Facehugger Alien Dog strikes again.
In the mid-1990s, the biggest threat to America continued to be the welfare queen. Or at least that’s what the news and many politicians all said. My school was far too genteel to name the welfare queen outright, but she haunted our balanced class discussions. The welfare queen was worse than disease and death and the destruction of the icecaps. She was worse than that because she was all those things in one, perpetually pregnant with pathologies, birthing out criminals and addicts and losers and apparently eating $50 steaks and driving gleaming Cadillacs while doing so.
I was acutely aware that, on the surface, I could potentially fit all the stereotypes of the welfare queen: I was black, the daughter of a single mother, on welfare and food stamps and living in the projects.
I would sit in class and listen to the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers and policy makers — people who had never needed and would most likely never need welfare — earnestly advocate the dismantling of the welfare state, and I would shake and shake and shake with something I couldn’t name.
On this afternoon, Mr. Grays was descending the steps of his mail truck backward, as postal workers often do to minimize wear and tear on the knees, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a car making a sharp right turn onto President from Franklin Avenue. Mr. Grays shouted at the driver, climbing back up the steps to avoid getting sideswiped. The black car, in Mr. Grays’s telling, came tearing back his way in reverse. The driver said to him, Mr. Grays recounted, “I have the right of way because I’m law enforcement.” The unmarked car held four plainclothes police officers, according to the Brooklyn borough president’s office, which has taken an interest in the case.
Zaeem Qadri, a spokesman for the Punjab provincial government, said that 65 people had been killed in the explosion and 300 wounded. Punjab’s chief minister Shahbaz Sharif announced three days of mourning and pledged to bring the perpetrators to justice, Qadri said.
Hugh Jackman is the hero we need
2 real (I mean, my dad doesn’t have any friends NOR DOES HE WANT ANY, he is a hermit, but if he did):
Thank you for approving my friend request. It was such a pleasure talking to you at your dad’s wedding. And a relief! You never know who you’re going to get stuck sitting next to at these things. I’m sure you felt the same way, even though, as I said when you sat down, I didn’t recognize you at first since I hadn’t seen you since you were a little girl. I know the miracles of the human body shouldn’t surprise a doctor like me, but what a difference a few years makes.
Anyway, I really enjoyed hearing a little bit about your life in New York and your budding writing career, and I wanted to extend an invitation to you. I’d like to offer up my guesthouse on Martha’s Vineyard anytime you want to get out of the city for a little writer’s retreat. As you may remember from visiting me in the summers when your parents were still married (as was I, to a woman who never really understood me), the guesthouse is just a few yards from the main house, where I now live year-round.
Repeat after me: “Sure! My consulting fee is [reasonable rate slightly jacked up]/hr.”
I was recently laid off on a Thursday morning with no notice and was basically perp walked to HR. I wasn’t even allowed to return to my desk to gather my personal belongings either. I was given a small severance and one weeks pay for each year I’d been there (5 years).
Today I was contacted by my former manager/supervisor requesting that I help him out with data gathering/location for a monthly report. Should I help? I’m still devastated by the no notice RIF, and honestly hope the entire organization fails. I don’t want to be a bad person, but I don’t feel that I owe them any reply at all. Would it be best to just not reply?
Dear Friend of the Toast Christina Tesoro would love your help so she can attend a Lambda writer’s retreat!
This thread:
SPOILERS FOR THE BLACKLIST BUT I DON’T REALLY CARE IT’S LIKE TEN SECONDS AND DOESN’T CONNECT TO ANYTHING
I do not know if you are watching The Blacklist, but I love this dumb fucking ridiculous show like whoa and am at the beginning of season three and the moment where our girl Keen hops the fucking FENCE to the Russian EMBASSY like a goddamn BALLER BITCH is my life rn:
< https://youtu.be/EaNwjRySafA >
The peculiar history of life insurance:
Death was everywhere in 19th-century America: Fatal injuries, disease epidemics, and the Civil War made families acutely aware of mortality. For women and children, the death of a husband and father could tumble them into poverty. Only the wealthiest Americans bought private life insurance. Women were not allowed to take out policies on their husbands, and if the husband bought the policy on himself, the money wouldn’t be protected from creditors.
Sorry, Paul:
