#c: vivek

[lovesspell]

Location: Windsor Sporting Goods Starter for @angstfactory

"I'm two seconds away from tearing someone's head off," Eve complained as they bursts into the store looking for Vivek. It was later in the day and thankfully the store wasn't very full though they did earn themselves a very nasty look from a woman there with her daughter. They shrugged in response, instead continuing until they finally found their best friend. "Do you happen to be in the market of adopting a younger brother? He's a shithead but he'd be good at kidsitting," Eve finally puffed out their cheeks and sighed before running their hands over their face. "My brother is driving me crazy, treating the house like he owns it and he was playing his music so loud last night I couldn't sleep. It's like he's going through latent puberty. He tells me it's cause it's part of his meditation but I feel like he's trying to annoy me to death."

Eve finally took a breath, realizing just how heated they were and shook their head. "Sorry, I just needed to get that out, I came because I figured you'd be closing soon and you could accompany me to drown my frustrations in a stack of cheese fries. What do you say?"

[diyasgarden]

i hope that one day usha vance, vivek ramaswamy, nikki haley, and every other indian who supported trump in any shape or form will wake up to realize what exactly they’ve done.

pandering to the white man does nothing for us. they do not see us as equals. and they never will.

[1000-year-old-virgin]

Books I’ve Read In 2024

1. The Last Picture Show - Larry McMurtry

2. The Furrows An Elegy - Namwali Serpell

3. House of Hunger - Alexis Henderson

Great Sapphic vampire themed gothic fantasy/horror novel.

4. The Secret Of Cold Hill - Peter James

5. A Sliver of Darkness: Stories - C. J. Tudor

6. Those Across The River - Christopher Buehlman

I love Christopher's writing style.

7. I'm Afraid of Men - Vivek Shraya

I picked this up out of boredom waiting for a friend at the library and let me tell you how this book captured me. I'm not one for non-fiction but I read it within 1 hour and could not put it down. Traumatic and often sad but a great read.

8. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Alex Irvine

9. X-Men Mutant Empire: Book 1 - Siege - Christopher Golden

10. X-Men Mutant Empire: Book 2 - Sanctuary - Christopher Golden

That one part with Ororo Munro going HAM on Magneto's ass was so amazingly written. I think people often forget how deadly and dangerous Storm is because most comic writers can't seem to look past the fact that she can do more than hurl lightening bolts.

11. X-Men Mutant Empire: Book 3 - Salvation - Christopher Golden

[3holmes]

Vivek is the Republican Obama.

[graphicpolicy]

The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story gets an Anniversary Edition

The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story gets an Anniversary Edition #thebeatles #comicbooks #comics #graphicnovel

Dark Horse Books presents a new edition of the Eisner, Harvey, and Lambda Literary Award-winning graphic novel, The Fifth Beatle, in The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story (Anniversary Edition), written by Vivek J. Tiwary, illustrated and colored by Andrew C. Robinson and Kyle Baker, and lettered by Steve Dutro. The Fifth Beatle recounts the true story of visionary Beatles manager Brian…

[herpsandbirds]

It makes me very happy when you add “EAT A TASTY ___” to descriptions, I say it to myself when I eat a tasty treat

Well then, I know what you need...

Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis), male, EAT A TASTY BERRY!!!, family Turdidae, Huntly Meadows Wetlands, VA, USA

photograph by Parameswaran Ponnudurai

Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus), EAT A TASTY FISH!!!, family Laridae, order Charadriiformes, Florida, USA

photograph by James C Sengul

Purple Flower Beetle (Chlorocala africana oertzeni), EAT A TASTY BANANA!!!, family Scarabaeidae, found in Tanzania

Other subspecies are green.

photograph by Richard Nakamura (@richards_inverts)

Limpkin (Aramus guarauna) EAT A TASTY SNAIL!!!, family Aramidae, order Gruiformes, Florida, USA

Limpkins specialize in eating large aquatic snails, like apple snails, but also feed on other small aquatic animals.

photograph by Dean Fleischman

Saw-scaled Viper (Echis carinatus), EAT A TASTY CENTIPEDE!!!, Viperidae, India

Venomous. 

