Much of the world manages to do just fine without air conditioning.
As for the woman in the picture, perhaps she'd be more comfortable in a regular bathing suit?
USA. A potluck. Everyone brings one dish. I have never been so out of my depth in my life.
I was invited to a gathering. "Just bring a dish to share," they said. Simple words. I did not sleep for three days.
Because I understood instantly what this was. A summit. Every guest, a lord of their own house, arriving bearing tribute. And tribute is judged. Tribute is ranked. To bring the wrong dish to the wrong table is to fall in standing before your peers, possibly forever.
So I prepared. I made my finest dish. I carried it to the door with two hands and a straight back, braced for the weighing of my worth.
The first lord arrived with a bowl of orange powder noodles. Macaroni and cheese. The crowd roared. He set it down at the center of the table. The CENTER. I noted this. The center is the seat of power.
The second lord brought a tower of small brown meat orbs in red sauce. "Meatballs," he announced, like a man laying down a sword. They were placed beside the macaroni. A strong showing. An alliance, perhaps.
I studied the table like a battlefield map. Potato salad: defensive, reliable, old money. A vegetable tray, untouched, clearly a hostage offering no one expected to win. And then a woman walked in, raised a flat box overhead, and the entire room turned and CHEERED.
Pizza. She had brought pizza. Store-bought. Still in the box.
I was stunned. She had not even cooked it. And yet the people rejoiced as if a king had entered. I revised my entire understanding of the hierarchy on the spot. Effort means nothing here. Only the roar of the crowd decides rank.
I placed my dish down, humbly, near the napkins. A peasant's position. I accepted it.
And then a man tapped my shoulder, pointed at my dish, and said the words that changed everything.
"Whoa, did you make this? This is amazing. Everybody, you GOTTA try this guy's thing."
The room turned. The room came. The room ATE. My dish vanished in ninety seconds. The pizza woman herself took a second helping and looked at me with respect.
I had won the summit. By accident. With a dish I placed by the napkins.
I understand nothing about this country. I have never been happier. I am hosting the next one.
So tell me, America.
Is there a system to the potluck? A secret rank? A hidden law?
I have decided there is not.
You just bring the thing you love, and everyone eats it, and somehow everybody wins.
It is the most insane way to hold a war.
I will fight in every single one.
USA. A house. The garage is full, so the car sleeps in the rain.
I walked past an open garage today, and I finally understand Americans.
The garage was packed to the ceiling. Boxes. A treadmill. Old chairs. Three bicycles hanging from hooks. Christmas lights in a plastic tub. No room for even one more thing.
And the family car? Parked outside. In the driveway. Getting rained on.
I stood there, deeply moved.
In Japan, we put the car in the garage and the boxes in the house. Americans do the opposite. And now I see why.
The garage is the treasure house. Inside it sleep the sacred relics: the bicycle the child outgrew, the chair no one sits in, the lights that shine one week a year. These must be protected at all costs.
The car is not a treasure. The car is a warrior. So the car is given the highest honor a warrior can receive. It stands guard at the gate, in the storm, all night, so the treasures stay dry.
The owner came out with his coffee. He saw me looking and shook his head.
"Yeah, I really gotta clean out that garage," he said.
Clean it out? I bowed to him. "You are a good man," I said. "Your car guards your home with its life."
He looked at his car. He looked at me. He said, "...thanks?"
He has never thought of it that way. But I could tell he liked it.
So now every morning I walk past, and I bow to the car in the driveway.
It has the hardest job in the family, and it never complains.
The owner waves at me now. He thinks we are friends.
We are. But mostly, I am here for the car.
This morning it was raining again. The car was soaked, still guarding the gate, still faithful.
So I gave it my umbrella.
I do not need it. I have known harder rain.
A warrior on duty should not have to stand in the storm alone.
USA. Summer. It is 95 degrees outside, and I am shivering inside a sandwich shop.
I have discovered how Americans forge strong souls.
Outside, the sun is trying to kill everyone. Inside this small restaurant, it is winter. My breath does not fog, but it is thinking about it. A man near me is eating a cold sandwich while wearing a jacket. In summer. Indoors.
In Japan we would simply turn it down. Americans do not turn it down. And now I understand them better than they understand themselves.
This cold is not an accident. This cold is a gift.
The owner has built, inside his shop, a second season. He invites you in from the brutal heat and hands you the one thing the sun has denied you all day: a reason to be cold. To endure it is to be tempered. You walk in soft and sweating. You walk out sharp and clear, a slightly stronger person than you were.
So I did not complain. I removed my outer layer and offered it to the woman at the next table, who was hugging herself. She said, "Oh, no, I'm fine, thank you." She was not fine. Her lips were blue. But she, too, understood the training. She would not break first. I respected her deeply.
The owner asked if everything was okay.
"It is perfect," I said, through my teeth, which were chattering. "Thank you for the winter."
He said, "...I can turn the AC down if you want?"
I told him no. A man does not ask the mountain to be shorter.
I stayed two hours. I ordered a hot coffee to survive. Then a second one, to hold. By the end I could no longer feel my hands, but my spirit had never been clearer.
So now, on the hottest days, I seek out the coldest rooms. I sit. I shiver. I sharpen.
And when I finally step back out into the summer heat, and it wraps around me like a warm bath, I feel it.
Reborn.
A man who has survived the winter, in August, indoors, for the price of a sandwich.
When American POWs tried to sneak her notes with their personal information to tell their families they were still alive, she gave them to the North Vietnamese. Some of them were beaten to death. You are both commies and you can both fuck off.
Henry Nowak was brutally attacked by a "weapon obsessed" sihk.
First, he was slashed in the face, then stabbed in the groin, given a fatal blow to the chest, and then stabbed again on the back of his legs as he tried to escape over a fence.
A video taken by Digwa was shown in court where Henry attempts to climb over the fence to get away from his killer.
It was said there was a trail of blood.
A witness heard one voice (Digwa) say "you’re not going to get away with this big man" and another scared voice (Nowak) calling out, "I’ve been stabbed".
To say the police did not react because they were "misled" is a disgrace. He was cut on his face, he was stabbed in three parts of his lower body, he was stabbed deep into his chest. These officers are incompetent at best, complicit at worst.
Release the footage, all of it. Let's see who these officers are. Let's see how they reacted. Let's see what actually happened.
This is not just about Henry Nowak, this is about all of us. If it can happen to him it can happen to you, and it won't be long until it happens again.
Has Kathy Hochul ever drained a free throw with any Knicks players?
President @realDonaldTrump did, in a suit, alongside Jamal Crawford, Penny Hardaway, and Isiah Thomas.
(The Apprentice, Season 4, Episode 9 — 2005)
Reporter: "What do you say to President Trump saying he's a lifelong Knicks fan?"
Hochul: “I’d ask him to name the starting lineup of the 1993 Championship team and see how he does."
The last time the Knicks won a championship was 1973.
@Mnewbis@6ixbuzztv Rob would drunkenly call his constituents in the dead of night to discuss their complaints and then resolve them come business hours. Ontario did not deserve this champion of the people so the Good Lord had to take him away and replace with Doug. Tragic!