY: Chancellor will introduce free pre-school childcare,... Fantasist whose rape lies drove three men to attempt suicide is jailed for eight years: CCTV reveals... US SUMMONS Russian ambassador as Moscow DENIES its fighter jet collided with American Reaper drone... No hard feelings then, Matt? Self-styled anti-Tory sleaze postergirl Carol Vorderman laughs and... Drunk woman holidaymaker, 71, who went to bed in a stranger's house she mistook for her B&B suffered... Thousands of Brits earning over £125,000 are STILL eligible for Universal Credit due to high rents... 'I would have died if I'd stayed at home one more night': Jailed Stephen Bear's ex-girlfriend... Moment drunk murderer who stabbed his ex-girlfriend's new lover to death while they were in bed... Ex-boss of Dreamboys is found dead in his cell after being jailed for trying to kill his model... Eleanor Williams' elaborate web of lies: Fantasist stole plots from Liam Neeson movie Taken and BBC... Gary Glitter will 'likely spend the rest of his life in prison' after being recalled to jail for... Rot in Hell: Two Russian snipers who sexually assaulted four-year-old Ukrainian girl in front of her... EXCLUSIVE: American spy on secondment to GCHQ was stabbed by alleged terrorist just three miles from... Uncle is convicted of 'honour killing' murder of his 20-year-old niece who refused to take part in a... Man who secretly removed condom during sex becomes the first to be convicted for 'stealthing' in the... Wow factor: Kim Kardashian shows off her famous curves in hot pink bikini as she poses for a sexy photo shoot after jetting to Mexico without Kanye West amid marriage woes All the glimmers: The reality star smoldered while posing in her bikini on the beach No Kanye? It was unclear if Kim was with her husband for the beach excursion Impressive: The KKW entrepreneur showed off her famous physique on the beach Getting back to work! After spending time with Kanye and the kids over the weekend, Kim then headed to Mexico for a shoot Pretty in pink! Kim, 39, wows in a hot pink bikini while doing a photo shoot in Mexico Glow: The KUWTK star appeared to be catching rays from the golden hour sunset Stunning: Kim Kardashian proved she likes to work hard and play hard on Sunday, as she took a break from her vacation to pose for a sexy photoshoot in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico Stunner: Kim showed off her derriere in a pair of pink bikini bottoms Dangerous curves ahead! The star appeared to preoccupied with her iPhone Back in action: Kim appears to have jetted to Mexico without husband Kanye West for a sexy new photo shoot New look: Kim showed off her hair in braids as she posed for a poolside shot To infinity and beyond: Kim appeared to be at a luxury location in Cabo for the sexy shoot Wet and wild: The KUWTK star proved she's still fond of showing off in a bikini for the cameras Taking a dip: Kim looked every inch of a bombshell pin up as she struck a number of sultry poses Cartwheeling her cares away: Kim appeared to be game for a laugh as she attempted a cartwheel during the shoot Bracing herself: The reality star gets ready to fling her legs in the air on the beach Almost! Kim practices her cartwheeling skills while taking part in a sexy bikini shoot in Mexico Enjoying a snack: The wife of Kanye West appeared to be enjoying a chocolate dessert while taking part in the shoot Carrying on regardless: An insider close to Kim recently told DailyMail.com that she and husband Kanye West do not talk politics Making a splash: Kim sizzled in her pink bikini with seemingly no cares in the world Striking a pose: Kim looked like a golden goddess posing in the sunset Getting her stretches in: The shoot required quite a few different maneuvers from the reality star Trim Kim: The KUWTK personality displayed her hour glass figure while taking a dip Risqué: Kim proved she's still not shy when it comes to revealing photo shoots Quick stop: It appears Kim jetted to Mexico for a one-off shoot after spending time with her family Double life: Kim used to balancing her busy career with her family commitments Made it past the finish line: Kim appeared to be pleased when the photoshoot was over > © Associated Newspapers Ltd Comments Share what you think Comments Share what you think Comments Share what you think

[walkingindaydreams]

Cuisines and new food

Food:

Pizza 2004 🇮🇹

lasagna 2014?2015? 🇮🇹

sushi 2020 🇯🇵

Tempura 2020 10/10 🇯🇵

korean food - 2021 🇰🇷

singapore noodles 2017 🇸🇬

Kw 🇲🇾

Vietnam noodles 2024 (not spicy -2/10) 🇻🇳

Yung chow rice 🇨🇳 8/10

Pad thai 🇹🇭 2021 4/10

subway 2022

KFC chicken bucket 2018?2019?

