#'extremely south german' is a very funny term
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Back in 2019, my class went to Berlin and one evening a group of us went to a Gaststätte (might have been a Biergarten), that I can only describe as extremely South German.
Which is funny, because my class was from South Germany. I can get the exact same food around here.
#'extremely south german' is a very funny term#it does not explain anything unless you've been in a gaststätte or biergarten in south germany#i wonder how much of that is for tourists#or just for south germans#i have never noticed obvious tourists there#so maybe the only tourists would also be german#but i don't drink beer. so i don't really go to places like that on my own#went to my local biergarten like 2 times with my class#and another gaststätte in the area once#and one in nürnberg. when we went there once#(also with my school)#that was also very similar#i guess a better term would be 'landhaus-stil'#but that's not as funny#-franz
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Is that Supa Strikers show really that great? Would I like it even if I don’t like soccer/football? (I’m asking because I’ve never seen it. In fact, your posts are the only reason I know it exists at all.)
Okay. Okay, okay I was going to work on requests during this meeting but then I saw this and I have many feelings on this show so you're getting an essay. Buckle up son.
Brief History
For those not in the know, Supa Strikas is a series from South Africa that started as a futbol-themed comic in I want to say the early 2000s. It quickly gained popularity throughout most of Africa and today is published in Latin-America, South America, Africa, some parts of Europe and Asia.
Almost every continent has this comic. You cannot tell me that isn't cool and also very telling of how many people like this series.
Seeing the comic get so popular so fast, a TV show followed up in 2009 by the same name and is still going to this day. This series has been along longer than most presidential terms.
The show had a similar story with only slight character changes, and while the entirety of the 2021 season is already out, there are signs that they may be more coming out in 2022 so. Fingers crossed!
What is it about?
The story centers around Shakes, a young futbol player who has recently joined the Supa Strikas, a team based in an unspecified African country. The comic follows the team winning the Super League during different seasons, going around the world to find out new techniques, deal with teams that cheat and overcome their own inner problems as well.
The series differs from the comics in that we don't see Shakes' journey to becoming a Supa Strika and we don't get the official names for the characters either, only their nicknames. Wikipedia has their official names listed I think, but if anyone whose read the comics wishes to tell me, by all means do so.
It's a pretty straight forward storyline, with some good story consistency (characters who appear in one episode do show up again and are given consistent writing). Very episodic.
Why should I watch the series?
The series is fun. Sincerely, un-apologetically fun.
The main characters get good screen time and we get to see some fun, decently written personalities that act off each other well. The Supa Strikas is a team of himbos but different varieties of himbos and I love them for it. You do get the feeling that this is a group of people that cares for each other, not a group of characters just shoved together because the series said so.
The side-characters are also great. Some of them are a little one-note but many of them are just as crazy, if not more fun, than the main characters of the show. There's an American dude named Ninja whose entire gimmick is that he's a reality star fame-seeking dude straight out of Las Vegas and I love him. He's one of the tamer character concepts.
Coach. That is all.
There's a vast array of diverse representation. While the Supa Strikas team is the only team is they only team of mixed nationalities (South African, Jamaican, Brazilian, Spanish, etc) every team is representing a different country. There's a Brazilian Team, a Mexican Team, a Saudi Arabian Team and many others.
In connection - the Supa Strikas have players from around the world. Dancing Rasta is Jamaican, the captain of the team, an incredibly competent leader and very down-to-earth. You do have players that are a little stereotypical (North Shaw is an Australian who loves extreme sports, shocker) but are written in ways that you find yourself not minding.
It's funny. There's a lot of good moments both in writing and in the animation. As someone who got to study animation, I can say without a shadow of doubt that the team behind the character animations had no fear in pushing what they can do and making the characters feel fun.
Some of the stereotypes used in the show are used well and are written in a fairly respectful way. El Matador, a Spanish player, fills the stereotype of being a self-absorbed Spaniard. but he's also written to care for friends and to be very competent in other areas. Plus, there are other Spanish characters like Riano that are nothing like that and have distinctly different personalities. As a Spaniard, I found this to be a good writing choice. These jokes are seen less as insults and more like friendly barbs between most countries and it doesn't detract from the show.
The technology. It's a running gag that the tech used to train the guys is progressively more outrageous.
No forced romance storylines! There's no character moment where boy meets girl and then we're stuck watching this inevitable couple find reasons to not be a couple. It's nice to not have the forced hetero-normative relationships we see in a lot of other shows.
To that end, fantastic healthy male friendships! There's no "no homo" moment and the characters all have very good chemistry. Again, you feel like they're actually friends. They all have different dynamics too, so the friendships don't feel uniform and stale.
Good emotional moments.
Bromances for the win! Genuinely shocked there's not more fandom for it considering the sheer quantity of POSSIBILITIES of bromances and potential ships to work with.
It's 100% fine if you don't know anything about futbol. The show shows literally what matters, not every single little throw-in, and most times there's some world-breaking nonsense going on that distracts from that. There's literally an episode where the opposing team changes gravity on the the field to try and beat the Supa Strikas, the rules barely matter. I promise you, you don't need to know what "Offsides" means in order to watch.
The commentators. I love them both.
The episodes are varied in stories. There's ones about training, ones about exploring a different country, others where the opponents cheat, etc. There's an episode which is almost a murder mystery and I love it.
All the episodes can be found free online on Youtube on the official channel for the show. I love this creative team so much.
There's a lot of good writing choices!
What might I not like about the show?
Some people like episodic shows, some don't. For those in the latter category this may drive them away from Supa Strikas.
There's like. 4 female characters. I can see why they did that, but I can also see why that is upsetting (speaking as a woman who is very tired of the Smurfette principle).
The humor may not be for everyone. That's more based on personality, because I think there's something for everyone, but there are jokes that I recognize fall quite flat.
In connection to that, the stereotypes. Like I mentioned earlier, the show utilizes and breaks some stereotypes very well. There's a character (Spenza) who is written to be the chubby comic relief that is also 9/10 times the guy who saves LITERALLY EVERYONE from trouble and gets recognized for it, for example. However, the entire Japanese team is a karate-based team with a Coach named Ura Giri who wears Chinese clothes despite being Japanese. The German team is just a military branch and, while funny, might be offensive depending on which German you ask. It can be detracting from the show.
There's some bad writing choices that can be rough, but they are episode centric.
What should I do?
Watch the show. Give it 2-3 episodes and if it doesn't grab you, okay! You tried! If it does, welcome! it's literally for free on youtube, Seasons 1 through the last number I can't remember. I watch it when I'm working on something because it's fun and gets me to laugh, you might watch it with a bowl of popcorn. Just do your own thing!
If you do like it though, come back, hit me up with talks and questions about it. Besides multydoodles I haven't found a lot of people who really are into it so come! Join us! One of us!
Hope this mini-essay helped out and that the show works out for you!
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Speaking of Tod Slaughter... any thoughts on Grand Guignol theater..?
Looking back on it, the first time I encountered the term Grand-Guignol was also the first time I looked at Fantomas, when I picked up the book above titled The Theater of Grand Guignol, which is all too fitting as Fantomas is Grand-Guignol to it's core. It's also a term that I've seen applied a couple of times to The Spider as well as some darker fan reinterpretations of Batman. Like film noir and sword-and-sorcery, it's a term for a type of storytelling that's associated with dime novels and pulps, influenced and was influenced by them in return, but isn't really the same thing and is, in fact, a separate "genre" (not quite the right term).
Indeed, if the common cultural association of pulp is that of something trashy and violent and darker than it's contemporary culture, one can see Grand-Guignol as perhaps the darkest of it's adjecent family, the Dario Argento to pulp's John Carpenter, the cracked mirror to all that exists.
Short and full-length plays were based on the hot topics unseen onstage at this extent before, from graphic scenes of murders, tortures, sexual violence to psychological thrills like resurrections of the dead, incest, suicide, characters being hypnotized, trapped or guilty of their loved one’s deaths. In most cases, it was a combination of several of those themes in one piece, which of course, multiplied shows’ popularity - AngryFishTheatre's article
‘At one performance, six people passed out when an actress, whose eyeball was just gouged out, re-entered the stage, revealing a gooey, blood-encrusted hole in her skull. Backstage, the actors themselves calculated their success according to the evening’s faintings. During one play that ended with a realistic blood transfusion, a record was set: fifteen playgoers had lost consciousness. Between sketches, the cobble-stoned alley outside the theatre was frequented by hyperventilating couples and vomiting individuals.’