Photograph by Vivek Sharma

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

❤️ Black History Month - Queer Books + Black Authors

🦇 Good evening, beloved bookish bats. I hope you're having a wonderful weekend so far! Are you trying to read more queer books this year? More books by diverse authors? Books by black authors, not only for Black History Month, but all year long? Do I have a list for you (now featuring four new slides / 48 new books!).

❓What queer book and/or book featuring black characters have you recently read? Which one is on your tbr?

❤️ The Taking of Jake Livingston - Ryan Douglass ❤️ Mademoiselle Revolution - Zoe Sivak ❤️ Brown Girl Dreaming - Jacqueline Woodson ❤️ Alex Wise vs. the End of the World - Terry J. Benton-Walker ❤️ The Forest Demands its Due - Kosoko Jackson ❤️ Monstrous - Jessica Lewis ❤️ Thank You for Sharing - Rachel Runya Katz ❤️ Salt the Water - Candice Iloh ❤️ Trailer Park Prince - Andre L. Bradley ❤️ Blessings - Chukwuebuka Ibeh ❤️ Escaping Mr. Rochester - L.L. McKinney ❤️ Whenever You’re Ready - Rachel Runya Katz

❤️ Blood Justice - Terry J. Benton-Walker ❤️ Something Kindred - Ciara Burch ❤️ Infinity Alchemist - Kacen Callender ❤️ Vagabonds! - Eloghosa Osunde ❤️ Songs of Irie - Asha Ashanti Bromfield ❤️ Love and Sportsball - Meka James ❤️ Dead Girls Walking - Sami Ellis ❤️ Sleep Like Death - Kalynn Bayron ❤️ Where Shadows Meet - Patrice Caldwell ❤️ Family Meal - Bryan Washington ❤️ Where Sleeping Girls Lie - Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé ❤️ Leather, Lace, and Locs - Anne Shade

❤️ Brooms - Jasmine Walls & Teo DuVall ❤️ Lush Lives - J. Vanessa Lyon ❤️ Second Night Stand - Karelia & Fay Stetz-Waters ❤️ Broughtupsy - Christina Cooke ❤️ Skye Falling - Mia McKenzie ❤️ It’s About Damn Time - Arlan Hamilton & Rachel L. Nelson ❤️ The Color Purple - Alice Walker ❤️ And Then He Sang a Lullaby - Ani Kayode ❤️ Till the Last Beat of My Heart - Louangie Bou-Montes ❤️ Stars in Your Eyes - Kacen Callender ❤️ Prince of the Palisades - Julian Winters ❤️ Icarus - K. Ancrum

❤️ The Black Period - Hafizah Augustus Geter ❤️ How Long Til Black Future Month? - N. K. Jemisin ❤️ The Poisons We Drink - Bethany Baptiste ❤️ I Think They Love You - Julian Winters ❤️ Dear Senthuran - Akwaeke Emezi ❤️ Another Brooklyn - Jacqueline Woodson ❤️ D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding - Chencia C. Higgins ❤️ So Let Them Burn - Kamilah Cole ❤️ Sister Outsider - Audre Lorde ❤️ Red at the Bone - Jacqueline Woodson ❤️ How to Live Free in a Dangerous World - Shayla Lawson ❤️ I’m So (Not) Over You - Kosoko Jackson

❤️ Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender ❤️ Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta ❤️ Warrior of the Wind by Suyi Davies Okungbowa ❤️ I'm a Wild Seed by Sharon Lee De La Cruz ❤️ Real Life by Brandon Taylor ❤️ Ruthless Pamela Jean by Carol Denise Mitchell ❤️ The Unbroken by C.L. Clark ❤️ Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova ❤️ Skin Deep Magic by Craig Laurance Gidney ❤️ The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi ❤️ That Could Be Enough by Alyssa Cole ❤️ Work for It by Talia Hibbert