Laksa manuli - 2022 🇲🇾

taco bell - mexican fujita (2022) 9/10 🇲🇽

Dumplings ew 2022

Mexican Burrito 2024 (Stef) 🇲🇽

Gyro (greek) 2024🇬🇷

Nepalese pork curry 2024 6/10 (too sweet)🇳🇵

British pie 🇬🇧

Shawarma 🇹🇷

Chicken tikka 🇮🇳 -10/10

Jalfrezi 🇮🇳 5/10

Steak bake

Pulled pork

Pork ribs 2024

Desserts:

Butterscotch cake 2022

Creme brule 2020 10/10

Mud cake

Blueberry cake 2021 -2/10

Cheesecake - 2020

Lemon icecream 2022

Oreo cupcake - UK Sep 2023

Coffee/drinks :

Flat White 2023

Vanilla latte 2023

Starbucks mocha 2023

Starbucks caramel something 2024

Macchiato 2023?

Salted caramel latte

Oreo milkshake 2019?

White choclate mocha 2022

Cocktails:

White Russian 10/10

Cookie thing (too sweet) 4/10

Blue lagoon

Want to try:

Sea bass

Sunday roast

red velvet cake

cheescake ice cream

lemon tart

tiramisu

smoked salmon bagel - cakery

happy cow cream cheese

oreo cheesecake

Grilled Squid (Japan) - Grilled seafood served with spicy sauce.

Chili Crab (Singapore) - Crab cooked in a spicy, tangy chili sauce.

Gyoza (Japan) - Fried dumplings filled with spiced pork or chicken.

Shisanyama (South Africa) - Grilled meats with spicy marinades.

Piri Piri Chicken (Mozambique) - Spicy marinated chicken grilled over open flame.

Carnitas (Mexico) - Slow-cooked, shredded pork with a spicy rub.

Jambalaya (USA) - A spicy rice dish with sausage, chicken, and seafood.

Chicharrón (Puerto Rico) - Fried pork belly served with spicy dipping sauces.

Asado (Argentina) - Spicy grilled meats, often served with chimichurri sauce.

Peruvian Ceviche (Peru) - Raw seafood marinated in lime and chili.

Choripán (Argentina) - Grilled chorizo sausage in a bread roll, topped with spicy sauce.

Samgyeopsal (South Korea): Grilled pork belly slices often served with garlic, lettuce, and dipping sauces.

Curanto (Chile): A traditional layered dish of meat, seafood, and vegetables

Cevapi (Bosnia): Small, grilled minced meat sausages usually served with flatbread and a side of onions, sour cream, or ajvar.

Satay (Indonesia): Skewered and grilled meat, often marinated in a spicy peanut sauce

Tagine (Morocco): A slow-cooked stew of meat and vegetables seasoned with spices

Butter Chicken (India): A creamy, mildly spiced curry made with marinated chicken simmered in a tomato-based sauce with butter and cream.

Pierogi (Poland): Dumplings filled with potato, cheese, or meat, often boiled or fried and served with sour cream.

Moussaka (Greece): A layered casserole with eggplant, minced meat, and béchamel sauce,

Arancini (Sicily, Italy): Fried rice balls stuffed with cheese, ragù, or other fillings

Paella (Spain): A saffron-infused rice dish typically made with seafood, chicken, and vegetables.

Ceviche (Peru): Fresh raw fish marinated in citrus juice, often with onions, chili, and cilantro

Rendang (Indonesia): A flavorful beef stew slow-cooked in coconut milk and a blend of spices,

Suya (Nigeria): Spicy skewered meat, usually beef, coated in a peanut and spice mixture, grilled

Lobster Roll (USA): lobster meat in a buttered, toasted roll, often served with mayonnaise or butter.

Chiles en Nogada (Mexico): Stuffed poblano peppers filled with meat and dried fruits, topped with a creamy walnut sauce

Empanadas (Chile) - Fried pastry filled with spicy meat or seafood.

Salsas (Mexico) - Various spicy sauces, often served with meats or seafood.

Picanha (Brazil) - Grilled beef with a spicy rub.

Milanesa (Argentina) - Fried breaded beef or chicken, often served with spicy condiments.

Chimichurri Steak (Argentina) -Grilled steak topped with a spicy herb sauce.

[yourreddancer]

Helen Cox Richardson  10/31/24

Helen Cox Richardson  10/31/24

House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has responded to news stories about his plan to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) by claiming his comments at the closed-door campaign event on Monday were taken out of context. But they weren’t. The tape is clear. Johnson said that Republicans want “massive reform” to the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” When an attendee asked, “No Obamacare?” Johnson laughed and agreed: “No Obamacare. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.” 

MAGA Utah senator Mike Lee reposted the video of Johnson and commented: “Kill Obamacare now[.]”

Trump today posted on social media that he never mentioned repealing the Affordable Care Act, “never even thought of such a thing.” But this was either a memory lapse or a lie, because in 2016 he ran on repealing the ACA and his 2016 platform called for “a full repeal of Obamacare.” Within hours of taking office in 2017, Trump issued an executive order weakening the law, and when the Republican-dominated House voted to repeal the law, Trump held a celebration in the Rose Garden and declared the ACA “essentially dead.” 

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) bucked Trump to protect the ACA then, and Trump began this year’s campaign with a promise to get rid of it before backing off. Even still, the vague promise in the 2024 platform to “increase Transparency, promote Choice and Competition, and expand access to new Affordable Healthcare” sounds a lot like Johnson’s promise to restore “the free market” to health care. 

While Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has been campaigning in the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Trump today held a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a state President Joe Biden won by almost 11 points in 2020 and that Democrats are likely to win in 2024. Trump had to hold the rally at a private airplane hangar after city officials refused to rent the Albuquerque Convention Center to the campaign because it still owes Albuquerque almost $445,000 from a similar rally in 2019.  

Once there, he made it clear he was trying to repair some of the damage caused by the extraordinary racism and sexism on display at his Sunday rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, where a comedian called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” 

Courting offended voters, he said: “Don’t make me waste a whole damn half a day here, OK? Look, I came here. We can be nice to each other, or we can talk turkey. I’m here for one simple reason: I like you very much, and it’s good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community.” That outreach might not be enough to bring back the voters lost after the Madison Square Garden event.

The campaign is seeing other weaknesses, as well. Meredith McGraw and Jessica Piper of Politico reported today that nearly half of the ballots already cast in Pennsylvania have come from voters over the age of 65, and although the numbers of registered older voters are divided evenly between the parties, registered Democrats have made up about 58% of Pennsylvania’s early votes, compared to 35% for Republicans. Those numbers might well simply reflect different approaches to mail-in ballots, but they also might explain why Trump is already claiming fraud in Pennsylvania. 

He is also seemingly nervous about Pennsylvania because women are voting there at a much higher rate than men in the early vote: 56% to 43%. And Democratic women are the biggest group of new voters in the state. New voters who were too young eight years ago to hear the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, have been hearing it on TikTok lately, as younger users record their reactions to it and call out their older male relatives for voting for anyone who would talk as Trump did. 

“I moved on her, and I failed,” Trump says in the tape. “I’ll admit it. I did try and f*ck her…. I moved on her like a b*tch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married,” Trump said. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful— I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p*ssy. You can do anything,” he said.

The Harris campaign and pro-Harris organizations leaned into the history of women’s suffrage today with videos highlighting those who fought so that women could vote and reiterating: “We are not going back.” To assist those women who might not feel safe letting their husbands know how they voted, women have been posting notes in women’s public bathrooms assuring other women that their vote is secret. A Democratic advertisement voiced by actress Julia Roberts powerfully makes the point that women do not have to tell their husbands how they vote.

