#political hit job
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Yesterday, Special Counsel Robert Hur, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in January 2023 to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents before he was president, released his report. It begins: “We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter. We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president.” The Department of Justice closed a similar case against former Vice President Mike Pence on June 1, 2023, days before Pence announced his presidential bid, with a brief, one-page letter.
But in Biden’s case, what followed the announcement that he had not broken a law was more than 300 pages of commentary, including assertions that Biden was old, infirm, and losing his marbles and even that “[h]e did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died” (p. 208).
As television host and former Republican representative from Florida Joe Scarborough put it: “He couldn’t indict Biden legally so he tried to indict Biden politically.”
Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and their teams came out swinging against what amounted to a partisan hit job by a Republican special counsel. The president’s lawyers noted that it is not Department of Justice practice and protocol to criticize someone who is not going to be charged, and tore apart Hur’s nine references to Biden’s memory in contrast to his willingness to “accept…other witnesses’ memory loss as completely understandable given the passage of time.”
They pointed out that “there is ample evidence from your interview that the President did well in answering your questions about years-old events over the course of five hours. This is especially true under the circumstances, which you do not mention in your report, that his interview began the day after the October 7 attacks on Israel. In the lead up to the interview, the President was conducting calls with heads of state, Cabinet members, members of Congress, and meeting repeatedly with his national security team.”
Nonetheless, they note, Biden provided “often detailed recollections across a wide range of questions, from staff management of paper flow in the West Wing to the events surrounding the creation of the 2009 memorandum on the Afghanistan surge. He engaged at length on theories you offered about the way materials were packed and moved during the transition out of the vice presidency and between residences. He pointed to flaws in the assumptions behind specific lines of questioning.”
They were not alone in their criticism. Others pointed out that Republicans have made Biden’s age a central point of attack, but Politico reported last October that while former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was publicly mocking Biden’s age and mental fitness, he was “privately telling allies that he found the president sharp and substantive in their conversations.” Dan Pfeiffer of Pod Save America and Message Box noted that the report’s “characterizations of Biden don't match those relayed by everyone who talks to him, including [Republicans].”
He explained: “There are few secrets in [Washington], and if Joe Biden acted like Hur says, we would all know. Biden meets with dozens of people daily—staffers, members of Congress, CEOs, labor officials, foreign leaders, and military and intelligence officials…. If Biden was regularly misremembering obvious pieces of information or making other mistakes that suggested he was not up to the job, it would be in the press. Washington is not capable of keeping something like that secret."
But the media ran not with the official takeaway of the investigation—that Biden had not committed a crime—or with a reflection on the accuracy or partisan reason for Hur’s commentary, but with Hur’s insinuations. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo noted that the New York Times today ran five front-page stories above the fold about the report and Biden’s memory.
Matt Gertz of Media Matters collected some of the day’s headlines: “Eight Words and a Verbal Slip Put Biden’s Age Back at the Center of 2024 (New York Times); “1 Big thing: Report Questions Biden’s memory (Axios)”; “Biden tries to lay to rest age concerns, but may have exacerbated them” (CNN); “Biden disputes special counsel findings, insists his memory is fine” (CBS News); “Age isn’t just a number. It’s a profound and growing problem for Biden” (Politico); and so on.
As far back as 1950, when Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) insisted—without evidence—that the Department of State under Democratic president Harry Truman had been infiltrated by Communists, Republicans have used official investigations to smear their opponents. State Department officials condemned McCarthy’s “Sewer Politics” and the New York Times complained about his “hit-and-run” attacks, but McCarthy’s outrageous statements and hearings kept his accusations in the news. That media coverage, in turn, convinced many Americans that his charges were true.
Other Republicans finally rejected McCarthy, but in 1996, congressional Republicans frustrated by the election of Democratic president Bill Clinton in 1992 and the Democrats’ subsequent expansion of the vote with the so-called Motor Voter law in 1993 resurrected his tactics. They launched investigations into two elections they insisted the Democrats had stolen. They discovered no fraud, but their investigation convinced a number of Americans that voter fraud was a serious problem.