❤️ All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson ❤️ The Deep by Rivers Solomon ❤️ How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters ❤️ Running With Lions by Julian Winters ❤️ Right Where I Left You by Julian Winters ❤️ This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender ❤️ The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum ❤️ This Is What It Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow ❤️ Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa ❤️ Black Boy Joy by Kwame Mbalia ❤️ Legendborn by Tracy Deonn ❤️ The Wicker King by K. Ancrum

❤️ Pet by Akwaeke Emezi ❤️ You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson ❤️ Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole ❤️ Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron ❤️ Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann ❤️ A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney ❤️ Power & Magic by Joamette Gil ❤️ The Black Veins by Ashia Monet ❤️ Treasure by Rebekah Weatherspoon ❤️ The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow ❤️ Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James ❤️ Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett

❤️ The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta ❤️ Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee ❤️ A Phoenix First Must Burn (edited) by Patrice Caldwell ❤️ Rise to the Sun by Leah Johnson ❤️ Things We Couldn't Say by Jay Coles ❤️ Black Boy Out of Time by Hari Ziyad ❤️ Darling by K. Ancrum ❤️ The Secrets of Eden by Brandon Goode ❤️ Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé ❤️ Off the Record by Camryn Garrett ❤️ Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers ❤️ The Henna Wars - Adiba Jaigirdar

❤️ How to Dispatch a Human by Stephanie Andrea Allen ❤️ Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans ❤️ The Essential June Jordan (edited) by Jan Heller Levi and Christoph Keller ❤️ A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark ❤️ A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney ❤️ Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo ❤️ Dread Nation by Justina Ireland ❤️ Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome ❤️ Masquerade by Anne Shade ❤️ One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite & Maritza Moulite ❤️ Soulstar by C.L. Polk ❤️ 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell

❤️ Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender ❤️ Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby ❤️ A Little Kissing Between Friends - Chencia C. Higgins ❤️ The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi ❤️ If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann ❤️ Sweethand by N.G. Peltier ❤️ This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron ❤️ Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon ❤️ Friday I’m in Love by Camryn Garrett ❤️ Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez ❤️ Memorial by Bryan Washington ❤️ Patsy by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn

❤️ Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon ❤️ How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole ❤️ Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackosn ❤️ Mouths of Rain (edited) by Briona Simone Jones ❤️ Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia ❤️ Love's Divine by Ava Freeman ❤️ The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr ❤️ Odd One Out by Nic Stone ❤️ Symbiosis by Nicky Drayden ❤️ Thanks a Lot, Universe by Chad Lucas ❤️ The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons ❤️ Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

❤️ Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert ❤️ My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson ❤️ Pleasure and Spice by Fiona Zedde ❤️ No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull ❤️ The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus ❤️ Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor ❤️ The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin ❤️ Peaces by Helen Oyeyem ❤️ The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk ❤️ Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh ❤️ Bingo Love by Tee Franklin, Jenn St-Onge, Joy San ❤️ The Heart Does Not Bend by Makeda Silvera

❤️ King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender ❤️ By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery ❤️ Busy Ain't the Half of It by Frederick Smith & Chaz Lamar Cruz ❤️ Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo ❤️ Sin Against the Race by Gar McVey-Russell ❤️ Trumpet by Jackie Kay ❤️ Remembrance by Rita Woods ❤️ Daughters of Nri by Reni K. Amayo ❤️ You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour ❤️ The Summer of Everything by Julian Winters ❤️ Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi ❤️ Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyem

[thebeatles]

The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story (2012). Vivek J. Tiwary, Andrew C. Robinson (Illustrations).

[havockingboo]

*cha cha's real smooth in your ask box about the second enigma AU* What's the dynamic between Zahari, Shrike, and Vivek in this AU? :]c

Whatever the hell this is is their entire dynamic

LOL but in all seriousness, their dynamics are…something.

