USA. The man with the mop came to my table at closing time. "You doing okay?" I told him I was conducting a funeral. He nodded. Then he said: "You want a box?" I looked at what remained. Brisket. Ribs. Both half-finished. Both still present. Both still waiting. In my country, you do not box a fallen warrior. You honor what remains on the field. You do not put it in a small white container and carry it home on the train. "Yes," I said. He returned with two boxes. Not one. Two. He had assessed the situation correctly. He packed the brisket with care. He packed the ribs with equal care. He stacked the boxes. He put them in a bag. He handed me the bag. He said: "Good luck." I did not know what he meant by this. I know now. I carried the bag home. I held it away from my body slightly, the way you carry something that deserves more than a bag but currently has no other option. I put both boxes in the refrigerator. I stood in front of the closed refrigerator for a moment. Behind that door: fourteen hours of smoke, reduced to leftovers. A philosophy, in a styrofoam container. A decision I still had not made, now cold. I went to bed. At 6am, I was awake. I told myself this was normal. I told myself I was simply an early riser. I opened the refrigerator. The boxes were there. Patient. Cold. Unchanged. I reheated the brisket first. Low heat. Slowly. It deserved this. It had waited fourteen hours to be cooked. It could wait ten more minutes to be reheated. The smell filled the kitchen. I sat down. I ate the brisket in the morning light, alone, in silence, the way you eat something when you finally understand what it was trying to tell you. It was better than last night. This is not possible. This happened anyway. I reheated the ribs. They were also better. I sat with this information for a while. Last night, surrounded by the noise of a closing restaurant, full from sides I had not planned to eat, I had not been ready. The brisket knew this. The ribs knew this. They had waited. They had waited through the restaurant, through the closing, through the bag, through the refrigerator, through the night, through 6am, through ten minutes of low heat, and arrived here, at this table, at this morning, ready to be understood. I finished everything. Both boxes. Empty. A kunoichi does not defeat brisket and ribs. A kunoichi is defeated by them, rests, and is defeated again more completely the following morning. This is not failure. This is the full experience. The box was not a consolation. The box was the second act. They knew. They always knew. I was the last to understand.

HORRIFYING: Yasmeen Khan, owner of a beauty salon, offered free courses to young Christian and Hindu women to lure them in. Once there, she drugged their drinks. When they lost consciousness, she called her husband Mohammed Khan, who raped them while she stood watch at the entrance. They recorded the abuses to blackmail them and force them to have relations with more Muslim men. When questioned, Yasmeen justified the crimes by saying that helping to rape "infidel girls" would lead her to Paradise. This is Islam.

In Tampa, Florida, Muslims attacked a Christian preacher because they were very angry that he was preaching the Bible in “their area.” They really think they own the place.

Look at all these great people

🇵🇪 In 1991, Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori handed out weapons to citizens to defend themselves from communist terrorists. The more I learn about this man, the more I admire him. I wish more countries had leaders like this.

休養日だけどだらけない、軽いストレッチで筋肉をゆるめて回復中💪

"Trump's UFC arena is defiling the WH" Those same people in 2020:

I know comparing modern society to Idiocracy is really played out but man

I I’ll never forgive people who voted for Trump. This is on them. The Lincoln Memorial is hallowed ground. Where our greatest president, who gave his life to end slavery, is commentated. Where the Gettysburg Address is written. We live as graffiti now.

One day I hope MAGA supporters can ADMIT if Barack Hussien Obama had done anything remotely close to this, we’d still be hearing about it today

USA. A breakfast counter. The waitress recommended the biscuits and gravy, and when the plate arrived, I thought something had gone wrong in the kitchen. I say this with shame. The dish looked like a construction site after rain. Pale mounds. Gray ladle-fall. Speckles I could not identify. In my land, the eye eats first. A meal is arranged like a garden. This meal was arranged like weather. "Is it… finished?" I asked, carefully. "Honey, that's what it looks like." The man beside me was already eating his. He did not look up. "Just try it." I am a man who has charged hillsides at dawn. I raised the fork. I tried it. I must now formally apologize to the biscuits, the gravy, the waitress, the kitchen, and the entire breakfast tradition of the American South. It was magnificent. Warm. Peppered. The biscuit drank the gravy the way a field drinks rain — THAT is why it is shaped like that, you fool — and every mound I had insulted was a soft fold of comfort that my homeland, in eight hundred years, never once thought to invent. "Well?" the waitress asked. "I judged it," I confessed. "By its appearance. I am ashamed." "Everybody does, hon." Everybody does. A national dish that forgives you for doubting it. It expects the doubt. It waits for you on the other side of it. Do not judge the gravy by its face. Judge yourself, for hesitating. I order it every Saturday now. I no longer see the construction site. I see only the garden. It was a garden the whole time. The eye must be trained.