There were ten investigations into the 2012 attack on two U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed and several others wounded; Republican-dominated House committees held six of them. Kevin McCarthy bragged to Fox News personality Sean Hannity that the Benghazi special committee was part of a “strategy to fight and win” against then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The strategy of weaponizing investigations went on to be central to the 2016 election, when Trump ran on the investigation of Clinton’s email practices, and to the 2020 election, when Trump tried to weaken Biden’s candidacy by trying to force Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to say that Ukraine was opening an investigation into Hunter Biden and the company he worked for.
Going into 2024, the House is investigating Hunter Biden, and while witness testimony and evidence has not supported their contention that President Biden is corrupt, the stench of the hearings has convinced a number of MAGA voters of the opposite.
And now the media appears to be falling for this strategy yet again.
Political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen outlined how Biden’s performance disproves the argument that he is unfit for the presidency: “The thing about Biden’s memory,” Cohen wrote, “is that he’s presided over the addition of ~15 million jobs & 800k manufacturing jobs, 23 straight months of sub-4% unemployment, surging consumer sentiment, wages outpacing inflation, the American Rescue Plan, Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPs Act, PACT Act, infrastructure law, gun safety law, VAWA, codified marriage equality, canceled $136 billion in student loan debt for 3.7 million borrowers, bolstered NATO, and presided over electoral wins in ‘20, ‘22 and ‘23.”
Political strategist Simon Rosenberg had his own take: “As we end this crazy week I am struck that somehow the claim that Biden's memory is faulty has gotten more attention than a jury confirming that Trump raped E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room.”
It may be, though, that the report has been a game changer in a different way than Hur intended it. Hur’s suggestion that Biden does not remember when his son died seems to echo the moment in the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings in which Senator McCarthy was trying to prove that the U.S. Army had been infiltrated by Communists. Sensing himself losing, McCarthy attacked on national television a young aide of Joseph Nye Welch, the lawyer defending the Army.
“Have you no sense of decency, sir?” Welch demanded. “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” McCarthy didn’t, but Americans did, and they finally threw him off the public stage.
Biden supporters took their gloves off today, producing videos of Trump’s incoherence, gaffes, and wandering off stages, and noting that he mistook writer E. Jean Carroll, whom he sexually assaulted, for his second wife, Marla Maples, when asked to identify Carroll in a photograph. They also produced clips of Fox News Channel personalities Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters messing up names themselves on screen, and gaffes from Republican lawmakers.
Senior communications advisor for the Biden-Harris campaign T.J. Ducklo released a statement lambasting Trump for a speech he gave tonight in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, saying: “Tonight, he lied more than two dozen times, slurred his words, confused basic facts, and placated the gun lobby weeks after telling parents to ‘get over it’ after their kids were gunned down at school. But you won’t hear about any of it if you watch cable news, read this weekend’s papers, or watch the Sunday shows.”
But it was Biden who responded most powerfully. “There’s even a reference that I don’t remember when my son died,” he told reporters. “How in the hell dare he raise that…. I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.” And when asked about Hur’s dismissal of him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Biden responded with justified anger: “I am well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve been President. I put this country back on its feet.”
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Notes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kevin-mccarthys-truthful-gaffe/2015/09/30/f12a9fac-67a8-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html
Twitter (X):
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#donald trump#trump mug shot#walk away#america#thug#georgia#american idol#liberty#Inditement#goverment#vote#2024#sow the wind#smash the system#shut it down#corruption#socialism sucks#political hit job#trump#maga
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hi im ecstatic today because i might not fail my sophomore year of highschool. draw them
day 930
#amphibian#frog#toad#described in alt text#hell yes good job and i hope you don't fail!!#apperciate the second ask of 'if you wanna' . when you hit send too early but still want to be polite
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i’ve had an essay in my heart about kim and his relationship to his name for a week, and i’m going to get hit by a hurricane tomorrow, so i’m going to write it while i still have internet
i see this exchange used as an example of kim being trans coded a lot, and i agree, but i also think that’s a simplification of what’s going on here. i think reading this solely through the lens of gender leaves out a lot of kim’s experience as a queer/possibly trans man of color from an immigrant family and how all those labels can interact with one another
i don’t know if “kim” is seen as a feminine name in revachol like it is in say, america. i haven’t come across any dialogue indicating that’s the case, but then, not many characters address kim by his given name. i do think it’s definitely seen as a seolite name and that a lot of those “intentions and expectations” kim’s talking about probably have to do with the stereotypes that are constantly imposed on him by other characters.
if it is seen as a feminine name, then the way it would impose gendered expectations on him would be kind of similar to the way it imposes racial expectations on him. and those expectations would also interact with each other. asian men are often depicted as being emasculated and infantilized,and they are often presented as either sexually deviant or completely desexualized. these traits are directly tied to their race and culture and are contrasted with an idealized, white, western masculinity. they’re often used to mock, disrespect, and belittle, and there’s a lot of overlap between these and stereotypes about gay men and trans men.
as a queer/trans fantasy!asian man, kim’s working against all of these racial stereotypes, and his race/sexuality/gender id and presentation/disability(asians often get jabs about eyesight), all those stereotypes compound on each other. all contributing to kim being constantly disrespected. and i think a lot of his beliefs/behavior/worldview center around trying to command the respect he’s constantly denied.
as part of that, i think kim downplays his connection to his culture, just like he downplays anything about himself that he doesn’t think is respectable. i find it interesting that the first thing he says when harry mentions his race is that his parents didn’t teach him anything, only to reveal later that they died when he was two. and the way he says it, automatically and wearily, like he’s said it a billion times, i’m willing to bet cash money that’s a rehearsed response to people asking him, “if you’re seolite why don’t you know/do xyz?” when he never had a chance to learn that stuff. he was raised in revachol, by revacholians, but no matter how adamant he is about that, he will always be seen as a foreigner in the only culture he’s ever known. because of his face and his name. and the only one of those he can change is his name.
so he thinks about what it would be like to be named something else, but decides against changing his name. i think that’s because, while he might resent the expectations others attach to it (racial or gendered), at the same time i think he’s attached to because it symbolizes a connection to a culture and a family he has few connections to. one of the only things he received from his family, and one of the only things from his culture he can feel is really his.
#long post#kim kitsuragi#disco elsyium#tbh kim is the one i wanna study like a bug#because he's super relatable to me as a queer trans mixed asian whose family left china a million years ago#like this part hit me hard tbh#i wished my name was different because it doesn't sound chinese and i'm blasian so people think i'm lying when i say i'm chinese#like how fucked up is that?#like being mixed and assimilated and unconnected to your culture while also always being seen as exotic is suuuuper isolating#and will super fuck you up#but this is also why i want to shake kim#for the same reasons i want to shake myself#like kim!#baby!#they are never going to respect you not even if youre a cop!#so give it up already with the respectability politics#quit your job#and be the weird little gaysian speedfreak you were born to be!
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Hi this is a vent post! Continue scrolling if you'd rather not see that
#Giving time...#Still more time...#Wouldn't want to plague any previews#Maybe another filler. Just for some fun#Is this enough?#It certainly is now#Alright start:#I'm so bored. I am so incredibly; intrinsically; entirely bored. I have been taught the same thing for four years straight#'It's only four years!' that's literally a quarter of my lifetime right there. My formative years are being spent stressed and in a state /#/of constant self-loathing#I was watching a YT video and the phrase 'attention-starved STEM major' came up and I was like. Yea#What am I even working towards? The hope that my version of capitalist hell isn't as bad as everyone else's? I'm just so sick of not /#/having a stable future what with politics and normal working people becoming more and more oppressed#I don't want to work and that's not because I'm lazy. It's because my brain is recognising that there is no reward anymore#I used to have such a little spark in Yr7. I remember having things to say and wanting to share everything I've done#I still do that now; sure I do. I don't enjoy it though#I thought I liked drawing but I'm realising that all I really like is the attention. I COULD draw things I like drawing... but then I /#/ don't get attention which my mind then classifies as zero reward#I'm very tired of doing things for no credit; reward; or validation. This is becoming a theme#Then I wonder what I'm doing wrong. What part of the algorithm am I not hitting. Then I realise that I'm just not marketable in a way#God. I'm seriously breaking rn. It's not even only because of GCSEs#It's just a culmination of doing all these things to be told that I am unworthy of Having as a result. It doesn't matter if I'm smart; my /#/ parents still don't own their house and can't afford to pay for heating most days#Literally what am I doing this for#And then I realise that all of this is ALSO attention-seeking behaviour! I'm my own worst problem; I recognise exactly what's wrong with /#/ myself but the body wants what it wants. And what it wants is validation that I'm not going to get in this life#Hi guys! Maybe don't interact. That could fix me#Wean me off of needing virtual numbers just to feel something. Jesus#I can't even be happy with the things that I make for myself. Because I make nothing for myself anymore#It's just a whole sad existence of an expected 12hr+ of school every day until I get a job I guess. Then it's 12hr+ of job every day until
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Last time I'll see him tomorrow as I move jobs next week
Also saw my rue girl for the last time Monday broke my heart I'll actually miss these dogs so much. I hope they find their perfect home soon
#like#this is why i need to leave#because i love them so much#and they really form a beautiful bond with you#and i can't trust people to find the right homes before the dog gets returned#it's better i don't know about them#because my heart has taken too much being in this job#now give me the needles and blood back because at least there's a higher chance of predicting that will go to plan ok#ok#fuck this job has wrecked me#its honestly not the dogs its the fucking politics of the job#a dog got hit by a car from an experienced behaviour staff yesterday that's been in the job 3 years#honeslty#the dog is fine but cmon mate seriously#you're meant to be a senior in your role and you can't be street smart#fucking hell it's dog training it's not hard to predict hazards#what the actual fuck thank ful I'm leaving
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a surprisingly wholesome ending for a WoD game <3
#wta#wtabohn#wtabohn spoilers#kyle marquis is such a damn good writer#considering i knew Nothing about wta before playing this game i definitely felt overwhelmed at first#but it's a genuinely good intro to this part of the setting once you come to grips with it#like it absolutely has its issues with racism and the like because all wod modules do#but i enjoyed what kyle has done with it#will i be able to bring myself to do a terrible person route like i did with amicia in night road? i dunno#in night road i could justify it because the courier is a freelance agent and has no obligations beyond doing the job you're paid to do#i think it'd feel different in this game. you have more of a spiritual obligation as opposed to a political/financial one#i'd have to mess around with characters some more to really get a feel for it#plus i enjoyed playing amicia and pissing off everyone and getting them killed#i don't think i'd enjoy pissing off the pack because i love them they are my friends#but then i suppose that's the difference between vampires and werewolves#vampires are very rarely able to trust each other entirely and tend to be very solitary as a result#whereas werewolves are pack creatures by nature. they need a sense of community or it'd break them#so you feel more inclined to really connect with people as a werewolf in a way that a vampire might not#...someone pls give mr marquis the og!vtmb2 notes so he can make another cog game based on it#i'd trust him to hit all the right notes and maintain the campy humour and gruesome horror
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Beginning to really wonder how much of my financial concern is manufactured and handed to me as opposed to something I'm genuinely concerned by
#bc like. i'm getting by just fine. i don't have anything to be reasonably worried about#but also when i was a kid my father would break down my mother's paycheck and basically explain how broke we were#and that May Have Affected Me Somewhat#as well as just. the way you consistently see the advice to just save! don't get takeout! necessities! and i'm not intent on living like#a monk nor am i intent on being on that grindset for financial gain#it's like i don't intrinsically care but i have so many messages given to me about how i need to care a lot and it puts me in a weird spot#i am simultaneously standing still and moving at mach speeds#i mean right now i just need a safety net while in between jobs; after that i need to save up to move out of state bc the uh#political situation and upcoming presidential election don't seem very sustainable for someone like me anymore#they weren't to begin with but i don't wanna stick around to see how bad it's gonna get#but it's like. okay and then what? save for what? going back to school i guess? idk#i feel like i keep asking myself what i'm trying to accomplish and keep trying to force myself to have answers#here and now when i have to be okay with taking things one step at a time instead of having everything here and now#it's simultaneously fine and terrible and i am holding two conflicting yet equal truths#i feel i may have a clearer head once i leave my current job. i'm trying to look but nothing feels appealing given how#burnt out i already feel. i dread going back into my workplace and i fear it's showing to the patients and i don't want that#i want a month off to rediscover who i am as a person outside of getting yelled at in retail and then pick something back up#could be feasible. genuinely could be. i need to sort out the health insurance aspect but. that's lowkey the plan?#to construct a financial safety net and then slam on the breaks for a while; see if i can strike up a deal with the staff about me#coming in for specific tasks bc we already know i'm quick and efficient with the inventory so i do have a little leverage#you know what. this is getting some of it off my chest and i'm starting to feel confident again lmao#i won't be doing weekends starting either next week or the week after so that's a start! i just think i want everything done right now#bc i'm afraid i won't have the chance again but i will. i definitely will#i just need to let myself get to that point; it's just the immense drain from the register work and the Everything that comes with retail#also having to accept that it's okay to leave this; there's not something wrong with me like. ''not being able to handle it'' or w/e#no mindfulness or detachment could've saved me; it was shit and i'm hitting the bricks and that's all there is to it#i've been thinking a lot about it all lately bc it's what's most prominent in my life rn of course#idk. pondering. introspecting. as i am wont to do#anyways if you've read all this you're a real mvp and i am kissing you on the hand#shai speaks
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Guess who's broken a new sims record (played the same sims family on TWO separate days)
#the duck quacks#i usually suffer from making new families over and over but now im actually having fun#im on the second gen rn altho the third gen are toddlers!#i started with whats the name. uhh those sims who hate jobs and want to live of the land#i actually..forgot my own sims name but she had that trait + vegan + focused on family. lived in evergreen harbor and ate from the trash#up until she had kids and it became kjnda impractical. especially for toddlers. so she got a fridge#the house was still of the grid tho and she was very green. also she had 6 kids. only one had the happy infant trait. the othrrs had unhappy#i kinda stopped focusing her when the oldest/heir grew up into a kid! her name is robin and she was rll fun to play with!#she maxed out social butterfly and even scouts she was v skilled which was suprising for me when i have short lifespan#as a teen she did get hit by a meteor snd died but i added her ghodt to the fam! i planned to continue as a ghost eith her but she couldnt#age to an adult so i just decided to revive her after a little while#as an adult she moved out. she was still besties with her entire family and honeslyy. that girl helped raise those kids ALOT#all teens judt got appointed to infant duty#good for them that the sims doesnt gave a trauma system bc raising hr siblings after ur mom passed out again is probably.#not good for a teenager. hm . yeah.#anyways robin moved to the city where she still libes today! she is. so fucking talented i LOVE her#she has responsibility emphathy and politeness maxed out she makes instant friends and has lke 20+ at this point#she is on the charity branch of the politica and almost at lvl 10#she completed worlds friends and currently working on the art aspiration! she is at lvl 10 in cha and art#she also married today! i forgor her husbands nsme but hes just a chill clumsy dude who loves to garden and kids#they were v romantic. got toghether on love day. engaged during love festival. married in a 6x3 room in their apartment.#(their wedding was so silly. the apartment is v cramped and full so the routing was SUFFERING)#speaking of routing issues. they got twins! Starling and Sparrow! i lofe them but dear lord is Robin a bad parent#rheir room was small bc apartemenr and the routing was the WORST AND SHE KEPT STARING AT HER BABY WHILE SHE SOBBED ON THE FLOOR EVEN THOUFH#I TOLD HER TO PUT HER INTO THE XRIB 3 FUCKINF HOURS AGO#i gave up soon and aged them up. Sparrow has the unhappy baby trair RIP. honestly before this i thought they would be WAY too doting parents#but ig not.#rn im veru curious to see how the twins grow up bc i alwaus randomize traits n stuff. also! they got a cat and dog! and will get a new rat#when the todds age up. the dog was avtuallt rll impractical bc it cant ride the eleveator alone and pees in the house all the time ..oops#anyways this is the first time in genuinely excited to play again. rip my studies i gotta grind on the hunderd family!!
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Do I go to holiday eve service mom just invited me to out of desire to demonstrate peace love and etc or do I say no bc going to church still makes me feel bad and how do I explain without saying that
#love you enjoy spending time with you your religion makes me feel awful about myself for no reason#can't tell if i'm being rude or unreasonable or not bc a lot of things feel bad socially but are polite so ?#it's hitting me i haven't had to decide the past few years bc covid/intense retail jobs#and before that i went to church just as a family activity to hang out with everyone#i didn't like it even though i just used it as a social activity. which i am also realizing now years later
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we have now reached the stage of family vacation where i have a meltdown
#mmmmmmm they were just straight up playing an antivax youtube video on tv . it took every ounce of my composure to not burst into tears on#The spot .Ive now gone to bed early so i can go cry very quietly upstairs in my bathroom#its just. it makes me insane my family is so fun and awesome until it comes to their politics !!!!!!!!!!#i try not to think about it very often .but sometimes im just hit fully with the fact that if they knew who I truly am .#there is a scary scary chance they would just never accept me.#its so easy for ppl to say oh if they wont accept you just walk out and leave they never really loved you anyway#but it’s so complicated in real life i cant just leave my family i love them !!!! they love me !!!!!they are all I have#and the thing is I never talk to them about this stuff .i have no idea how they would react and it is Scary#i ache with my whole being sometimes to just share everything with them. im so tired of secrets .it hurts I just wish i could just live#openly with them like some people do#but the possibilities and consequences are just far too grand for me for now#so I just live in this limbo. and I do a good job most of time ignoring the fact that I do#but sometimes (like tonight) it just hits me all once .the weight and burden of all that I hide from everyone.#pride month especially. it can be a very hard time for me#oh I think I hear ppl coming upstairs now gotta make it look like I haven’t been crying bc i do Not want anyone to ask .i will not be able#to answer without sobbing and I cant explain slash excuse my way out of this one without talking abt what’s really going on#And I don’t want to have that conversation for a Long time#ok byebye#kat post
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can't believe cognitoinc killed the queen. SAD!! well there's other queens i guess
#inside job#uk politics#SORRY.#queen elizabeth ii#sorry i hit post limit yesterday and couldn't post this until TODAYYYY#tunes in toontown
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We have an epidemic of rudeness on campus today.
#random personal stuff#one of the business professors had problems with something IT related#instead of submitting a ticket he responded to an email of theirs with some snide remarks#and hit 'reply all' making it embarrassingly public#this professor also happens to be the mayor#I am not impressed#IT doesn't deserve this#they have a thankless job already#and have to put up with a lot#the least we can do is be polite
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I've seen pieces from this extra comic before, but never read the full thing until today. And holy shit does it hammer home just how much the story is about class.
Multiple times, when food comes up in this comic, it’s also in context of money:
I've seen this last panel on the right brought up before in context of like, dungeon meshi's relationship with fat and eating, but in the full context of the comic it really hits how much adventuring directly consumes bodies for money.
As much as this has been part of the story the whole time, showcased as early chapters 19 and 20...
It never fully hit me before how often adventuring comes down to having no other way to make money but to throw yourself into death repeatedly. To be used, whether it’s by individual selfish people (like the resurrection group that is happy to try and get Kabru's group to kill each other to get extra gold from them in chapter 32), or by the greater cog of the Dungeon Economy in general.