Despite of its scandalous nature, for France Grand Guignol was more than a theatre: it was a tradition, an institution, and an attraction like the Eiffel Tower or the Folies Bergères, and Maxim’s... It was then highly fashionable. Celebrities of the day, South American millionaires and errant royalty went there assiduously to be scared out of their wits.
Going to the Grand-Guignol was less a social act than a private one and certain audience members preferred not to be seen. Some witnesses reported that the iron-grilled boxes in the back of the theater encouraged a certain ‘extremism.’
The cleaning staff would often find the seats stained - — Mel Gordon, The Grand Guignol: theatre of fear and terror.
It lasted almost the exact same time period as the American pulp era (from the late 1880s to 1950s), and even in it's origin, as the theater itself was built out of the ruins of a church, and it would attain fame and legacy as the shadow opposite to Moulin Rouge's glamour and spectacle. It's original intent on being focused on naturalistic theater led to breakthroughs of horror that made it the whole selling point, and much like the pulp lords of terror I talk about, their staged and spectacled terrors were still no match for the horrors of reality that followed.
“We could never equal Buchenwald,” the Grand Guignol’s final director, Charles Nonon, told TIME magazine that year. “Before the war, everyone felt that what was happening onstage was impossible. Now we know that these things, and worse, are possible in reality.”
And of course it goes without saying that the Grand-Guignol's influence on storytellers long transcended it's original lifespan. Gore for gore's sake is hardly something I enjoy, but I've definitely enjoyed many, many films that reached to extremes of horror and violence and gore for horror and comedy alike. I would not claim the Grand-Guignol started this because I could very well be missing out on something, but they are undeniably a huge part of the history of horror as we know it, along with the German Expressionist works of the 1910s that were as well both inspired by, as well as influential, on the Grand-Guignol.
Time and time again we see the pattern emerge, of creators or outlets or mediums that emerge as cheaper and less critically-reputable alternatives to the mainstream attain extraordinary and influential success both in their circles as well as those who would never admit to looking at them for inspiration otherwise. In fact, you could very well argue that it’s alive not just through films and comics and so forth, but in newfound forms of media created by people with all the freedom to put together whatever their imaginations and limited resources and lack of restraints can create.
Like Youtube Poop.
Now maybe I'm biased here because I grew up with YTP, but really, the main intent behind every YTP is to twist the media it's using to provoke a new reaction from you, every YTP is varying levels of a rollercoaster of jokes and edits and little narratives stacking up and flowing together, references and poop jokes and murder jokes and slurs and parody and criticism and SuS and literally anything the creator thinks is gonna get a reaction that wasn't in the original material. And it doesn't even have to be exclusively about jokes, there's a lot of YTPs that are centered on horror or drama or even are just completely original narratives using the assets at hand, sometimes even clocking in at almost movie-length.
There's no filter or censors or teams making sure it's tested to the audience, it's just as much chaos as someone with video editing skills can manage to create, and more so than anything else nowadays, it's the medium that abides and amplifies the same principle that ruled and defined Grand-Guignol: "The Hot and Cold Shower"
Grand Guignol, was not the inventor of this concept, but probably the first performing arts company that used it as its main programming principle. Every evening at the theatre was programmed with plays heavily contrasting in their nature. In the 6 plays presented on a regular night, every 2 horror plays were followed by a light comedy and the light comedy by another horror play or two. Using this contrast the creators aimed to give their audiences a fuller range of emotions. They called it a "hot and cold shower".
You could also make a similar argument for creators that used Garry's Mod or Source Filmmaker to create Youtube content, many of whom either followed the styles of YTP or created their own which ended up influencing others in return, and you can definitely see how YTP as well as these have influenced our current generation's taste in comedy as well as the editing styles of many prominent creators. It even seemed for quite a while that GMOD and SFM content of this type was dead, but it definitely seems like it's gotten a revival recently, and really just never went away. Likewise, a lot of people think YTP died circa 2012 or 2015, which is completely false, it just changed a bit, as things tend to do if they are to stick around.
The entire approach of extreme hot and cold, extreme horror and comedy shuffling per second and extreme absurdity overriding is something you definitely get nowadays a lot more out of these newer forms of media than anything that film and television's capable of giving, and just as Grand-Guignol started out relatively ordinary (focused mainly on naturalistic horror) before it completely spiraled into a perpetual race for excess, we've gotten so desensitized so quickly to surprises that you can see in real time the growing needs for content that's faster and more chaotic and funnier and more dramatic and more absurd and more well-produced but also worse produced and, yeah.
I definitely wonder how we may see future filmmakers and cartoonists and creators be influenced by, not just the above, but also the rapidly changing landscapes of meme culture and social media and the gradually less-funny theater of the absurd that reality's become. I definitely imagine we'll be in for some interesting times.
Y'know, if we make it that far.
Alternatively you could also argue Jackass is also a modern Grand Guignol and they just cut out the narrative middleman to get straight to the "people getting fucked up for your amusement" part, but at this point I'd just be inviting a retread of all the "Is -X- pulp" questions I got for "Is -X- Grand Guignol", and I may have stepped straight into a rake with this one.
#replies tag#grand guignol#fantomas#pulp fiction#tf2#team fortress 2#poultrygeist#youtube poop#ytp#sus
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“White people are terrible,” “I have white privilege,” and “most of the world’s problems are caused by white people” are three general statements countless social justice warriors and their enablers agree with. Yet they are all based on the severest distortion of reality. You or I should no more apologize for being white than an African-American should for being black.
Just as many blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities are made more pliable by the media and the establishment by being told they are eternal victims, white people are made more pliable by agreeing that they need to always feel guilty. Using an SJW “anti-racism” that feels awfully like the leftist version of a Nazi book about hereditary, white people supposedly inherit the evil deeds of dead dudes who owned slaves prior to the Civil War or arrived on a foreign continent in a year like 1492 or 1788.
The establishment-enforced guilt is even greater for those directly descended from such people, but even culturally and genetically unrelated individuals like Polish- and Italian-Americans, whose ancestors pretty much all arrived after periods like the slavery era, are held accountable, too. Why? Even if we ridiculously assumed we can find descendants “guilty” of their ancestry, the white guilt thesis is like putting all of Harlem’s young black men in 2016 under house arrest because 20 of them were involved in a vicious street brawl… in 1937.
Provided you adhere to our creed, neomasculinity and the Return Of Kings community form the broadest functional church you will find. We do not care where you come from, so long as you support our goal of a return to masculine societies that emphasize community-building and do not apologize for taking pride in their own cultures. ROK readers who are black, white, Asian or something else are all equal in this regard.
Here are just three of many reasons why I will not hate or feel guilty about my skin tone.
1. I’m the descendant of victims myself because many of my ancestors were from oppressed ethnic and religious groups
Look at those privileged starving Irish!
Are you heavily Irish-blooded, like me? Italian? Polish? Ukrainian? Were your ancestors Catholics living in heavily Protestant areas, or perhaps Huguenots who had to flee persecutory France?
It’s funny how SJWs prance on about white privilege when over half of all whites who emigrated to America, Canada or Australia, from the Puritans to Yugoslavian Civil War refugees, came because the civilian government or monarchy representing another ethnicity or religion essentially chased them out, had killed their family members, or wanted them dead, too. Many of the white groups who did take the journey, particularly the Italians or Irish, were then subjected to quotas and mistreatment in places like New York for years.
A great deal of my ancestors were Catholics in Prussia and other Protestant parts of northern Germany. This section of my family tree is replete with persecutions, including one great-great-great-great grandfather who lost sight in one eye and movement in his arm after being brutally assaulted by a Prussian policeman. His crime? Being an ethnic German leaving a Catholic church on Sunday in the 1800s. Catholic churches were only for “subhuman” Poles. Catholic Prussians were seen as traitors who belonged in Bavaria, prison, or dead. He ended up eking out an existence as a tailor with one good arm, after both he and his brother were repeatedly refused admission to the civil service for their faith.
In addition, I had Irish immigrant forebears whose fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters died as a result of the Potato Famine. One of these ancestors, the eldest child in his family, was working in Dublin to make money for the family when, in the space of three months, he received news that his parents, all his sisters, and all but one of his brothers had died from starvation, malnutrition, or diseases related to them.
