In America, a stranger will rename you in a single breath, and you are simply expected to come when called.
I went to eat at a busy restaurant. A young man at the front asked for my name, to mark my place in line. I gave it the weight it has carried for eight hundred years.
"Nobunaga."
He smiled, nodded, and wrote it down with great confidence. Then he read it back to me, to be sure he had honored it correctly.
"Perfect. Banana, party of one."
Banana. He had heard my name, held it a moment, and returned to me something rounder and more cheerful. To refuse the name a host gives is to refuse his welcome. I bowed. I was Banana now.
Then he handed me a small black disc, said it would "light up and buzz" when my table was ready, and turned to the next guest as though he had not just placed a living thing in my hands.
I held it in both palms, the way one holds a small sleeping beast that may wake. I found a place to stand. I waited, ready.
It woke.
It screamed. It flashed red. It leapt and shook in my hands like a captured spirit demanding release. A lesser man would have dropped it. I did not. I gripped it, steady, looked into its blinking lights, and told it, in a low voice, that its time had come. Then I carried it back to the host with both hands, the way one returns a hawk to its master.
He took it without looking and shouted across the entire room.
"BANANA! Party of one, your table's ready!"
A hundred strangers turned. I rose. I crossed that floor as Banana, spine straight, chin level, a man answering to his name. A child pointed at me. I gave the child a small bow. He had recognized me.
All through the meal they kept me. "How's it tasting, Banana?" "More water, Banana?" The check, when it came, said Banana, and thanked me for visiting. By the end the whole staff knew me. They waved as I left. "Night, Banana!"
So tell me honestly.
For eight hundred years my clan answered to one name. Tonight I answered to a fruit, calmed a screaming relic in my bare hands, and ate among people who were glad I came.
When the little disc lights up, is the table truly mine, or am I only keeping it warm for the next Banana?
Because I have already decided to return on Friday, and to ask, very humbly, for the same disc.
Dear @WhiteHouse, my name is Rodney Smith Jr., founder of Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service in Huntsville, Alabama. Through our 50 Yard Challenge, over 6,000 kids across the country have signed up to mow free lawns for the elderly, disabled, veterans, active-duty military, first responders, and single parents. With America celebrating its 250th birthday this year and me also being born on July 4th, I wanted to humbly ask if a few kids from our program and myself could travel to Washington, D.C. to help mow the White House lawn for this historic celebration.
More than anything, I want these kids to see how a simple act of service something as ordinary as mowing a lawn for someone in need can lead to extraordinary places. What better lesson in community service than showing them that helping others can take them all the way to our nation’s capital? I’d also love to bring my American flag-themed mower in hopes that the President might sign it, so I can later auction it off and donate 100% of the proceeds to a nonprofit supporting veterans. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to highlight the importance of service, patriotism, and the impact young people can have when they choose to make a difference. 🇺🇸
During a hike in Hakone, I was struggling up the trail when this 70-year-old Japanese grandpa with hiking poles faster than my legs passed me.
Grandpa: Young man! Too slow! Mountain waits for no one!
He waits for me at the top anyway, we sit on a bench overlooking Mount Fuji.
Grandpa: You came all the way from abroad for this view?
Me: Yeah, it’s incredible.
Then he gets quiet for a second before dropping the twist:
Grandpa: I come here every week since my wife died, she always wanted to climb Fuji together but we were too busy with work.
Now I climb smaller mountains and tell her about it.
I didn’t know what to say, then he pulls out two cans of coffee from his backpack.
Grandpa: She hated when I drank too much beer. So now I drink coffee and talk to her.
Today I tell her I met a brave foreigner who climbs slow but doesn’t give up.
We sat there for almost an hour, he taught me basic Japanese phrases, laughed at my terrible pronunciation, and made me promise to come back and climb Fuji “before you become old man like me.”
Japan hits you with these unexpected emotional punches wrapped in pure chaos.
I still think about that grandpa.
Fuck these officers and their entire departments. Why isn’t London engulfed in flames? I guess it’s the same reason we kicked the shit out of them in 1776 God Bless the USA.
The bodycam footage of Henry Nowak has just been released.
An 18-year-old who was stabbed FIVE TIMES called the police for help.
His attacker told officers Henry was a racist.
So they handcuffed the victim.
Henry told them over and over:
"I've been stabbed."
"I can't breathe."
"Please brother, I can't breathe."
An officer responded: "You've been stabbed, mate? I don't think you have."
Henry died in handcuffs.
The mainstream media has said NOTHING.