Right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk have expressed alarm at the gender gap in voting. As well, there has been a right-wing backlash to the idea that women will vote for Harris while letting their husbands assume they’re voting for Trump.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who famously cheated on both of his first two wives, expressed dismay at the idea that a woman might need to keep her vote secret from her husband. “For them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption,” he said. “How do you run a country…saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?”  (NOTE:  YOU are the amoral cheating bastard who started the "us vs them, take no prisoners approach to Democrats during Reagan's era!  )

On the Fox News Channel’s The Five this morning, host Jesse Watters said that if he found out his wife “was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair…. That violates the sanctity of our marriage.” Christian pastor Dale Partridge posted: “In a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction. He is the head and they are one. Unity extends to politics. This is not controversial.” But, he added, “submission does have limits. A wife doesn’t need to submit to her husband in sin (in this case voting democrat).”

Tonight, at an event with right-wing host Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, Trump seemed to move beyond misogyny to murderous intent. He turned his increasingly violent rhetoric against former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has urged Republican women to vote against Trump. “She’s a radical war hawk,” he said, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”  

Carlson is friendly with authoritarian Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has undermined democracy in his own country and is close to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Today Orbán posted that he had “Just got off the phone with President [Trump]. I wished him the best of luck for next Tuesday. Only five days to go. Fingers crossed

Meanwhile, a lot more major endorsements for Harris have been coming in. 

Today basketball legend LeBron James released a powerful one-minute ad with clips of Trump’s many racist statements and drawing a straight line from him back to the most violent days of the civil rights movement. “HATE TAKES US BACK,” it says. In a post sharing the video, James wrote: “When I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. VOTE KAMALA HARRIS!!!” James has 53 million followers on X. 

The Economist today endorsed Harris, warning that “a second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks.” Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg also posted on social media that he had voted for Harris “without hesitation,” and added that he hoped undecided voters would join him. “Trump is not fit for high office,” he wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed. He praised Harris’s positive vision and bipartisan outreach. 

Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published an op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday, titled: “My Fellow Republicans, It’s Time to Say ‘Enough’ With Trump.” The former president is unfit for office, Luttig wrote. “When we entrusted our Constitution and our democracy to him before, he betrayed us.” Luttig assured readers that “[t]here  could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate” Trump.

He reminded his fellow Republicans that they had always “proudly claimed they would be the first to put the country above all else when the time came. That time has come…. ​​All Americans, but especially Republicans, will live with their decision the rest of their lives.” “The choice for America next Tuesday,” Luttig wrote, “could not be clearer.”

Ever since Vice President Harris tapped Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, Democratic governors have been demonstrating their support for one of their own. Today, for Halloween, Democratic  governors Wes Moore of Maryland, Janet Mills of Maine, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Phil Murphy of New Jersey each dressed to match a photograph of Walz.

“No tricks this Halloween!” Whitmer posted. “Just dressing up as our friend [Tim Walz]—excited to elect him and [Kamala Harris]. If you haven’t yet, make a plan to vote: http://iwillvote.com[.]”

[newstfionline]

Sunday, March 12, 2023

Irreparable (ABC News) Auto repair prices are up and outpacing the overall rate of inflation considerably, with government data showing motor vehicle repair prices up 23 percent over the course of the past year. The cause is a combination of a shortage of workers—the industry will be 642,000 workers short of capacity by 2024—and an inconsistent supply of auto parts. There are also fewer car repair stops still in business: In 2016 there were 225 vehicles on the road for every service bay, a level that in 2021 rose to 246 cars and trucks for every bay.

Jaded with education, more Americans are skipping college (AP) When he looked to the future, Grayson Hart always saw a college degree. He was a good student at a good high school. He wanted to be an actor, or maybe a teacher. Growing up, he believed college was the only route to a good job, stability and a happy life. The pandemic changed his mind. A year after high school, Hart is directing a youth theater program in Jackson, Tennessee. He got into every college he applied to but turned them all down. Cost was a big factor, but a year of remote learning also gave him the time and confidence to forge his own path. Hart is among hundreds of thousands of young people who came of age during the pandemic but didn’t go to college. Many have turned to hourly jobs or careers that don’t require a degree, while others have been deterred by high tuition and the prospect of student debt. Nationwide, undergraduate college enrollment dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022.

