Belemrys

[Belemrys @belemrys]

@Freyy_is Enders Game

[George Alexopoulos @GPrime85]

"Very little time in the Odyssey is spent in the perspective of a woman"

O illiterate founder of Greece, the goddess Athena (a female) drives the entire story from start to finish. Her fingerprints are on every page.

The entire point of the story is that mortals, in spite of all their pride and greed, are the playthings of the gods and therefore must be humble and behave honorably or they will be punished. The male god Poseidon is the antagonist, and the hero is Athena, who repeatedly leads the otherwise helpless characters to resolution and peace.

This knowledge could be yours, if you read the book

[alexlindsay @alexlindsay]

If you want to understand American optimism…

We celebrate the date that we declared independence, not the date that we achieved it.

[Uncle Lou @UncleLouPKMN]

She asked me "what are we" and I sent her this

[Bishop Robert Barron @BishopBarron]

What an appalling speech the Mayor of New York delivered for the 250th anniversary of the nation.

Sadly, it reflects the view of America propagated for years by Howard Zinn and his like-minded colleagues in the universities and believed by armies of the young: a dark, oppressive country where common people are denigrated by tyrants and oligarchs, where immigrants are treated with contempt, where those with “soft hands” hold the wealth created by those with dirty hands.

No sensible person would claim that our country is without flaws, but the relentlessly negative picture painted by Mayor Mamdani is just absurd.

And it is the fruit of the Marxism that, sadly, is all the rage today.

[don @itsDonL]

Why. Not. Us. #USMNT

[Clay Travis @ClayTravis]

The entire stadium sings “Country Roads” to celebrate the US win. Absolutely perfect.

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

The Spanish broadcast of Malik Tillman’s free kick

MAJESTIC 🇺🇸

[History Calendar @HistoryCalendar]

How old were some of America’s Founding Fathers in 1776?

🇺🇸 Thomas Jefferson — 33
🇺🇸 Alexander Hamilton — 21
🇺🇸 James Madison — 25
🇺🇸 John Adams — 40
🇺🇸 George Washington — 44
🇺🇸 John Hancock — 39
🇺🇸 Benjamin Franklin — 70
🇺🇸 Patrick Henry — 40
🇺🇸 Samuel Adams — 53
🇺🇸 Thomas Paine — 39

The United States was founded by a remarkable mix of young revolutionaries and experienced statesmen.

[The Fat Electrician @Fat_Electrician]

Fahrenheit is based on human experience:
0° is fucking cold. 100° is fucking hot.

Celsius is based on at sea level water:
Water freezes at 0° and boils at 100°

A. Celsius is flawed because water freezes and boils at different temperatures depending on altitude.

B. When I ask what the temperature is, I’m asking for myself. I don’t give a fuck how water feels about the weather.

[Brent Money @brentmoney]

“We are NOT a Christian nation!”
“Separation of church and state!”
“Benjamin Franklin was a deist!”

On this date, June 28, 1787, Benjamin Franklin delivered his famous “Prayer Speech” at the Constitutional Convention.

This is the one where Franklin, amid deadlocks and frustrations in the Convention, implored the delegates to begin sessions with prayer, acknowledging human limitations and seeking divine assistance. Here is the full transcript (from James Madison’s notes and standard historical sources, with minor spelling normalizations for readability):

Mr. President:
The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other—our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.—Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move—that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.

[Belemrys @belemrys]

@DudespostingWs Barry Bonds behavior

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

Randy Arozarena stepped out of the box on three straight pitches because he knew the pitcher wasn’t throwing him a strike.

The count went to 3-0.

Next pitch, he absolutely nuked a home run.

One of the most disrespectful at-bats in MLB history.

[Belemrys @belemrys]

@LibertyValkyrie @nmplol crazy eh

[Belemrys @belemrys]

@Tectone Get on Pinterest. Make a board with Sofia of the outfits and clothing you like. Colors, materials, cuts. Then get a subscription box for tall men, ideally one that takes your measurements: Stitch Fix, The Winston Box, Stately are off the top of my head. Then get tailoring.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

A Five Guys in a strip mall. I had heard the burgers here were honest. A samurai goes where the food is described in the smallest number of words.

At the door, a barrel.

A wooden barrel, knee-high, full of raw peanuts in the shell. A small wooden scoop. A sign:

FREE PEANUTS - HELP YOURSELF

I stopped.

I read it three times.

In my country, when a host places food at the threshold of his house and tells you to take it, he is testing whether you understand the difference between hospitality and theft. The wrong man takes too much. The wrong man takes nothing. The right man takes a small handful, bows, and proceeds.

I took a small handful. I bowed to the barrel.

I proceeded.

At the counter, a young man, name tag MARCUS.

"Hey man, welcome to Five Guys, what can I get you?"

"...I have taken your peanuts."

"Yeah, that's what they're there for."

"What is the obligation."

"...The what?"

"What do I owe."

"Nothing, man. They're free. Help yourself."

"...Help yourself."

"Yeah."

"Marcus. In my country, when a stranger is told to help himself, it is a kindness given to a man who is far from home. I have not yet introduced myself. You have already addressed me as a man who is far from home. You are correct. I am."

Marcus smiled the way you smile at someone you have decided you like.

"Hell yeah. What can I get you?"