Where is the same outrage from when George Floyd died?
Watch this footage. Share it everywhere.
Pray for Henry’s family.
THEO VON: “Was there anybody who was immune to COVID-19?”
DR. MCCULLOUGH: “There’s one adult group. You’re going to laugh.”
[Theo Von listens closely for the reveal]
DR. MCCULLOUGH: “Smokers… They got very mild cases. And they don’t get long COVID.”
THEO VON: “Why?”
MCCULLOUGH: “Because smokers maintain a level of nicotine in the bloodstream… Smoking blocks the spike protein. It’s amazing. I thought smokers were going to go down.”
THEO VON: “Do you think that’s a good idea [to use nicotine patches] on a regular basis?”
DR. MCCULLOUGH: “I think [it’s a good idea] if they have long COVID... Nicotine, don’t forget, is a nootropic. A nootropic is a drug that makes the brain function more effectively... It’s addictive, but it’s not harmful to the human body... Nicotine patches are perfectly safe.”
Send the video to everyone you know showing how heinously Nowak was treated by the police in his dying moments and how the police cravenly kowtowed to his murderer.
Legacy mainstream media, same ones who wrote about George Floyd millions of times, are dead silent about Nowak.
Me: eating at Japanese conveyor belt sushi.
everything normal.
then plate beside me disappears, not taken by person.
just… gone, I blink.
plate across from me also vanishes.
salaryman beside me doesn’t react, he keeps eating calmly.
Me: …did you see that.
Salaryman: Yes.
Me: AND??
Salaryman: Happens after 9PM.
BRO WHAT.
I stare at conveyor belt harder now, tiny gap between plates.
movement underneath, something crawling.
chef suddenly yells from kitchen:
Chef: NOT AGAIN.
entire staff sprinting toward conveyor.
small child cheering: Ninja raccoon!
a RACCOON emerges from underneath belt holding sushi in mouth, full speed.
employees chasing it with nets, raccoon leaps over soy sauce expertly, lands beside me.
we lock eyes.
this animal has criminal confidence.
Salaryman slides one tuna plate toward raccoon respectfully.
Salaryman: He likes fatty cuts.
Me: WHY DO YOU KNOW HIM.
Salaryman: We all know him.
raccoon grabs sushi.
then steals waiter’s car keys and disappears into kitchen.
With everything we are hearing right now about ticks this seems like good information to share.
“Here’s what I’ve learned after more ticks than I care to count.
First, whatever your uncle told you, forget it. No matches. No nail polish. No Vaseline. No soap on a cotton ball. All of those do the same terrible thing, they stress the tick out, and a stressed tick empties its gut back into the bite before letting go. Which, if you think about what that actually means for a second, is literally how Lyme and the rest get transmitted so you’re not speeding up its exit. You’re making it throw up into you.
Fine-tipped tweezers. Grip right where the mouthparts enter the skin, not the body, the head. Pull straight up, steady, no twisting, no jerking. It’ll feel like it’s resisting because it is, the mouthparts are barbed. Just keep the pressure on and it lets go in a few seconds. If a piece breaks off in the skin, leave it alone. Your body pushes splinters out. Digging around with a needle does more damage then the fragment ever would.
Clean it with alcohol or soap. Wash your hands.
Now here’s the part most people skip: don’t flush the tick.
Tape it to an index card. Clear packing tape right over the body, write the date and where on your body it was, and stick the card in a drawer. If you come down with anything weird in the next 30 days, rash, fever, joint pain, that flu-that-isn’t-flu feeling, that tick goes with you to the doctor. Some labs will test the tick itself, which is faster and often more reliable than waiting for antibodies to show up in your own blood. A dated tick taped to a card is one of the most useful things you can hand a doctor who’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.
The other thing worth saying out loud: if the tick was engorged when you pulled it, and you can’t swear it was off your body within 24 hours, call your doctor that same day. Don’t wait for a rash. Fewer than three out of four Lyme cases even produce the classic bullseye. A single preventive dose of doxycycline within 72 hours of a deer tick bite cuts the Lyme odds way down, and most docs in tick country will write that prescription without giving you a hard time, especially if you walk in with the tick taped to a card and a clear timeline.”
Trump announced a cabinet meeting at Camp David — then canceled it citing "bad weather."
Four different news outlets reported it with DIFFERENT details leaked by different unnamed sources.
This was a classic canary trap. You give different staff different details and wait to see who leaks what to whom.
They caught the leakers. Multiple sleepers just exposed themselves.