Bank’s failure shakes companies worldwide (AP) It was called Silicon Valley Bank, but its collapse is causing shockwaves around the world. From winemakers in California to startups across the Atlantic Ocean, companies are scrambling to figure out how to manage their finances after their bank suddenly shut down Friday. The meltdown means distress not only for businesses but also for all their workers whose paychecks may get tied up in the chaos. U.S. customers with less than $250,000 in the bank can count on insurance provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. But many companies had millions (and in at least one case billions) of dollars that are now frozen or gone, and have no idea how to meet payroll. Silicon Valley Bank worked with startups, and many “are terrified,” according to one depositor.

Atmospheric river floods California towns, brings rain, snow (AP) More than 9,000 California residents were under evacuation orders Friday as a new atmospheric river brought heavy rain, thunderstorms and strong winds, swelling rivers and creeks and flooding several major highways and small rural communities. In Santa Cruz County, a creek bloated by rain destroyed a portion of Main Street in Soquel, a town of 10,000 people, isolating several neighborhoods. In the San Francisco Bay Area, flooding blocked portions of several major highways, including Interstate 580 in Oakland, disrupting travel. The storm marked the state’s 10th atmospheric river of the winter, storms that have brought enormous amounts of rain and snow to the state and helped lessen the drought conditions that had dragged on for three years.

Matamoros victims found, but 550 Americans are still missing in Mexico (Washington Post) Lisa Torres was glued to her phone, watching news reports on the kidnapping last week of four Americans in the Mexican city of Matamoros. She lived in the Houston suburbs, hundreds of miles away, but knew well the pain of having a relative snatched on the other side of the border. Her son, Robert, was just 21 when he vanished in 2017. More than 550 Americans are reported as missing in Mexico, a little-known facet of a broader tragedy that has honeycombed this country with mass graves. Soaring violence and government dysfunction have fueled a crisis that’s left at least 112,150 people missing, according to government records here. Americans make up a small part of that ghastly toll. And they are a tiny percentage of the millions of U.S. citizens who travel to Mexico every year for tourism, work and family visits. But just as there’s been an uproar in Mexico over the government’s all-out effort to find the four Americans, compared with its far more limited search for its own abducted citizens, relatives of the Americans still missing are asking why their loved ones haven’t been a higher priority for Washington.

Chile’s president shakes up Cabinet, replaces five ministers (AP) President Gabriel Boric shook up his Cabinet on Friday, replacing five of his 24 ministers on the eve of beginning his second year in power, announcing the change two days after Chile’s lawmakers rejected a proposed tax overhaul for financing most of his government program. It was the second time Boric has carried out a major Cabinet reshuffle. The previous overhaul came in September when 62% of voters rejected a new constitution that had been championed by the president. The Cabinet reshuffle came after an unexpected defeat Wednesday for Boric as Congress rejected a tax package that would have helped the president fund his progressive social agenda. Rodrigo Espinoza, director of the School of Management at Diego Portales University, said one of the difficulties Boric now faces is that “a significant part of his program will no longer have financing.”

German Officials Had Gotten Tip About Jehovah’s Witness Gunman (NYT) Weeks before a gunman opened fire on his former congregation at a Jehovah’s Witness hall in northern Germany, the authorities got a tip that he “harbored a special rage” toward religious groups, officials said Friday. But when they checked on him, they said, they determined they did not have grounds to seize his weapons. The gunman killed six people, including a pregnant woman, before turning his weapon on himself as police stormed the building in Hamburg on Thursday in what the authorities called “the worst such mass shooting incident of this dimension” to affect the city. Eight people were wounded, four of them severely. In keeping with German privacy laws, the police identified the gunman only as Philipp F., a 35-year-old German who, according to the authorities, had been a member of the congregation until a year and a half ago, “but apparently did not leave on good terms,” said Thomas Radszuweit, the head of state security in Hamburg. Mass shootings are extremely rare in Germany, where regulations limit who can own a weapon, and make training and testing compulsory before a gun can be purchased. Fully automatic weapons are considered “weapons of war” and are illegal.