When my aunt did the genealogy over three years, she counted 37 family members in one corner of an Irish county who died from starvation or starvation-related illness in 13 months. The famine was predicted and even aggravated by the British. Considering the squalor into which the occupiers had driven the Irish Catholics, the whole ordeal was fundamentally caused by them, too. With only an extra mouth to feed, this great-great-great grandfather of mine took his barely school-aged brother with him to Australia two months later. What role did these two have in oppressing others, white or non-white, that I should feel shame about today?
Look further back into my family tree and you find German, Dutch and Swiss Jews, many of whom were shunted around various locations within Europe, depending on what limited patience local authorities had for yarmulke-wearers at the time.
With this lineage, what exactly do I have to apologize for, aside from my supposedly very, very privileged, at best lower middle-class English forebears from drab West London and grim Yorkshire? Most of them never saw a dark person, let alone mistreated one. To boot, the vast majority lived poor, thankless lives without clean sanitation, abundant food, or anything close to job security. And these are the stations in life, through no fault of their own, that 95% of your ancestors reached as well.
2. Minorities and other non-whites frequently treated and still treat each other far worse than white people did
Rwandan genocide, anyone?
From the pre-Columbian Central and South American peoples to the Rwandan genocide, non-whites have very often treated one another even more abysmally than whites have treated them. European technology may have amplified the number of indigenous and other deaths in places like the Americas, but raw hatred, aggression, and the continuity of violence can be found in even greater quantities in non-white historical squabbles.
Europeans have also been incorrectly blamed for things like infectious diseases, despite the scientific work of antiseptic procedure pioneer Ignaz Semmelweiss being years, sometimes even centuries away. Meanwhile, non-whites have been allowed to kill non-whites without serious condemnation from SJWs.
For example, critics of the Iraq War and the attempted rebuilding of post-Saddam Iraq have said that the whole country is based on a fiction that dates back to the European post-World War I mandate systems. In other words, if Kurds, Shia Arabs, and Sunni Arabs inhabit the same country, they kill each other! Whilst it is appetizing for SJWs to blame the big, bad British and French for this, it is far from the truth. Kurds and Arabs have been butchering each other for countless centuries. The greatest Muslim figure of all the Crusades, Saladin, was consistently mistrusted because of his Kurdish origins. Similarly, intra-Arab or Arab-Iranian Sunni-Shia violence is age-old and has little if anything to do with Europeans.
Last year, Rock Thompson wrote a superb piece about the hypocrisy of attacking Columbus Day in the Americas. His work exposed the double standards of many Native American and also Central and South American tribes, who pretend their ancestors were routinely peaceful when, in fact, they regularly engaged in deplorable acts of gratuitous violence, including human sacrifices and the sadistic mutilation of enemies who were not so ethnically different. The conquistadors and Puritans are falsely seen as the harbingers of cultural and racial genocide in the Americas. Local indigenous tribes, however, were already hunting each other down for sport well before the tall ships arrived.
3. White-majority countries make the humanitarian world go round
A tent city the Saudis refused to make available for fellow Arab Syrian refugees.
Whenever you find an aid program for starving Africans, war-torn Arabs, or other suffering people, chances are that a number of white Westerners are behind it. Even if they’re not all white, they invariably come from white-majority and/or white-founded Western countries, or are funded by them. All to assuage the guilt of white people living in 2016 who feel the need to apologize for a European colonial regime that replaced almost always far more brutal indigenous ones.
Western countries also welcome non-whites in droves, both as immigrants and as “refugees.” The recent Syrian crisis is a testament to this (over-)generosity. While Saudi Arabia refused to accommodate fellow Arab Syrians in their already-constructed tent city, used normally for the Haj Priligrimage, Germany and other European states bore the brunt of those fleeing, including through the open door policies of leaders like Angela Merkel.
In general terms, white people care more about the developmental outcomes of non-whites. Wealthy non-white countries like Japan and Korea have perfected a system of meticulously keeping their populations pure and rejecting the asylum claims of over 99% of claimed refugees. This asymmetrical state of affairs is ironic when Japan’s own history of colonisation, notably the Rape of Nanking, is taken into consideration.
White guilt is also very profitable for certain establishment figures and zealous entertainers. It’s why twats like Bono and Bob Geldof get up every morning, after all. And, far from sucking the world dry, white folks have repeatedly tried to make it better. Very often this generosity is taken to an extreme, but the point of white-majority countries acting and non-white countries stalling or ignoring remains valid.
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Writing Chicago
okay, so i saw this reference post a long time ago that was all about new york city to help people who write about it but don’t really know about it. and i haven’t seen one about chicago, my home city, so i thought i’d make one!!
you are allowed to like this, reblog this, etc. this is for everyone to use as a reference!! i might add more information if i missed something!! if you think something is wrong or should be changed, please let me know!! this is just some general knowledge you should have about chicago from a native that you can’t really get from wikipedia. i hope you find this useful!
Linguistics
No, we do not talk like Mike Ditka. At all.
Soda is called pop.
People say “you guys.” “Y’all” is used more in southern Illinois.
Chicagoland area = Chicago + the surrounding suburbs + Northwest Indiana
The Lake Effect: a term often used, especially on the weather report. This term describes the effects the lake, Lake Michigan, have on the weather. Basically, it keeps it cool during the summer and warmer during the winter. But it’s not like you notice it in the winter because temperatures easily remain under 20 degrees from November to April.
Chicagoans will always and forever call the Willis Tower the Sears Tower. If you hear somebody say that, they either work there or they’re not from around there. And if you say it to somebody from Chicago, you’re going to get a funny look.
“The Lake” = Lake Michigan. Referenced often.
While this may not come up in writing, we say caramel like “car-mel” not “car-a-mel.”
When people say “the city,” they mean Chicago. You often hear this in the suburbs.
CTA = Chicago Transit Authority. It is comprised of train lines and bus lines.
Transportation
Sometimes you might hear something called the “skyway.” It’s Interstate 90 and it connects Chicago to Indiana. What’s noticeable about it is that it’s this giant, tollway on a giant bridge over the Calumet River. And there’s a McDonald’s right smack dab in the middle of it.
O’Hare is one of the biggest airports in the country and pretty much the primary airport of Chicago. However, there is also Chicago Midway International Airport (just called Midway). O’Hare is in northwest Chicago and Midway is closer to the Loop and Chicago’s south side.
Chicago does not have a “subway system.” Like, trains that run underground. Instead, Chicago’s subway is above ground and goes above traffic. It’s called the “L” which is short for elevated. There are 8 lines, each one named by color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, and pink). The Red Line is the longest one, going from north to south. And it is the only one that does actually go underground in downtown Chicago. Nobody uses the Yellow Line because it only goes from Northern Chicago to Skokie, one of the northwest suburbs of Chicago. People who use the Yellow Line are commuters between Chicago and Skokie. The only other Line that goes outside of Chicago is the Purple Line, which goes to Wilmett and Evanston, two suburbs literally right outside of Chicago.
The Loop is Chicago’s downtown. It’s called the loop because majority of the CTA lines have stations that circle around the downtown. So it’s called the loop because of it. People say “the Loop” when they’re talking about downtown or taking the CTA. Some lines of the CTA only circle the loop.
Metra vs. Amtrak. The Metra is a train that connects Chicago to the suburbs. The L is more like a subway that arrives at every station in ten-minute intervals. The Metra is more like a train with more scheduled times. The L takes you around Chicago. The Metra takes you out of it. The Amtrak takes you out of Chicago to the rest of the country. Some stops are in the suburbs. But if you’re taking the Amtrak to the suburbs, chances are, Chicago was not your starting point. You’d be coming from another city, such as Springfield, and stopping in Chicago before going out to the suburbs. The Metra is for commuters.There are two stations for the Metra and Amtrak, Union Station and Ogilvie Transportation Center (OTC), both located a block apart from each other, both in downtown.
You don’t drive in the city. It’s a nightmare. Road rage is everywhere. Most people take the L, the bus, cabs, or Uber. People only drive in the city if they’re coming from outside or going outside of the city.
Here is the CTA map just for shits and giggles.
Weather
It’s so unpredictable. It will be 50 degrees in the morning and snow by 3 pm.
Also, 50 degrees is considered warm in Chicago. People are wearing shorts even at 40 degrees tbh. Also, it is always colder in Chicago than in the suburbs. And the suburbs are colder than central Illinois. You can tell the difference when you are traveling.
Chicago is a very windy city. And there is a big difference in temperature with the wind chill.
Schools will not close, even if there is a foot of snow on the ground and/or it is below zero degrees.
Likewise, it can be extremely hot in Chicago. Like, summers are usually well over 80 degrees. There just is no in-between.