They get on each other’s nerves, but at least with Shrike and Zahari, they can still bond with each other and get along since no one else can handle their stupidity and lunacy. Vivek on the other hand is just antagonistic towards them. No matter if they get the job done like he asks, no matter if they’re on their best behavior, he is just a hateful man that maybe just likes to be an ass, who knows!

[kccinstitutes]

🎉 From B.Tech Dreams to Big-Tech Deals! 🎉

Once upon a time, four brave B.Tech - CSE warriors – Vivek, Areeb, Ankit, and Tushar – entered the gates of KCC Institutes with a single goal: to survive endless assignments, 8 a.m. lectures, and every engineer’s nemesis… the 50-page project report.

After years of late-night coding sessions (fueled by caffeine and maybe a few panic attacks) and occasional “I know the answer” moments in class, these four champions have achieved the ultimate victory. They’ve bagged jobs as Software Engineers at Jellyfish Technologies with a whopping 6 LPA package! 💰💻

Now they’re ready to swap “CTRL+C” and “CTRL+V” with actual coding skills (we hope) and bring their A-game to the tech world! 🚀

We’re incredibly proud of these newly minted engineers, who’ve proven that with enough coffee, Wi-Fi, and a sprinkle of last-minute motivation, anything is possible! Join us in congratulating them and wishing them good luck as they start their journey of debugging life! 🐛💼

futuretechtitans #kccproud #engineersatwork #nomoreassignments #jellyfishtechnologies #bigdreamsbigdeals #codinglegends #latenightheroes

[democratthatlovesguns]

Biden Pardons Vs. Trump Pardons

No, there was no Biden pardon for an actual crime that was committed. Biden, God bless his innocent heart, thought that preemptive pardons would incentivize Trump to forego his pettiness and actually try to do some good for the American people, from the start.

The Trump blanket pardons of Jan 6 insurrectionist assholes is the only proof you need of how much disdain Trump has for the rule of law, by the people. It shows how much he believes his word should be law.

The sad truth is that Trump does not have to do much to convince delusional dumbass republicans that this is okay. They believed him when he said cutting the C Corporation tax by 15% was actually bad for him, just as much as they believe his 1.5% victory over Kamala Harris was a "landslide" and "decisive" victory - these people are that fucking stupid. Additionally, a large swath of them are proud to say that Trump could murder someone on the White House lawn, and they would still support him - that is how much they hate equality and democracy - they are that fucking dangerously stupid.

SOME OF THEM ARE SO FUCKING STUPID, THEY HAVE CHANGED THE PHRASE "UNDER GOD" IN THE PLEDGE OF ALLIGIANCE TO "UNDER TRUMP" - THEY ARE THAT FUCKING STUPID!

It is all a distraction ... I guess Vivek must still have some humanity left, he quit after finding out that Elon's grand plan for cutting taxes while increasing social security benefits is to deport people that have been paying into the social security fund for decades, and deny them any compensation or return of the money they've paid thus far (suddenly frees up a lot of money). I guess this is bringing back good old fashioned white Christian values a la "greatest generation" ... Exploiting the labor of nonwhites for their shameless gain.

[dwellordream]

Best Reads of 2024

this year i read 300 books. which i think is impressive but not as impressive as it sounds bc many of these books were very short, easy reads meant to be like, stuff you read at the airport or sitting by the pool on vacation. so it's not like i was tackling the harvard classics. i also read extremely fast; it only takes me about an hour to do 300 pages unless it's a super dense complex text. that said, here is a list of all the books i read this year that i would rate 4 stars or higher, separated by genre: Fantasy/Magical Realism: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett Highfire by Eoin Colfer Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi Chlorine by Jade Song The Passion by Jeanette Winterson The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter Realistic Fiction: We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride & Jo Piazza Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent Only Child by Rhiannon Navin Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper Prima Facie by Suzie Miller Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg Piglet by Lottie Hazell The List by Yomi Adegoke A Winter's Rime by Carol Dunbar The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas

Mystery/Thriller: Queenpin by Megan Abbott Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley The Guest by Emma Cline Advika and the Hollywood Wives by Kirthana Ramisetti Kala by Colin Walsh Descent by Tim Johnston Wahala by Nikki May When We Were Bright and Beautiful by Jillian Medoff We Could Be Beautiful by Swan Huntley Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll Nothing Can Hurt You by Nicola Maye Goldberg Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon The Lagos Wife by Vanessa Walters Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald Sea Wife by Amity Gaige Last Seen Wearing by Hilary Waugh The Black Cabinet by Patricia Wentworth Historical Fiction: Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen Gilded Mountain by Kate Manning All You Have to Do is Call by Kerri Maher Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt Payback by Mary Gordon A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley The Affairs of the Falcons by Melissa Rivero Longbourn by Jo Baker The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson Go to Hell Ole Miss by Jeff Barry The Divorcees by Rowan Beaird Consequences by Penelope Lively Iron Curtain: A Love Story by Vesna Goldsworthy Homestead by Melinda Moustakis Not Our Kind by Kitty Zeldis Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell Teddy by Emily Dunlay Science Fiction: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom Fever by Deon Meyer The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen

Romance: Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler Meant to Be Mine by Hannah Orenstein When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson American Royalty by Tracey Livesay The One by Julie Argy The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin Queen of Urban Prophecy by Aya de Léon That Dangerous Energy by Aya de Léon The Dove in the Belly by Jim Grimsley Fatima Tate Takes the Cake by Khadija VanBrakle Faro’s Daughter by Georgette Heyer Horror: Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka Cujo by Stephen King Night Watching by Tracy Sierra The Garden by Clare Beams The House of Ashes by Stuart Neville The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman True Crime: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Columbine by Dave Cullen Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students by J. Reuben Appelman The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age by Michael Wolraich Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope

History: Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel The Burning Blue: The Untold Story of Christa McAuliffe and Nasa’s Challenger Disaster by Kevin Cook The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House by Sally Bedell Smith As Long as We Both Shall Love: The White Wedding in Postwar America by Karen M. Dunak Babysitter: An American History by Miriam Forman-Brunell Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin All She Lost: The Explosion in Lebanon, the Collapse of a Nation and the Women who Survive by Dalal Mawad Psychology: Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker The Anxious Generation: How The Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff Misdiagnosed: One Woman’s Tour of -And Escape From- Healthcareland by Jody Berger Stolen Child: A Mother’s Journey to Rescue Her Son from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Laurie Gough Zig-Zag Boy: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Tanya Frank I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide by Rachel Zimmerman Everything Is Fine: A Memoir by Vince Granata Juliet the Maniac by Juliet Escoria

Memoir: Upstairs At The White House by J.B. West A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival by Kelly Sundberg This Boy We Made: A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown by Taylor Harris I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell

Fragile Beginnings: Discoveries and Triumphs in the Newborn ICU by Adam Wolfberg The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team by Kara Goucher and Mary Pilon Remedies for Sorrow: An Extraordinary Child, a Secret Kept from Pregnant Women, and a Mother’s Pursuit of the Truth by Megan Nix Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie by Julia Haart Minding the Manor: The Memoir of a 1930s English Kitchen Maid by Mollie Moran Love in the Blitz: The War Letters of Eileen Alexander to Gershon Ellenbogan by Eileen Alexander Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story by Lis Smith

The Apology by Eve Ensler Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me by Adrienne Brodeur

One Way Back: A Memoir by Christine Blasey Ford Biography: The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty by Susan Page Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson by Rebecca Boggs Roberts King: A Life by Jonathan Eig Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams by Louisa Thomas

American Girls: One Woman’s Journey into the Islamic State and Her Sister’s Fight to Bring Her Home by Jessica Roy Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli

Gender: Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement by Andi Zeisler All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership by Darcy Lockman Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks Enslaved Women in America: From Colonial Times to Emancipation by Emily West You’ll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other Than Love by Marcia A. Zug The Red Menace: How Lipstick Changed the Face of American History by Ilise S. Carter Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kelby Vera at HuffPost:

Vivek Ramaswamy got quite a strong reaction from conservatives when he tried to explain hiring trends across the tech sector in a culturally-charged social media post on Thursday. In an extended post shared on X, the tech entrepreneur wrote about how “top companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans,” claiming the imbalance “isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation)” but rather because of differences on the societal level. “A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture,” Ramaswamy continued, before telling readers, “Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH.” The CEO-turned-politician’s assessment? That “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” Ramaswamy suggested that entertainment has had an outsized impact on shaping mainstream American values “at least since the 90s and likely longer.”

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he claimed. Comparing and contrasting characters from several popular ’90s sitcoms, Ramaswamy went on to say, “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.” His solution? “More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’” While Ramaswamy’s point about pop culture seemed reasonable enough, the entrepreneur’s diagnosis veered into problematic overgeneralizations when he claimed the difference boiled down to families’ cultural and geographic backgrounds. “Most normal American parents look skeptically at ‘those kinds of parents,’” he wrote. “More normal American kids view such ‘those kinds of kids’ with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.”

[...] Ramaswamy then tried to rally readers to help shift the status quo by envisioning a future where America “once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.” While he pinned demographic disparities across the tech world on supposed cultural differences, the imbalance is more likely about dollars and cents. In 2020, a study by the Economic Policy Institute found that employers that rely on America’s H-1B visa program to recruit temporary employees with “highly specialized” skills and technical education often pay those workers well below the market wages. Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Google, Apple and Facebook have all made robust use of the program to fill job shortages. With President-elect Donald Trump preparing to implement a draconian deportation strategy when he assumes office next month, conservatives still seem to be at odds over how to approach the labor shortages troubling many of America’s biggest and most profitable businesses. Though Tesla CEO Elon Musk, like Ramaswamy, has vowed to be behind Trump’s harsh immigration policies, on Wednesday he posted that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” and the country needs “to recruit top talent wherever they may be.”

DOGE co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy helped spark MAGA-on-MAGA violence over his X post on cultural differences on work expectations between native-born and foreign-born Americans.

[mitigatedchaos]

So, a few months into Trump admin 2.0. To what extent do you think the Singaporean competence + abundance agenda technocrats are in charge?

So on January 19th, I said...

My expectations for the incoming Trump administration are not especially high. I expect that he will: 1) enforce the border (he did that last time) 2) ban left-wing racial discrimination by fedgov (he did that last time) 3) allow incandescent lights (he did that last time) I am confident that he will do all three of these things. Beyond that, it's difficult to predict what he will do.

All of those things are in progress.

DOGE seems to have focused on attacking left-wing sources of funding and also whatever captured Musk's attention. People say that Vivek was the one that wanted to cut regulations.

I wrote before the election:

Republicans don't have a good stack for actually replacing all of these agency personnel with highly agentic, highly intelligent, mission-driven individuals.

In 2023, I wrote:

I cannot stress this enough, if liberals will not solve this problem with a scalpel, then conservatives will solve it with a sledgehammer.

For the 2024 election piece, I also wrote:

The blue candidate is low-variance short-termism. The red candidate is high-variance medium-termism.

The high variance is certainly here. I'm hearing that some choices, like one of the CDC/NIH guys, are competence choices. Other choices are RFK. It's really hit-or-miss.

Obviously the tariffs have made a lot of people angry, and the unpredictability of them is likely making production planning difficult. Many of the countries with tariffs leveled against them also have tariffs on the US - economists wanted the US to just suck it up and let other countries have tariffs even when we don't. I was willing to mostly shrug my shoulders at it, because the US is wealthy enough for it not to be a major issue. Trump disagrees. It's difficult to predict the outcome of him rattling the cage of the global production system like this.

