Reading
Huzzah! Maybe that’s a little bit dark. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and read the papers and turn on the news and it takes a while for my sunny disposition to reassert itself. (Ok, maybe I’m not that naturally sunny…) But I have to say after being on this earth for a long time now and writing about politics every single day for over 20 years, I do think I’ve developed a pretty good sense of when the political culture is going off the rails and when it’s business as usual. This may be the worst period I’ve experienced. I have some recollection of the 60s but I was a little kid and mostly absorbed it through my older brothers, one of whom went into the navy and the other who was a draft resistor and activist — along with my father the military man. It was fraught, to say the least. The 70s were my coming of age period and they were not pretty. Economically it was just awful. But I was young and having fun and somehow I just thought that scrambling for coins in the couch cushions was the way it was. The 80s were what I think of as my coke, MTV and Reagan years. I spent much of them travelling and then trying to build a career.
The Stephen Dixon Award for Short Fiction recognizes an emerging fiction writer who is experimenting with form and expanding the boundaries of storytelling. Our first runner-up is Maz Do with “When the Moths Came” published in issue 72 of McSweeney’s Quarterly.
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August when the moths came. The air: murky, damp, shimmering. Everything clung to everything. Everything tasted of everything else. The streets smelled of piss, a dirty finger pressed to the back of your throat. They smelled of rot, which flared and inflamed the nostrils. And we were alone, even though we were together. Us and the moths.
The moths nested in the double-paned windows that overlooked an old teak tree. There they nursed their larvae, milky, swaddled by light and time. In those long, fading days, the hours stretched like taffy.
The world’s largest rodent is a jaguar's favorite snack.
The post How Capybaras Outwit Big Cats appeared first on Nautilus.
The Stephen Dixon Award for Short Fiction honors the extraordinary work and life of long-time McSweeney’s author Stephen Dixon. The prize recognizes emerging fiction writers experimenting with form and expanding the boundaries of storytelling. The inaugural winner of this year’s award is Kristina Ten for her story “Adjective.” We’re also pleased to announce Maz Do as the first runner-up for her story “When the Moths Came.”
1 tablespoon butter¼ pound dried beef, shredded1 can (10½ ounces) condensed cream of mushroom soup¼ cup white wine½ cup shredded process American cheese2 tablespoons snipped parsley1 tablespoon chopped pimientoPopovers (below) Melt butter in saucepan; cook and stir meat in butter 3 minutes. Mix soup and wine; stir into saucepan. Cook , stirring constantly, until creamy. […]
Vivek Ramaswamy’s candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination might seem idiosyncratic and incoherent, but it...
He doesn’t have the requisite gaudy glamour but he’s got something else. Just look at the arrogance of this conspiracy addled freak show saying that someone else isn’t living in reality: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Monday dug into Sen. JD Vance’s (R-Ohio) recent remarks against sending further aid to Ukraine, calling the Ohio Republican’s comments “total and unmitigated bull‑‑‑‑.” Vance, in an interview with former White House aid Steve Bannon earlier Monday, claimed some lawmakers are looking to cut Social Security benefits for more aid to Ukraine that he argued will be used so one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ministers “can buy a bigger yacht.” When asked about Vance’s remarks later on Monday, Tillis told reporters, “I think it’s bull‑‑‑‑.” “If you’re talking about giving money to Ukrainian ministers — total and unmitigated bull‑‑‑‑,” Tillis continued.
A provision in the annual defense bill would have the Pentagon run clinical trials for members of the military with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The post Congress Is Pushing Revolutionary Research on Psychedelic Treatments for the Military appeared first on The Intercept.
Ingredients
- 425 ml of Marley’s Spirit or Dandelion & Burdock Fizz
- 225 grammes of jellied eel blood (harvested by the muck swallows and mud larks that live under the Thames; if you can’t harvest fresh eel, store-bought is fine)
- 50 grammes of strong flour
- 50 grammes of piddling flour
- 110 grammes of charming foppish stutter
- 1 ml of dried mayonnaise soaked in Pimms
- Candied rummy jubblers
- 225 ml of Posh Spice
- 110 grammes of London copper saying, “What’s all this then, eh?” (crumbled by hand by a chimney-sweep)
- 110 grammes of upper lip (stiffened into peaks)
- Zest of blood sausage
- 275 ml of bovine spongiform beef suet (In a pinch, Artful Dodger grease will do)
- A sprinkling of Welsh corgi
- Sultanas
Instructions
Known as plum puddly-dunks or Christmas pudding, “figgy” pudding is a traditional British dessert served on Bonfire of St. Clive’s Day. (“Pudding” in the United Kingdom is what “dessert” is called elsewhere.
The nearly unanimous vote in the UN Security Council on Friday calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is a moment of honour for the United Nations and shame for the United States. By voting to stop Israel’s war on Gaza by a vote of 13 yes, 1 no (US), and 1 abstention (UK), the Continue reading »
A visceral emphasis on fear over engagement has marked Australia’s approach to China since 2015. Only 17 Australians graduated with Honours degrees in China Studies between 2017 and 2021 across the entire country. This year no grants were awarded by the Australian Research Council for China-related research or collaborative research involving Chinese institutions. Will the Continue reading »
For truly effective measures to counter climate change, governments need to break from the ideological clutches of classical free market economics. Systemic change must be led by governments with requisite political power and intent, well-defined objectives, and authority to act without fear. Just a week before Cop28, global “one-day temperatures” breached the 2 degrees Celsius Continue reading »
At a minimum Australians expect ministers in the Defence portfolio to display a basic knowledge of defence matters. The Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy’s address to the National Press Club is particularly worrying as justification for “the greatest industrial undertaking Australia has ever attempted”. Conroy’s comments on the AUKUS submarines (SSN-AUKUSs) are simplistic to Continue reading »
Pearls and Irritations’ weekly roundup this week commented on the paucity of analysis regarding the House of Representatives Select Committee’s report Rebuilding Employment Services. This is not surprising given the number and complexity of its recommendations. However, it is hard to pin down many specifics in the report other than the current system is useless. Continue reading »
“The world looked away during the World War, and Jews, 6 million of our people, were murdered in that looking away… It is incumbent upon humanity to look at what is happening in Gaza now and to say we will not accept this. We will say no. Not in our name.” – Louise Adler The Continue reading »
The revelations in recent weeks of Indian government involvement in the assassination in Vancouver of a Sikh separatist – and in a conspiracy to murder another in New York – may turn out to be what those in the diplomatic business call “manageable.” The United States and India need a relationship in working order. But Continue reading »
In the last few days, I’ve read poems in Ely, Birmingham, St Andrews, Edinburgh and Brighton; each event was lovely and special in its own way. A big thank you to everyone who came along to them, and indeed, to all the 15,000 people who have dragged themselves to my 59 shows this year. In…
In light of recent events in Gaza, MintPress News brings you our original 2022 documentary, Gaza Fights Back. Filmed on the ground with exclusive access to the Palestinian resistance, the film offers valuable context to the current state of affairs in Gaza.
The post Watch the MintPress News Documentary Film: Gaza Fights Back appeared first on MintPress News.
And these are just for starters Judd Legum came up with a good Top 10 Trump dictatorial promises. I might have put invading Mexico and destroying NATO in the top 10 but that’s just me. Anyway, the first is his explicit promise to be a dictator on Day One. The following are the other nine: Trump says election fraud in 2020 gives him the power to “terminate” the Constitution On December 3, 2022, Trump posted the following message about the 2020 presidential election on his social media platform, Truth Social: Following a backlash from some Republican elected officials, Trump later claimed reports that he was open to terminating the Constitution were “fake news.” Trump says he will issue “full pardons” to January 6 insurrectionists Trump has promised to issue pardons to those involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
A Freedom of Information battle means Byline Times can now reveal the cost to the public for the Government's doomed legal challenge to the Covid inquiry