Natural disasters? Uncommon. There are occasional earthquakes that happen like once every other year and they’re usually so little that people just sleep right through them. Tornadoes are the most common, but even those are infrequent and only really occur in rural Illinois.
Attractions
Some popular sites in Chicago, even for natives, are Navy Pier, Millennium Park, Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, Brookfield Zoo, Sears Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, Field Museum, The Art Institute, Lake Michigan, the Chicago River, and Wrigley Field.
Millennium Park is extremely popular. It’s located inside the loop and every year, there’s a special Christmas tree lighting. People ice skate there all the time in the winter and there’s the Bean. The Bean is officially called the “Cloud Gate” but everybody calls it “the Bean.” It’s this giant, stainless steel sculpture that’s like looking into a mirror. This is prime selfie spot here.
The Field Museum is home of Sue, the most complete T-Rex skeleton in the world. She’s pretty cool. People love swimming in Lake Michigan or going to the beaches, even if it is 50 degrees out. The Polar Plunge is popular. Wrigley Field is kind of a major attraction because of the Cubs but also because it is the second oldest baseball park in America. Except for the giant screens and a brand new bullpen, the field pretty much is the same as when it opened in 1912. You can go to the top of the Sears Tower, to the 110th floor, and go on the “Sky Deck.” There are glass boxes attached to the outside of the building where you can walk on and view the city. It’s the best view in the whole city.
You can also get the world’s largest ice cream sundae at Margie’s Candies, or so they say. I’ve had it, it is absolutely enormous, and it tastes incredible.
Lollapalooza. This is the biggest event in Chicago every single year. It is this giant music festival. It is filled with young adults, drugs, cops, and booze. It’s the Coachella of Chicago. Tickets sell out within hours of going on sale. When I was in high school, people honestly skipped school so they can stay home and buy their Lolla tickets. People do not fuck around when it comes to this.
Population
Very Polish. You see it in the street names.
Very democratic. Illinois is a democratic state because of Chicago’s population. Rural Illinois is way more Republican.
The main ethnic groups of Chicago are Irish, German, Latinx (especially Mexican), Assyrian, Arab, Jewish, English, Black, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Indian, Italian, Cuban, and Polish. The suburbs tend to have a higher population of white people with low populations of people of color.
Sports
It’s a major thing in Chicago. Home of the Bulls (basketball), Bears (football), Blackhawks (hockey), Cubs (baseball), and White Sox (baseball).
The Bulls and the Blackhawks are Chicago’s most successful teams and the most popular.
Everyone is a Bears fan and everyone hates the Bears. They have been extremely unsuccessful the past like 7 seasons. People care a lot about the Bears. Most Bears fans really hate the Green Bay Packers.
The north side of Chicago belongs to the Cubs. The south side belongs to the White Sox. The city is very divided on this one and fans of either team don’t really get along with fans from the other team. However, everyone can agree that the Cubs winning the World Series was amazing. The Cubs have an intense rivalry with the St. Louis Cardinals, and the fans hate the Cardinals like the Bears hate the Packers.
Food
So you’ll mostly find your average food chains around Chicago. McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc. However, Chicago is also known for its Chicago-style hot dogs, Maxwell Street Polishes, and the deep dish pizza. Chicagoans will always tell you that their pizza is better than New York’s.
However, the most popular food chains are local ones: Portillo’s, Giordano’s, Oberweis, Steak ‘n Shake. Portillo’s is famous for their beef (hot dogs, Italian beef, burgers) and their chocolate cake shakes. Portillo’s is Chicago’s In-N-Out Burger. If you are looking for the most Chicago pizza ever, Giordano’s is the place to go. Oberweis sells ice cream, milkshakes, and milk. And Steak ‘n Shake is crazy popular because of their steakburgers, shakes, and for their ridiculously low prices.
Other Notes
Illinois south of Bloomington is like a whole different state. Northern Illinois is dominated by Chicago. Outside of the Chicagoland area, it’s more rural--save for smaller cities like Freeport, Rockford, Springfield, Bloomington, Peoria, Urbana-Champaign--and extremely different. People even talk differently in some places!
The Chicago River is dyed green every St. Patrick’s Day. Like, it is legit green. St. Patrick’s Day is one of the biggest celebrations in Chicago, even if you aren’t Irish. There’s the huge parade and people just like to see a bright green river. People get so lit for this.
Ferris Bueller’s Day off was known as “John Hughes’ love letter to Chicago.” Regardless of your opinions on the plot, characters, actors, director, etc., this film really is all about Chicago and will give you great insight on what it’s like.
Ever since, like 2014-2015ish, Chicago has banned plastic bags. So if you go to the grocery store, chances are, you’ll be charged to use plastic bags or you wil have to bring your own or you will use paper. Depends on the store, really. Here’s a useful wesbite on the ban that tells you what you need to know.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, feel free to ask me!! Happy writing!!!
#long post for ts#long post tw#reference post#chicago#writing help#[ idk what else to tag this as oops#PLEASE REBLOG THIS#USE THIS ]#OUTOFWATER.#REFERENCE.
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ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S1 EP022 (’Colony’), EP023 (’Schwartzwald’), & EP024 (’Strange Music’)
In which a lot of plot material is dropped on us.
No spoilers past Season 1, please!
EP 022: ‘Colony’
- So we’re back from where ‘Freefall’ left off, with Martin retelling his close encounter with Jane Prentiss. What happened with the container full of worms that he presumably brought into the Archives, I don’t know.
- Jonathan’s silence after Martin says he can vouch for his sanity is so awful it winds up being hilarious.
- Martin picked up on the same thing that I picked up on the first time I listened to ‘Arachnophobia’—namely that the description of the worms rings a bell.
- It says something about how sketchy the Archives has become to me even at this point that I didn’t bat an eye that Martin regarded breaking and entering an acceptable part of “due diligence.”
- “I get closer, and I see that it looks more like a worm of some sort, maybe an inch long, with a silver, segmented body that goes black at one end, almost like it’s been burned.” This is a description of the worm. It stood out to me, and I’ll explain why at the end of the section.
- I wonder—did the edges of Martin’s shadow move because worms were moving in it, or does proximity to the Flesh Hive (or a host of the Flesh Hive) by itself have that effect?
- Oh, Martin, Jonathan didn’t once think about it in terms of you having disappeared.
- Because I have a slightly dirty mind, I assume Jane Prentiss was naked under that coat. Obviously, the holes in her body and the general state of decay her body was in would have distracted from that. Those images from Planet Earth of different species of cordyceps growing out of different species of animal corpses is firmly impressed upon my mind.
- I wonder how much of Jane’s mind is even left at this point. Like, by the season finale, I can only assume that she’s dead and the Flesh Hive is running around with her corpse, but was she even properly alive anymore at this point? I honestly don’t know.
- If I’d been trapped in my home by Jane Prentiss and the worms for thirteen days, I would have been screwed. Like Martin, I keep upwards of a week’s worth of food on hand, but a lot of my stuff is frozen. Also, since we live out in the middle of nowhere, if we lose power, we also lose running water, and about the only thing I drink anymore is water.
- I imagine Martin doesn’t want to think about it (and who could blame him?), but I wonder if, while Jane and the worms were stalking Martin’s home, any of his neighbors tried to stop by. Or any of their pets. Does Martin have pets? (Did he have pets?)
- It’s a testament to how seriously Jon takes Jane Prentiss that he isn’t nasty to Martin at all after he’s done making his statement, that he volunteers to ask Elias to hire extra security, and goes so far as to offer Martin the use of a room in the Archives until the danger’s passed.
- Martin’s stunned stammering when Jon says all this is kinda heartbreaking.
- “Keep him. We have had our fun.” Y I K E S.
- Now, I talk about the worms—namely, the description of the worms, and why it stood out to me that these worms, the manifestation of an entity that hates the Magnus Institute, look the way they do.
Let me tell you about the silverfish. The silverfish is a small insect, ranging in size from half an inch to one inch long. It has a silver, segmented body that’s darker at the head, and it looks like this:
It doesn’t look exactly like the worms. It has legs and antennae; it’s not a worm at all. The funny thing about the silverfish, however, is that it’s the bane of many an archive in a humid climate, because among other things, one of its favorite things to eat is paper. I wonder if this was an intentional choice on Jonny Sims’s (the writer’s) part.
EP 023: ‘Schwartzwald’
- This is my favorite of the set I’m doing today, and it’s one of my favorites of Season 1. It’s just so lovely.
- So, was Jonah Magnus of German descent? Von Closen remarks upon his very strong opinions about the German confederation, and I get the impression that it is (or was, or possibly still is) much in use as a Germanic and a Scandinavian given name and surname.
- I listen to von Closen’s description of the Black Forest, and I wonder how it compares to the forests I know. I’d believe that the trees are taller, but the forests here are very dense, and the undergrowth can make them very difficult to navigate.
- I’d say finding a cemetery in the middle of the woods is incredibly creepy, but old, small family burial plots are so common in the South that it’s not out of the question that you’d stumble across one if you started walking across the backwoods in a really rural area. You can see a lot of them in farmland, far from the road at the tree line. My family’s old burial plot is in a cow pasture. One of the raised tombs is broken.
- Okay, I’ve read enough ghost stories to know that when a creepy old man tells you it’s dangerous to do the thing, that’s your signal to turn right back around and forget about doing the thing. From a more practical standpoint, even discounting supernatural elements, you shouldn’t do exploration of the kind von Closen is doing by yourself, because of the risk of being injured so far from civilization is a very real one, and it’s worse if you’re by yourself.
- And we have an intermission with Martin! And it turns out that Jonathan has been coming to the Archive well before seven in the morning for a while. Yeah, that’s not unhealthy at all.
- I would not be surprised if the books von Closen found in the mausoleum are of the same class of book as Jurgen Leitner’s stuff. Most of them were damaged past the capacity to read them, and the world is a better place for it. The fact that the one book he took away from the mausoleum is unaccounted for is… worrisome.
- A wall seemingly made of (probably evil) books molded together is a nice, evocative image.
- More eye imagery.
- The fact that the book von Closen found was probably in Arabic is kinda funny to me, because in Lovecraftian lore, the author of the Necronomicon was Arabic, and I think that’s the original language of the text.
- The text on the coin von Closen found, “Für de stille,” made the recording go staticky. It’s German for ‘For the silence’, if Google Translate can be trusted, and yeah, I know that’s a tall order.
- The date on the coin, 1279, is the year Ulrich II, Count of Württemberg, died. He was twenty-five.
- And now we get a story behind the creepy mausoleum. ‘Johann’s steps’ seems to carry on a long tradition of egregiously risky childhood games. And, indeed, what was it they were seen by?
- I can’t tell if Johann von Württemberg is supposed to be a historical figure or not.
- I love the detail about the old man being able to see despite having no eyes, and his head jerking up like a hunting dog’s responding to a signal. It so effectively signals that the only human thing about him is his appearance.
- The stinger is great—apparently this friend of Jonah Magnus’s nephew is the ancestor of another collector of the arcane, Mary Keay, and her son, Gerard Keay. Mary’s birth date struck me, though, the fact that she was born in 1924. Gerard was described as being in his late teens, so somewhere between seventeen and nineteen, in 2002 (‘Old Passages’)—I’d assume the reason Dominic Swain assumed him to be in his late thirties ten years later in ‘Page Turner’ was down to rough living. That means that Mary would have had to have been in her late fifties or even her early sixties when Gerard was born. It’s not impossible for a woman to have a child (and apparently her first) at that age, it’s just extremely rare.
EP 024: ‘Strange Music’
- I’m like Leanne; I’m not scared of clowns, but I don’t think they’re all that funny, either. Dolls can occasionally be creepy, but for the most part, they’re not—at least, not by themselves.
- Budel is a town in the Netherlands, it turns out.
- A loft is an… interesting place to keep something like a calliope organ. The fact that the organ and the steamer trunk full of mutilated dolls are the only things in the loft makes me think that Nikolai was hiding them there, like he couldn’t get rid of them but wanted to forget they were there.
- One does wonder how exactly the broken calliope organ played.
- The clown doll sounds like a Pierrot-style doll. I think the clown doll from Poltergeist was like that as well.
- The only way I have ever heard Calliope pronounced is “Cuh-LIE-oh-pee.” I’ve never heard it pronounced “Call-ee-OH-pee,” and I’ve certainly never heard it pronounced “Call-ee-ohp.” Who exactly pronounces it “Call-ee-ohp?”
- “Faster, faster” sounds vaguely demonic in origin. Just something about how frantically fast it is and how completely carried away Leanne gets while playing it, how lost in the music she gets. That and the fact that playing it immediately gets the clown doll’s attention.
- Wonder what Josh did that proved him to be “just another asshole.” From the context, it sounds like he cheated on Leanne or stole from her or something like that.
- I also wonder what it was that made the entity of the episode decide to target Josh and not Leanne. I really doubt it respects the fact that she’s the granddaughter of the person who owned the calliope organ.
- And some sinister delivery men (gee, I wonder who it could be, she says sarcastically) broke into Leanne’s house just to get at the organ and the trunk.
- And it turns out Leanne’s grandfather Nikolai Dennikin was an organist for a creepy circus called the Circus of the Other. Given that name, ‘Circus of the Other’, I expect that to come up again.
- And the stinger of this episode is that the sinister calliope organ has somehow ended up in the Archives’ artifact storage room. Which is a good stinger, I’ll admit.
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The Bat Effect
When a weakened human organism is infected by the Corona Virus/SARS-CoV-2, it is more likely to suffer more damage and go through a more severe, if not critical, order of events up to ending up in intensive care or even facing death.
This is by now probably not really a novelty to most readers, as I am writing this during the peak of the Corona crisis in Europe. However, this crisis exposes not just individual health related weaknesses, but also a much larger systemic and political one.
When the new kind of disease started to spread in Wuhan, Chinese authorities opted for a full lock-down of huge metropolitan area with more than 10 million people, all after counting just 400 cases, and sent in a well-oiled machine to combat and suppress the outbreak on January 23rd 2020. Today is March 19th 2020 and Mainland China did not report a single new case, apart from a few imported ones that they intercepted at the airport, while in Europe we are now surpassing the death toll of the Chinese with new infections still growing in an explosive manner and it is becoming more and more clear that each and every European state does not have the capacity to deal with a pandemic of this magnitude. And by European states we are not talking about Moldova or Ukraine, but Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Britain, Spain, Sweden et cetera, so realtively wealthy countries with a reputation for having very solid healthcare systems and well trained physicians and other specialists. So how on earth is it possible, that it is exactly here where the virus hits hardest? Has the disease not spread from Mainland China? Has Europe not had weeks or even months to brace for the impact? Why are they so unprepared? Did they not bother to formulate action plans in case of a pandemic outbreak? They had to deal with the threat of terror attacks for two decades now, so they should have had every reason to prepare for such scenarios.
Yet they did not. Even weeks and months into the outbreak, Europe did not even bother to cancel flights or screen passengers, let alone instruct doctors and hospitals to test patients with certain symptoms for Covid-19, the lung disease that follows from a Corona infection. Au contraire, it was European “specialists”, some of them not even physicians but veterinaries, like in the case of the German Robert Koch Institute, who posed as experts on a virus that they have never seen and that they did not fully understand. While even in China, the virus sent about 4% of all infected into their early grave, European virologists and health experts compared the SARS-CoV-2 with the normal Influenza or flu, which in fact has a death-rate of usually less than 0.1%. Instead of demanding decisive measures, controls, testings and ramping up of capacities across the board (hospital beds, desinfectants, consumables like masks et cetera), they downplayed the threat and advised for letting the virus spread through the population to allow for a “herd immunity” to develop, a collective resistance against the virus. At the same time a number of Asian states have taken all sorts of measures to contain the virus and even reducing the number of new cases down to zero, effectively eradicating the virus, at least for the time being, and thus buying time to develop vaccines and medication to manage it better down the road.
Letting a virus, to which your population has not acquired said immunity (which by the playbook of mother nature is a rather cruel process that goes hand in hand with high casualties, just think of the smallpox that killed up to 90% of the native South American population a few centuries ago). demonstrates an almost criminal incompetence and negligance.
And while the death rate in Wuhan was just shy of 4%, the death rate in Italy stands currently at a whopping 8.3% (when you divide the number of deaths by the number of reported cases). And it is not just the old and sick that perish. It is doctors and nurses, who are under great stress. It is the younger ones who have a chronic condition, known or unknown, and it is in general people of all ages, whose immune system is just temporarily not in shipshape to combat this new virus and who are thus affected most severly. In short: the virus is a threat to everyone across the board.