I want to thank you for your long answer regarding the balance of exports earlier. I could feel that some variable was missing, and you pointed it out.

However, and I don't mean this as a moral criticism, because the technical and ideological work hasn't been done in general, I felt that it doesn't resolve the tension between global production and national sovereignty, which is what was bothering me.

I was going to use a hypothetical example in which France is importing diesel engines for APCs from Germany, and then Germany invades, terminating their access to engines, denying them access to the "APC" portion of the vehicle configuration space temporarily (we can think of production chains as reducing costs to access (narrowing) regions of a configuration space for products), dramatically increasing the price of access over a more medium-length term (as e.g. the APCs are redesigned for tractor enginers), and potentially overcoming the French government within that gap.

There is also the problem, pointed out by Vance, that advances in the manufacturing portion of the stack allow for improvements in the engineering portion of the stack. Quantity is also a quality all its own, due to economies of scale (such as parts being available on short notice).

Consultation with AI (Grok) suggested that the standard doctrine is what I thought it was - just make carve-outs for military industry.

I was hoping for a higher synthesis, some more elegant method to maintain a sufficiently-large local industrial base while still participating in global trade to a significant degree.

I don't know what that would look like. We could imagine a system in which there are multiple competing firms, and there is a market for 1,000,000 cars annually, but there is a quota where the first 500,000 cars sold each year must be domestically produced. This would give us, simultaneously, a minimum local industrial capacity, and global price information. Any local firm that wants to sell car 500,001 would have to be competitive globally.

If they aren't, though, then who would want to buy a quota car? What happens if all the quota cars suck that year or only 498,000 are sold? Reasonably speaking, Toyota might build a factory in Kentucky to end up on the first 500k side of the quota. Imagine having to wait until August before you're allowed to buy a Toyota though. Very annoying.

Obviously, a flat tariff of e.g. $5,000 might just lead to domestic industry making cars $5,000 worse. So that's not right, either.

Thinking about it for another minute, it's basically just two different moats - one is the cost of Toyota building and running a factory, while the other is $5,000 per car, so if we divide Toyota's costs by some number of cars to be produced maybe the efficiency hit is much smaller, like $500.

It's basically a matter of a trade-off between global efficiency and geographic/population resilience plus decision-making power/sovereignty. None of the answers are satisfying.

I think centrally-unplanned would describe this, like another design problem I put forward, as a "chess problem," and suggest that it's a waste of time. On the other hand, if economists were to produce less-damaging policies for populists to implement, because populists lack professional staff, they could just hand such policies over, let populists sign them and gloat publicly to their supporters, and then economists could breathe a sigh of relief about their 401k portfolios. (They could even spell out all of the problems in the proposal.)

I heard the administration gutted NEPA, some environmental law involving lots of consultations / etc that slowed down construction.

In my opinion, the Trump administration are attempting to do their thing with one tenth the personnel and one tenth the organization they would need to execute it effectively.

In a sense, this limits the potential damage, as they’ll have to continue hiring a lot of blues due to manpower shortages, just as they already do.

The big thing that I'm hoping for is that this will change Democrats, by breaking them of the idea that they can rely on demographics to provide them with a "durable majority," and thus breaking them of their authoritarianism and lack of care regarding institution and governance quality. I want them to understand and internalize that public institutions require broad public support, which means that they shouldn't just be used as components of a political machine, and require hostages members of the other party in order to provide ideological balance.

Ezra Klein is a snake, but it looks like his faction is making a bid for power. Of course, we already knew that crushing construction was bad, so the real question is whether they can overcome the entrenched interests within the party. If the rhetoric is good but California still gets out-built by Texas, then Republicans can just keep pointing at the lack of construction.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The university of waterloo (Vivek Goel President and Vice-Chancellor) sent this out a few days ago regarding the pro-Palestinian protest encampment on campus.