Which, to be clear, is all too often how things work in the real world, too. So many jobs burn through the health and lives of workers. Dungeon Meshi just makes it literal in a new way: by making the healing and resurrection, a core part to the adventuring loop, directly use fat, muscle, and energy from the body being healed.
Imagine Amazon, but if you got injured at work, they could literally burn up some of your body to get you back to working sooner. And that was seen as an advantage of the job.
And then you have Laios, thinking about eating monsters:
Not just because he likes monsters a lot. But because it would help. He says something similar in the actual manga too, during the chapter discussing his dream with the Winged Lion
Laios wants to be able to make a home for Falin. He wants to give her a place where she never has to eat alone. And when he gets a party, he wants to give them a way to eat well. And when he runs a country, well…
He wants to ensure that everyone has enough to eat.
Food is political. Food ties into class, and money. What is deemed "proper" to eat, what is a luxury, what is crass… so much of it comes down to money.
Being judged for eating what's available, when what is “proper” isn't affordable, is already a thing that happens. People forced into work that consumes their energy is already a thing that happens.
Dungeon Meshi has a lot of fantastical elements, but boy is its examination of food and class very real.
#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#laios touden#dungeon meshi spoilers#the full thing is up on mangadex and I v much recommend giving it a read#dunmeshi analysis
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Kuina and zoro???? Hello
#hello to dragon too#dragon took sabo ofc#so the sensei collaborates with the revolutionaries.....#youre just a bulletproof anchor 😭😭 incredible roast btw#the anchor t shirt.....#oh they are hallucinating their brother.....#we must have noticed ace had haki bc he hits luffy and it hurts him just like garp...#little luffy hurt again..... is live ever fair......#ace :(((#OH makino is teaching ace manners 👏🏻#i want to be polite.... smash cut to running away without paying from a restaurant#oh nvm they said thank you ahdkahs#ohhhh dadan..#not me crying again#luffy hallucinating sabo again now that ace is gone. normal behaviour#dadan crying again now thay luffy leaves 😭😭#they offered luffy a fishing boat and he said naw this rowing boat is humbler for me....#and then he drowned in a barrel#the people not even knowing who ace is... good job actually#oh he is going to beat the beast that took shanks arm... so good actually#back to the devastating present.... not another crying session please#luffy saying he is weak.... you are like 17 and all those people back there on marineford were like 40 as the median age.....#talking tag#watching one piece#episode 504
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Many years ago, I was wandering around downtown Ottawa with my best friend. We ran into a friend of his who offered us some hash (it sucked), then said there was a really good house party nearby if we wanted to go. We were like, yeah, sure. So that's how we ended up at some completely fucking random person's house.
I look around to ask if my friend knows anyone here and he's simply gone, as is his friend. And this isn't some red solo cup hangout; this is a party. There's people counting out pills on the kitchen counter. I am clearly neither as cool nor as drug-savvy as the kitchen people, so I back away and instead wander aimlessly into the living room, which seems to give off more of a chill vibe.
A bunch of people are seated in a circle on the floor. One of them is fiddling with a big wad of newspaper or something. A really cute grunge girl with piercings and tattoos scoots aside to make room for me, so I sit down.
"What's that," I ask her, gesturing at the newspaper wad.
She gets a really big smile on her face. You know the smile. It's the I'm About To Watch This Innocent Soul Get High As Fuck smile. "You've never smoked a tulip?"
"What's a tulip?" I ask.
"It's like if a joint was also a bong," she replies. "You gotta try it."
"Alright," I reply, a little uncertainly. This will not be my first encounter with weed. I am more comfortable with the janky newspaper bong than I am with whatever the fuck is going on in the kitchen. Besides, this girl is really cute and I would like to have a friend here now that my existing friend has turned into vapor or been transported to the Upside-Down or whatever the hell happened to him.
I watch as one person holds the newspaper joint-bong upright and holds a lighter over the top while another gets beneath it, tilting their head back to take a puff. Apparently smoking this Cheech & Chong monstrosity is a two-person job.