Now compared to the smallpox that hit the indigenious populations in South America, the Corona Virus is relatively “mild”, it will not wipe out the population. However letting the virus spread in this uncontrolled fashion is playing lottery with the lives of millions and effectively a euthanasia program for anyone whose health is already impacted by another condition. In short: it is something we would have expected from an autocratic corrupt dicatatorship or one-party state but not something that happens in relatively rich, civilized and democratic Europe. A continent which supposedly values the individual and which would be expected to go to extreme lengths to protect its population. And yet it is exactly European countries that play nonchalantly with an unknown disease and who are putting up with enormous risks for their citizens,while China and Vietnam, both undemocratic one-party regimes, keep the disease in check and effectively protect their nation against it.
By now, we have to ask ourselves the painful question: why has Europe let this happen? We have more than enough governments, institutions, universities and reasearch facilities and yet almost none alarmed the wider public, in fact they all downplayed the issue up to the point when it became clear that they were all massively wrong.
The even more painful answer is that this is a systemic failture. Our systems are not that democratic as we want to think they are. They are way more rotten and corrupt, in same cases even more than certain autocratic regimes, than we try to autosuggest to ourselves. And they are way more unprepared to deal with a real crisis, that cannot be inflated away by central bankers. In fact our systems have decayed to the point where they are not any more capable of sound decision making processes and probably have been already for some time. It is not a question of left or right, or individual politicians. It is a question of the whole sytem of government that buys support with empty promises and debt and yet fails to deliver in times of need. So far we were lucky and many government failures could be contained or their effects postponed to future generations, but this one is different. The virus does not care about interest rates or currency reforms. It does not change its deadly impact or just goes away by relabeling it or using the wrong statistics to downplay the effects. The virus itself is a fact that cannot be negotiated away and no PR campaign will be able to contain it. What Corona did, was exposing the rotten state of Europe (and maybe the US of A) and the collective incompetence of our elites and maybe our own because we put them there.
And when the day comes and we will have survived the outbreak, surely with massive losses in terms of health and jobs and lives, we will have to get up and start another kind of therapy: fixing our democracies.
You all have probably heard the phrase that crisis is just another word for opportunity. And in this case, Corona is exactly what the doctor ordered. A painful wakeup call. And if we gonna miss this, the next disaster will just just follow. And who knows, the next plague will not just contend itself with 3% or 8% but maybe 10 % or 60%? The next economic recession might not just result in bouncing back in the next 10 months but may become a full-fledged depression (as it partially has been in southern Europe already since 2009). In short: if we gonna miss this one, reality will most likely continue to punish us harder and harder, up to the point where we start to learn and adapt, or jump off the stage of history itself.
Agreed, today we all stick together, take care of our loved ones, our neighbours and ourselves. Today we have to fight this battle against this invisible enemy, but when this is over, we will have to start asking questions.
A bat made a Chinese man feel a bit funny in late autumn or summer and all of Europe came apart at the seams in spring...the bat effect. And before you try to blame the Chinese government for not “controlling enough” (oh the irony!) or the Chinese people for their exotic eating habits: this could have been anything, from a bat soup in Wuhan to an undercooked chicken in Madras or foul shrimp in your salad that was served in a bistro in your neighbourhood. These things happen, but it is your job to contain it and deal with it. And by these standards Europe (and by the looks of it America as well) has already failed spectacularly.
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Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà
New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/the-ny-times-new-sidenote/
The NY Times new ‘Sidenote’ feature: What you missed by reading the paper copy
by Ramin Mazaheri for Ooduarere.com
There I was, back on the “Job Creators Red-Eye” from Silicon Valley to New York City, reading The New York Times.I was reading it the way God intended – in an actual newspaper.
But when I logged onto my computer, I noticed The Times has a new feature: they now are writing footnotes to articles, putting them on the right side of the screen in a red font.
This funny interview with the comedian Ricky Gervais featured 11 such “sidenotes”, as I guess they should be called. Here’s an example from that article about comedy: “4 – Trans-exclusionary radical feminist.”
These sidenotes are clearly intended as a way to give the reader extra but broadly important information. I am waiting for the introduction of “sub-sidenotes” – in order to find out what “trans-exclusionary” means.
But what about those of us who read actual, crinkling, wrinkling, staining newspapers? Think of all this great information we are being trans-excluded from?
So, as a service to old-fashioned readers I am including some of these sidenotes we have missed. These are all taken from the March 22, 2019, newspaper.
This was the leed paragraph on the top story, so that’s a good place to start.
President Trump declared on Thursday that the United States should recognize Israel’s authority over the long disputed Golan Heights, delivering a valuable election-eve gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but jettisoning decades of American policy in the Middle East.
Sidenote: The New York Times, like all good American journalists, follows the ‘inverted pyramid style’ of news writing, in which the most important fact comes first, with lesser facts following in order of importance. This is why the impact of this historic decision first deals with Israel and their elections, and strictly US concerns second.
Interesting to see how the sausage is made, no? I guess it’s really “Israel’s paper of record”, then? I’m all for giving Golan Heights to the Israelis – fundamentalist Christianity won’t be proven correct until the Jews retake Israel.
Here’s an interesting sidetone from a below-the-fold front page article. This article focused on the one man who controls many of the dams on the Missouri River. America runs on great-man capitalism, as America should, and so the article does not raise the idea of democratically broadening his unilateral decision-making power over millions. However it does include a single quote from Faith Spotted Eagle, a 70-year-old tribal elder and activist from the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, who even remembers being kicked off her land to make room for a dam many decades ago. To sum up both experiences, she said:
‘It’s all loss, loss, loss,’ she said.
Sidenote – The Times is aware that Americans are tired of hearing Native Americans complain, but The Times is just reporting the facts, and now in an inclusionary manner in keeping with diversity in order to overturn pernicious stereotypes.
They went all that way just to get that one, single quote from her, but that’s the PC liberal media for you. Because Indians in the US are best seen and not heard, The New York Times made sure to include two photos of the old Indian: in the first she is literally hugging a tree – typical pagan Indian behavior. Trees know loss, loss, loss, too – it’s called “autumn”! Move on!
I’m glad The Times quickly left yet another ever-wailing aboriginal behind in order to devote a full section to the plight of the endangered plover. Apparently that’s a bird. Imagine if “Sioux” was also the name of an endangered bird… we’d want more column inches to protect the “Sioux”, but not the “Sioux”? Environmentalism is complicated….
I thought this was in interesting factoid at the end of their Editorial Board’s daily column, which penned their thoughts on the New Zealand mosque massacre: America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern.
Sidenote – We apologize to our readers who eagerly read this column expecting that it would quickly segue into Trump-bashing. After 854 consecutive columns of arduously reframing every news item into anti-Trump discourse, we decided to try something new. It will not happen again.
I should hope not!
Vote Biden! Like all old Democrats who fear change, young people and ever losing control.
That’s what all us 1%ers said at the most recent Bilderburg Meeting. You certainly can’t trust any of these new, young Democrats. Those whippersnappers need to realize that America has not changed, and that it will not change… not if Biden gets elected. From, Joe Biden Weighing Unique Steps to Reassure Voters Concerned About His Age.
Also under discussion is a possible pledge to serve only one term and framing Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign as a one-time rescue mission for a beleaguered country, according to multiple party officials.
Sidenote: The Times does not believe that a 4-year Biden presidency – which is totally unprecedented – would resemble Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s 4th term in Algeria, nor Ronald Reagan’s 2nd term. Instead, it would most resemble another president who is also not burdened by re-election concerns: Emmanuel Macron, whose ‘rescue mission’ is to save France from Frenchness. Biden is from Delaware, which is unfairly calledAmerica’s tax haven. The Times believes that Biden could legalize extreme tax evasion – even more than he already has – in just four years, rendering a second term unnecessary. The Times will be granting excessively positive coverage of the Biden campaign.
Being rich, I don’t have a problem with paying for drugs – I have problem doing too many drugs. My kids too, or so I have been told. Frankly, I think this editorial headline is clickbait-y and impertinent, and Americans should stop being so ungrateful because this is the greatest nation in the history of man. From: Why Should Americans Be Grateful for $137 Insulin? Germans Get It for $55.
Part of insulin’s price rise in the United States is because of the middlemen who buy the drugs on behalf of insurers and hospitals and negotiate discounts off the list price for their clients. So Lilly often doesn’t make the full $275 a vial (though, since rebates are secret, we don’t know how much less).