University issues legal Trespass Notice

June 21, 2024

Today (Friday, June 21, 2024), the University of Waterloo issued a legal Trespass Notice to members of the OccupyUW encampment that has been in place since May 13 on the Grad House Green. 

This notice means that members of the encampment must leave the Grad House Green immediately and must not return the encampment to University property. If they fail to comply, they risk facing consequences consistent with the Trespass to Property Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. T. 21.  

A copy of the legal notice is posted around the encampment and available online. 

The encampment and numerous disruptive protest actions violate several items on our list of prohibited activities and also violate various University of Waterloo policies.  

We recognize that taking the step to serve a legal Trespass Notice will be uncomfortable for many people in our community. The University has protected everyone’s right to free speech and expression throughout this protest activity. This has included myriad disruptive protest actions on campus since November 2023. The University took no action to interfere with any of these expressions.  

However, the right to protest does not mean people have the right to endlessly occupy a shared university space. The University has acted with restraint in enforcing its policies, and the law. We have also said clearly that individuals who take actions like the intimidation and harassment of people attempting to enter the Senate room risk potential legal and policy consequences including but not limited to the Trespass Act and applicable University policies. 

The University cannot tolerate disruptive behaviour that creates concern for the safety of people on campus. We cannot tolerate behaviour that crosses the line to harassment. The behaviour of encampment members is becoming untenable and causing greater disruption to the normal business of the University.  

The University will continue to uphold the right to free expression in line with the principles it has received from the Task Force on Freedom of Expression and Inclusive Engagement. 

Throughout the encampment we have strived to communicate the actions the University is willing and able to take to address the concerns that have been raised. We have already disclosed information on our investments and started work on two task forces to look at our approach to investments and partnerships.  

The actions we are taking are reasonable ways to address the issues being raised within the structures of the University. These are also the actions we can take that are within our mandate to advance learning through scholarship, teaching and research within a spirit of free enquiry and expression.  

We have a long road ahead of us to resolve the divisions that have emerged at our institution since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Over the summer, in addition to our task forces, we will look at ways to help restore our sense of community. You can expect to hear more on this in the coming weeks. 

~~~~

[crepesuzette2023]

I'm in love with "The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story" by Vivek Tiwary, Andrew C. Robinson & Kyle Baker

The 10th anniversary edition appeared in 2023. I got it for Christmas.

I love it because it's not an illustrated biography (nor is it a Beatles book)—it is a journey into Brian's mind. The illustrations are expressive and unusual. The writing tells truth as poetry. It's worthy of a man who saw what others could not—and made it his mission to share it with the world.

It shows the nights of Liverpool, where Brian learns that love is dangerous, and the stylish success of the family business, where he's Mr. Brian.

The magic moment when he meets the band that will be the life and death of him. The majestic bullfight of fame and love begins...

The book gives him an ally, an angel, a demon.

The rejections. The world saying no, go back to—

The Screams. Ed Sullivan. Nat Weiss. Boys. The Philippines. Sgt. Pepper.

Brian's loneliness and greed for success are not shown as a character weakness, but a reaction to not being allowed to love openly, due to the barbaric reality of "The Wilde Laws." There is always something missing, never a place to rest.

The book plays with metaphors and symbolism. It serves banter and stings, it seduces and cuts. And in the end...

The 10th Anniversary Edition has lots of additional material, such as an annotated playlist, early sketches, and various writings.

"... brian already had at least two social marks against him—he was Jewish and he was gay.

christ, you know it ain't easy, dusty springfield was catholic and gay but she was able to sing her way through it.

brian had to stand in the wings and watch his lads twist and shout

but those wings became the wings of the world" (andrew loog oldham) [all illustrations from THE FIFTH BEATLE: The Brian Epstein Story (10th Anniversary Edition, 2023), by Vivek Tiwary, Andrew C. Robinson & Kyle Baker. More materials on the book's website]