"Oh," I say, looking at the fist-sized knob at the top of the wonky newspaper joint. "Yeah, it does kinda look like a tulip." Grunge girl smiles at me.
I watch as the tulip is passed around the circle, along with the lighter, and hits are cooperatively taken. It reaches grunge girl, who takes a huge puff and holds it for an extended moment before exhaling an impressive blast of smoke. She smiles expectantly and holds the tulip up for me, preparing to spark the gigantic meteor of dank that makes up its tip. By this point I have completely forgotten about my missing friend. I only care about making a good impression on grunge girl. I tilt my head back and hit the tulip like a smokestack.
It is the following morning. I am sleeping between a couch and a wall. I'm not positive that this is the same house I was just in. My memories are gone. Someone is yelling at me: "dude! Dude! Wake up, dude!"
I sit up. My mouth tastes like cigarettes. I do not smoke cigarettes. "Wha," I ask the yelling man, who I am quite confident I have never met before in my life.
"We're going on a quest," he tells me, gravely. "You have to come with us."
I look around. Neither my friend nor his friend are anywhere in sight. I also do not see grunge girl anywhere. I shrug helplessly. "Okay."
We embark from this house. I learn that the destination of this quest is Tim Horton's. This is a relief to me, as coffee and a donut sounds really fucking good right now. Somehow, the route to Tim Horton's takes us past the Governor-General's residence, which everyone else in the group loudly heckles on the way past. I do not know what the Governor-General has done to raise their ire, nor do I particularly care. I trudge along with my hands in my pockets, pleased to note that I still have my wallet, phone, and keys. I fervently wish that I could remember anything about last night. Maybe I talked to grunge girl. Maybe she's why my mouth tastes like cigarettes. The tulip tasted nothing like cigarettes.
I am asked about my politics. I voice my frustrations with corporate corruption, the pay-to-win electoral system, the lack of transparency and accountability. This is met with great approval. The guy who was yelling at me claps me on the back. I get the impression that we became friends last night. I don't recognize his face. I do not know his name and he definitely does not know mine. I behave as though we're friends anyway. We are comrades on a quest.
By the time we make it to Tim Hortons, the gaggle of stoners I'm walking with have all run out of energy and/or attention span. People order snacks and break away in pairs or solo, to call for rides or plan the day's events or just vegetate and wait for the drugs to leave their systems. I look around and find that my nameless friend has also gone to the Upside-Down. As I wash the cigarette taste out of my mouth with coffee, I unsuccessfully try to remember whether I saw grunge girl smoking tobacco at any point. I remember nothing. That tulip was so fucking powerful that it instantly sent me a whole day forward in time.
Alone in the city, I try to call my best friend and get no answer. I walk to the nearest bus stop, catch a bus most of the way home, and call up my parents to ask for a ride back. They ask where my friend is. I tell them that I have no idea; we went to a house party and I don't remember anything else.
When they pick me up from the bus station, they ask me some very safe, nonspecific questions, and seem to relax when I describe what little I can remember. It isn't until years later that I realize they were probably terrified I'd gotten rufied or something, and were so relieved to learn otherwise that they didn't even bother chiding me for smoking myself unconscious in an effort to impress a strange woman. In any case, they were probably happy to find out that I did, in fact, like girls; I suspect they had been privately wondering whether I was gay.
After getting home, I finally manage to get my best friend to answer his phone. I discover that he tried the kitchen pills, spent most of the night crossing the entire city on foot, and crashed at his cousin's house. He sounds like shit. I tell him that he should have tried the tulip, instead. He fervently agrees with me.
I never see grunge girl again.
That's okay, though. She got to see a clueless stranger get fucked the entire way up on some ungodly strain of giga-weed, and I got smiled at by a cute girl, and then I got to go on a quest. Wherever grunge girl is, I hope she's happy. I hope she's smoking the fattest fucking blunt and smiling as some kid passes out behind a couch.
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