Sidenote: Middlemen – contrary to universal and historical belief – do not needlessly inflate prices. The fact that these “discounts” are absolutely not passed on the consumer, but are instead swallowed up by their huge markups and profiteering was not a fact our editors deemed worthy to relate. The larger point The Times wants to make is: pharmaceutical companies are not making as very, very, very much as you think, thanks to the precious middlemen who fight so hard for your economic rights – please stop pressuring either of them to lower pharmaceutical prices.
I like to see what the average person is thinking, so I always check the Letters to The Editor page.
Headline: Eating Eggs, Without Fear
A reader says they have been a part of her diet for more than 30 years.
Sidenote: Nobody fears eggs, but we’d like people to start. The Times believes that if Americans are not constantly fearing terrorism, urban violence and the economic catastrophe caused by a dip in the stock market, then they would demand more serious journalism. This would also reduce our profit margins. But, due to the journalism practice of fair balance, we have printed this letter from a reader who claims to have resented our egg-mongering campaign. This campaign will continue, and we are tracking this reader closely to broadcast her looming egg-related demise following three decades of societally irresponsible egg-abuse.
At this point in my paper I held my nose and went back to the coach section to talk to my colleague, Fazlollah. This guy is one of those new types of immigrants who won’t change his name and assimilate properly. Not only is he never going to get ahead in America with a scary name like that, but he deserves his lowly status for making people in First Class feel foolish about being unwilling to learn how to pronounce his name halfway properly.
“Have you seen these new side note-things Lefty?” I call him that because it’s easier that Foozlollillah.
“Yes, I have,” he said. “Makes the newspaper seem more academic. Like how new political books are seemingly 1/3rd footnotes nowadays. This seems like daily hack journalists trying to smarten up their appearance, and with information which wasn’t even considered useful enough to be in the actual article. This attempted smartening seems rather in keeping with the push towards ‘rule by technocrats’ in the West… but journalists aren’t supposed to be technocrats.”
I immediately regretted talking to Lefty, because I didn’t realize that my pills hadn’t kicked in yet.
“Lefty, they’re just sidenotes. Why don’t you take it easy for a change?”
I went back to my paper.
The Times doesn’t mind if celebrities get involved in certain causes – gay rights, the endangered plover, propping up the Democratic Party – but they quite correctly draw the line at any sort of economic cause. From a story which concerns applying New York’s minimum wage to tipped workers, which would make waitresses less vulnerable to sexual harassment, titled,Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler and Other Stars Stand Up for Waitresses. The Response: No, Thanks.
But it has also created an unexpected divide: Waitresses and other servers are resisting the proposal, saying they can make more money from tips and do not need celebrities to help protect them from harassment. Harassment is a real concern, they say, but so is the need to earn a living.
Sidenote: The Times found many waitresses whose need to make a living is so dire that they will let you goose their behind if it guarantees a tip increase of at least 5%, but that is as far as many were willing to go, stating that they were waitresses and not prostitutes. The Times believes this is yet another case of workers being too demanding of bosses. It is the considered opinion of the Editorial Board that unequal wages and sexual harassment is not a problem for women in the low-wage restaurant industry. However, we encourage the reader to keep following our relentless and progressive coverage of the fight against unequal wages and sexual harassment for women in Hollywood’s elite.
The last thing our 1% deserves, when we are relaxing from creating jobs with a fine meal, is to deal with waitresses who won’t kiss our behinds for tip money, nor let us goose their behinds. What is this, Iran?! Giving waitresses economic security would turn them into rude French waiters, who have greater economic security than their American counterparts, and this is why Macron needs to hurry up and finish turning France into the US, UK and Germany before he gets lynched by the Yellow Vests.
These new sidenotes seem like a good thing, but maybe The New York Times is revealing a bit too much? Who knew they were pro-goosing?
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television. He can be reached on Facebook.
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Moving In Together- Event Assignment
Jeremy: Hi, I am Jeremy Fox, I originated from the south Jersey, Specifically Mount Oral. I was actually born in Campton but I grew up in Mount Oral. Um I met my beautiful girlfriend Sophia while traveling
Sophia: Thats me!
Jeremy: Yes here she is. Where are you from?
Sophia: I’m from upstate New York, the Adirondack region to be specific
Jeremy: Ya beautiful land might I say
Sophia: Very lonely and sad land might I say
Jeremy: Um we actually met on an excursion in Nicaragua which is a country in Central America. It was a wonderful meeting. I saw her. I loved her. We smoked a joint and then we made love, and here we are 1 and a half years later living in New York, Manhattan specifically. Um it was a rough road to get here, let me tell you.
Sophia: Quite the financial investment
Jeremy: Many many financial investments. Um ya, so ya, now we’re here.. we live in the big apple motherfuckaaa we out here baby! Um ya. So Sophia, would you like to talk about finding this place and how we came to get here, which I don’t even know what happened.
Olivia: Maybe talk more about how you guys were long distance first.
Sophia: Ya sure, so I got back from Nicaragua and he was still in Nicaragua for the first 2 months month and a half-
Jeremy: 3 months mothafuckaaa
Sophia: Mhmmm 3 months, um and that was really tricky because obviously phone service and stuff it was very hard to keep in touch. And then he came back and New Jersey is not that far from New York and I was going to school in New York so-
Jeremy: I was living in New Jersey at the time
Sophia: I was in New York and he was in New Jersey so when he came back I was like “oh you should come visit on the weekends”-
Jeremy: So boom! I would come visit on the weekends, maybe every other weekend to see my love Sophia. And then ya know, as the school year ended, and the summer approached us, we made a collective decision that I would move in with Miss Sophia over the summer
Olivia: Did you want to move in?
Jeremy: I did!
Olivia: Were you scared about moving to the city?
Jeremy: Yes! I was actually very very scared of the city because I really enjoy the land… of the free… ya know.. freedom of the land… and when you move to the city theres no freedom ya know? Ok that’s besides the fact. So I move to this mothafucka, I move to this bitch, and boom we’re living together in the summer in the east village, which is a neighborhood in New York
Sophia: I found this apartment on facebook. (east village apartment) I was looking for apartments in Brooklyn because, you know I couldn’t afford anything in the East Village, but then this girl said that it wasn’t going to work out with her apartment but she had a friend who was looking for someone to fill her apartment in the East Village looking to sublet, and that’s how I got in contact with the girl who was subletting the room we stayed in over the summer. And we were in an apartment with 2 other people-
Jeremy: Immigrants!
Sophia: A Swedish guy named Eric-
Jeremy: Fresh off the boat!
Sophia: And a German girl named Tarisa, and they definitely flew here.
Jeremy: You don’t even know that. Ok well preceding that, Jeremy thought, “ok maybe we live together this summer and then we move on and split and move after” But then-
Olivia: Jeremy couldn’t find a place on his own
Sophia: Haha ya he needed someone to find one for him
Jeremy: But then Sophia brings a surprise to Jeremy that she wants to live together for the next year! And Jeremy says yes!
Olivia: Would you stop talking in third person!
Sophia: Ya why are you doing that?
Olivia: It’s just an interview.
Sophia: Just talk like a normal person.
Jeremy: And then Sophia came up to me and she was like “Hey, lets live together next year” and I said yes. And then she found where we were gonna live, it wasn’t easy for her, but she did it. And then we moved in.
Sophia: And then I had to do many many finaglings in order to secure this apartment because our financial situation is obviously not top notch.
Olivia: Let’s hear more about that. So Jeremy struggled to find a job? Employment? What was the deal?
Sophia: Ya it was kind of like that. Like there was a job at first, and then there was like a lot less of a job and then there was like some people not knowing somethings, and other people knowing things, it was all very like, a mess, not very many people were clued into it but ya know it all worked out mainly due to Sophias like, very intense, hard work to get this apartment, and a large loan taken out from her very wealthy best friend.
Olivia: Wow
Sophia: Ya but we got this wonderful apartment which is really great and I’m glad I did it even though it was extremely stressful and continues to be extremely stressful.
Olivia: So when did you guys move in here?
Sophia: We moved in the last day of August
Olivia: So how did you furnish the place?
Sophia: I’ve been looking lot on Craig’s list and the facebook market thing. We got our bed on Craigs list and we got our shelves on the facebook market thing. We got a couple tables from a garage sale, trying not to buy from retailers because that’s expensive. And we got a couple things on the street because a lot of people when they are moving out leave things on the street that they don’t want anymore, and thats like literally anything from like giant bed frames to like couches and-
Jeremy: And with my drug addiction I stole many very good pieces
Olivia: So what type of drugs?
Jeremy: So time to time I buy some cocaine and cook it into crack cocaine and smoke that, also I smoke some weed, also I would drink lot, I preferred the Bombay sapphire, but when I was down on my luck I would drink um this beer, very high alcohol percentage and very cheap because I knew the guy that owned the place. But I’ve moved on from there, into bigger and badder things, and I don’t have to do that because I work on it
Olivia: So where are you working now?
Jeremy: At a bar called 169, It’s amazing, we have go go dancers every once and a while, it’s awesome, my bathroom has all playboy pictures all on the walls… did I send you that?
Sophia: Haven’t seen it
Olivia: Sooo how would you describe you’re guys relationship? Who does the what?
Jeremy: I don’t do anything
Sophia: Thats true.
Olivia: Sooo where did you get this big bean bag chair from?
Jeremy: From the internet mothafuckaaa
Olivia: How did you get your mattress?
Sophia: Thats a funny story, so we were looking for a bed on Craig’s list and all of the beds were like 200$ 305$ which is like a lot for a bed right? so we found this guy and he’s like “free bed” Frame, mattress, everything, because he had to move out in like 3 days so he was really desperate to get rid of everything. So we were like “ok were doing it” so we rented a Uhaul van in Brooklyn, even though Jeremy’s license is expired and he couldn’t rent one so I rented one
Jeremy: And I drove the mothafucka
Sophia: And Jeremy drove it, and the guy lived in Manhattan on like 32nd street and 1st ave above the NYU hospital, and ya we got the bed it was all in pieces, we were still living in our old apartment so we had all of the pieces in our room, we were sleeping on 2 mattresses because we didn’t have enough room to put the bed anywhere and we couldn’t move it in before we moved in um and then we moved here and we put the bed together and the half of the bed frame just snapped in half and it was very frustrating and we recovered and bought a very cheap bed frame on amazon for 50$ it was just a very basic frame, we kept the mattress and now it’s our bed.
Olivia: So what are your future goals?
Sophia: Well I’m in school so I’m not really thinking about anything until school ends so I mean once school ends that will be a whole different thing.
Jeremy: Goals of Jeremy Fox, my goals in life, are we talking short term or long term Olivia?
Olivia: Both
Jeremy: Well I want to be a farmer, my goals is to be a farmer.
Sophia: I wish Jeremy luck on his goals, I don’t really have any specific goals yet but it’s definitely not going to be a farmer. We all have our own paths ya know.
Olivia: Are you using that coaster as an ash tray?
Jeremy: Um
Sophia: Are you using that coaster as an ash tray Jeremy???
Jeremy: Olivia get the fuck out of here, get the fuck out of here
Sophia: Can you please not.
Olivia: Thats from Anthropologie!
Sophia: Can you please not
Jeremy: I’ll wash it later
Sophia: We have an ash tray, like we own an ash tray
Olivia: Okkk anything else you want to add
Jeremy: Not on the record
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Answer them all
1: 6 of the songs you listen to most
Right now I listen to “Sober” by Demi Lovato, “What I Need” by Hayley Kiyoko, “PlayinWitMe” by Kyle, “Krippy Kush” by Bad Bunny, “Red Roses” by Lil Skies, and “Everybody Hates Me” by The Chainsmokers
2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
I would meet the person I am meant to be with the rest of my life, the person I am meant to love
3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.
“I’m with them because, despite everything, I still love them.”
4: What do you think about most?
I think about how in the hell I am going to pay for my student loans and if it is even worth living
5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?
“For real and she makes me so happy I dont want to be mad at her”
6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?
I sleep with boxers but otherwise no clothes
7: What’s your strangest talent?
I can put my pinkies behind ring fingers without touching them
8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)
Girls just want to have fun. Boys will be boys.
9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?
No, not that I am aware of
10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?
Like yesterday
11: Do you have any strange phobias?
I dont think so. I have your average everyday phobias like arachnophobia and acrophobia
12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?
No, I can’t say I have
13: What’s your religion?
Christian of the ELCA Lutheran denomination
14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
Mowing the lawn or swimming
15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?
Behind the camera
16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
Of Mice and Men
17: What was the last lie you told?
That I filled out a job application
18: Do you believe in karma?
Yes I do
19: What does your URL mean?
It’s ironic, it states that I am a little queer but really I am very queer
20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?
My greatest weakness is that I care too much for people, my greatest strength is also just that
21: Who is your celebrity crush?
Hailee Steinfeld or Dove Cameron
22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?
Yes, it is called joining the swim team at my college
23: How do you vent your anger?
It depends, if I am taking my medication I might yell, but if I am not on my medication I will break things and throw things and punch things
24: Do you have a collection of anything?
Yes snow globes, and coins I love collecting money
25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?
I rather not do either
26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?
I am but I think I can still be better
27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?
I hate the sound of people eating corn and cereal. I love the sound of thunder
28: What’s your biggest “what if”?
What if I never cut myseld
29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?
Yes and yes
30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.
An endtable and my hat
31: Smell the air. What do you smell?
My house
32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?
An Econolodge in South Dakota, I do not recommend
33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?
I haven’t been to either, but I think they have their own great qualities I cannot choose unless I visit
34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?
I don’t know....Luke Bryan??
35: To you, what is the meaning of life?
I can’t answer this question
36: Define Art.
Who the fuck knows these days?
37: Do you believe in luck?
Yes
38: What’s the weather like right now?
HOT HOT HOT
39: What time is it?
14:41
40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?
Yes and yes
41: What was the last book you read?
“Confessions of a Murder Suspect”
42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?
Love it
43: Do you have any nicknames?
Ry, Ry-Ry, and Ryles
44: What was the last film you saw?
TAG
45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?
I was cut up by three men when I was 17. Needed many stitches
46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?
Many times
47: Do you have any obsessions right now?
Nah, not really
48: What’s your sexual orientation?
I’m a lesbian but I use the term gay
49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?
Many
50: Do you believe in magic?
I believe in the idea
51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?
Depends how wrong they’ve done me. There are two people I will never be in contact again with because of things they have done to me
52: What is your astrological sign?
Virgo
53: Do you save money or spend it?
I need to save it but I spend it
54: What’s the last thing you purchased?
Shaving Razors
55: Love or lust?
Love
56: In a relationship?
LMAO HAHAHA......no.
57: How many relationships have you had?
7, 2 were serious
58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?
Yes
59: Where were you yesterday?
Work
60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?
My shirt, my hat, my blanket (pink is my second favorite color)
61: Are you wearing socks right now?
No, which is strange because I always have socks on
62: What’s your favourite animal?
Monkey
63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?
My romantic side, but I am also freaking hilarious
64: Where is your best friend?
I have two. One is in Lincoln, NE the other in Scottsbluff, NE
65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.
According to Tumblr, in order they are 1) totallylesbians, 2)xxmmxx, 3)pizduedne, 4)l-e-s-b-o-t, and 5)pinkmakesmehappy21
66: What is your heritage?
I am part Czech, Irish, and German, and I am sure many others but these are the three largest and my family celebrates all of the Czech and Irish holidays
67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?
Sleeping
68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?
I think it’s Satan, Lucifer Satan
69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?
.....
70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?
Yes
71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?
I get fired
72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?
A)I would B)Travel C)No
73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.
Trust
74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?
“This One’s for the Girls” by Martina McBride
75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?
9614
76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?
Trust, romance, and humor
77: How can I win your heart?
Talk to me, be kind
78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?
hehehe yes
79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?
To not end my life
80: What size shoes do you wear?
10 in men’s and 11 in women’s
81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?
Literally have an entire funeral planned out for me except that
82: What is your favourite word?
Lit or Fam
83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.
Love
84: What is a saying you say a lot?
“Lit fam”
85: What’s the last song you listened to?
“XO TOUR Llif3″ by Lil Uzi Vert
86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?
All shades of blue except indigo and all shades of pink except magenta
87: What is your current desktop picture?
My three nieces and nephew
88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?
I want to say Trump but I rather have Trump as president than Pence, so I have to say this girl named Taylor
89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?
“Have you ever tried to kill yourself?”
90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?
Go back to bed
91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?
Read minds
92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?
I have no idea, honestly
93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
Dating her.
94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?
I’m taking this as I get to sleep in pajamas next to any music-celebrity no sexual activity because I don’t want that, so if that is the case I have to say Demi Lovato
95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
California
96: Do you have any relatives in jail?
No
97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?
Yes
98: Ever been on a plane?
Yes
99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?
Something witty. Nothing clever just funny.
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