Female and nonbinary swimmers can go topless in public pools, Berlin says (Washington Post) Berlin’s authorities want to make it very clear: Women are free to swim topless in municipal pools, as are those who identify as nonbinary, if that’s what they want. Topless swimming in public pools wasn’t forbidden in the German capital anyway, but a woman recently lodged a complaint alleging discrimination after a pool prevented her from swimming without covering her chest, a restriction that wasn’t applied to the male swimmers. The city and its public pools operator will now ensure that men and women are treated equally when it comes to swimming topless, the Berlin state government said in a press release Thursday. Germans “are generally quite relaxed about” nudity, Keon West, a professor of social psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, who has conducted studies into nakedness and body image, previously told The Washington Post. Nudity, also known as “free body culture,” is not seen as sexual.

Russia’s hypersonic missile attack on Ukraine highlights Western vulnerability (Washington Post) Russia fired a half-dozen of its rare Kinzhal hypersonic missiles at Ukraine on Thursday, as part of a broader barrage that killed six people and that the Russian Defense Ministry described as revenge for an incursion into western Russia last week by a far-right Russian nationalist group fighting on Ukraine’s side in the war. Russia’s use of the hypersonic missiles—“Kinzhal” means dagger in Russian—renewed alarm over the Kremlin’s sophisticated arsenal, and it highlighted that Putin possesses difficult-to-intercept, nuclear-capable weapons that the United States and its allies do not yet have. Hypersonic missiles are highly maneuverable weapons that travel at speeds above Mach 5, or more than five times the speed of sound, making them extremely hard to intercept. The United States and China are also developing hypersonic weapons. After Russia used them in Ukraine for the first time in March last year, President Biden called the missiles “almost unstoppable.” Russia has other nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons, but its flaunting of the Kinzhal in battle adds to the pressure on Washington as a hypersonic arms race heats up, one in which Washington has catching up to do, with both Russia and China.

Hong Kong activists behind Tiananmen vigil jailed for months (AP) Three former organizers of Hong Kong’s annual vigil in remembrance of victims of China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests were jailed Saturday for four and a half months for failing to provide authorities with information on the group in accordance with a national security law. The now-defunct alliance was best known for organizing candlelight vigils in Hong Kong on the anniversary of the 1989 Chinese military’s crushing of Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, but it was voted to disband in 2021 under the shadow of the Beijing-imposed national security law. Before its disbandment, police had sought details about its operations and finances in connection with alleged links to democracy groups overseas, accusing it of being a foreign agent. But the group refused to cooperate, arguing the police did not have a right to ask for its information because it was not a foreign agent and the authorities did not provide sufficient justification. In her mitigation, one member said the alliance was not a foreign agent and that nothing had emerged that proved otherwise, so sentencing them was about punishing people for defending the truth. “Sir, sentence us for our insubordination if you must, but when the exercise of power is based on lies, being insubordinate is the only way to be human,” she said.

South Korea proposes a 69-hour workweek, up from an already long 52 (Washington Post) South Korea’s conservative government has proposed increasing the legal cap on weekly work hours from 52 to 69, triggering backlash from the opposition and wage-earners who fear the plan will ruin work-life balance in a country already well known for workaholism. South Koreans already toil more than many of their overseas counterparts. They work an average of 1,915 hours per year, compared with 1,791 hours for Americans and 1,490 hours for the French, who have a 35-hour workweek, according to figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD average is 1,716 hours. The proposal has sparked a backlash from workers who fear it will give employers legal grounds to encourage grueling hours on busy weeks.

Saudi deal with Iran worries Israel (AP) News of the rapprochement between long-time regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran sent shock waves through the Middle East on Saturday and dealt a symbolic blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the threat posed by Tehran a public diplomacy priority and personal crusade. Saudi Arabia’s decision to engage with its regional rival has left Israel largely alone as it leads the charge for diplomatic isolation of Iran and threats of a unilateral military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The UAE also resumed formal relations with Iran last year. “It’s a blow to Israel’s notion and efforts in recent years to try to form an anti-Iran bloc in the region,” said Yoel Guzansky, an expert on the Persian Gulf at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank. “If you see the Middle East as a zero-sum game, which Israel and Iran do, a diplomatic win for Iran is very bad news for Israel.”