"A cheeseburger."

"Want any toppings? They're free."

"...Free."

"Yeah. Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mushrooms, jalapeños, green peppers, mayo, mustard, ketchup, BBQ, A1, hot sauce, relish. All free. Bacon's the only thing extra."

I had not been read a list this long since I was made to recite the names of my ancestors.

"...You are giving a man as many options as he has weapons."

"Pretty much. What you want?"

"All of them."

"All the way?"

"All the way."

"You got it. Fries?"

"Yes."

"Regular or Cajun?"

I stopped.

The word landed somewhere inside me that had been arranged, recently, by a different meal.

"Marcus. Cajun is a people. From Louisiana."

"...Yeah?"

"I have eaten with them. They served me crawfish on newspaper. They called me brother. I did not know I had brothers in that country."

"Damn, sir. That's beautiful."

"Then bring me their salt. I will not refuse the seasoning of a people who fed me on a table without plates."

"Cajun fries it is."

"Size?"

"The smallest. I am one man."

"You got it. Little Cajun."

I paid.

I sat at a small table by the window with my brown paper bag. The bag was heavier than I expected. The boy at the counter had told me, as I picked it up, "bag's heavier than you think, sir." I had taken this as a piece of philosophy. It was, I now understood, a literal report.

I opened the bag.

The Cajun fries were in a cup. The cup was inside the bag. Around the cup, the bag was full of more fries. Loose. Spilling. As if the cup had given up trying to contain itself, and the bag had taken the overflow without complaint.

I lifted the bag and looked at Marcus across the room.

"...Marcus."

"Yes sir?"

"You give the man who asked for little, more."

"Yeah, that's how we do it."

"That is the most American sentence I have heard this week."

He laughed. I looked at the bag again.

I lifted one fry. The seasoning came off red on my fingertips. I ate it.

I had to set the cup down.

This was not the salt of the Cajun people. This was the war salt of the Cajun people. The men who had fed me on newspaper had been holding back. Marcus was not.

My eyes filled with water. Not from feeling. From paprika.

I lifted the burger. Two patties. Lettuce, tomato, onion, mushrooms, jalapeños, green peppers, pickles, mayo, mustard, ketchup, BBQ, A1, hot sauce, relish, and cheese. The thing was a small mountain wrapped in foil. I held it with both hands, the way a man holds the head of his enemy after a long battle, with respect and a small amount of fear.

I ate.

The bun was sweet. The patty was salty. The peanut oil it had been cooked in was, by some quiet miracle, present in everything. I was eating, I realized, a burger that had been raised on the same oil the fries had been raised on, and that oil had been raised on the peanuts in the barrel at the door, which were free, which were the same peanuts that were now still in my coat pocket because I had not eaten them yet.

I stopped chewing.

"...The barrel. The fries. The burger. They are all one animal."

The man at the next table, a man in a work shirt with the name CARLOS embroidered on it, who had been eating fries with one hand and looking at his phone with the other, looked up.

"Cajun fries, huh? Those'll get ya."

"Carlos. I have been gotten."

"Right? Best in the game."

"I yield. I have been ambushed by salt three times in one meal, and twice by people I did not see coming."

Carlos laughed, the small full laugh of a man who is finally understood.

"Welcome to Five Guys, man."

I finished. I finished everything. The cup. The loose fries. The burger. Even the small flecks of seasoning that had fallen onto the paper of the wrapper. A samurai does not leave the field with the enemy's salt still on the ground.

I crumpled the foil. I rose. I bowed to Carlos. Carlos raised his half-finished Coke and tipped it slightly toward me.

I bowed once more, to the barrel at the door, which I now understood was the beginning of the meal and not merely the lobby of it. I took out the peanuts I had stored in my pocket, cracked one shell, and ate it as I walked out.

The salt of the peanut. The fourth salt.

This entire restaurant was a single quiet declaration: that a man should not be allowed to leave hungry, that nothing he eats should cost the dignity of being measured, and that the smallest order in the house is still more than one man can finish alone.

This is a country that puts a barrel at the door and trusts you with it.

This is a country that gives a man as many weapons as he has options, and charges him for none of them.

This is a country that overfills the bag of a man who asked for little, on principle.

Tomorrow I will return. I will order the same. I will eat the same. I will lose the same battle. A man does not flee from a salt that has already named him.

The Cajun fed me crawfish on newspaper. The man at Five Guys fed me their war salt on a fry. I have eaten with the same people, in two states, on two coasts, and they did not know they were the same.

I knew.

I have been gotten.

[Rand Paul @RandPaul]

Fauci's agency sent your money to a lab in Wuhan. They did risky experiments. Then they buried the evidence. This is exactly why I keep fighting for transparency on overseas biolabs.

[Joe Schad @schadjoe]

What an incredible back-to-back June days for Panthers President/GM Bill Zito, Heat President Pat Riley and South Florida sports fans

[The HEAT Realm @WadexFlash]

DAVION MITCHELL
NORMAN POWELL
ANDREW WIGGINS
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO
BAM ADEBAYO

ITS OVER FOR THE NBA

[Josh Hawley @HawleyMO]

.@MLB Commissioner writes to me and admits they were wrong to threaten the Giants players over Bible verses and promises never to fine or discipline these players - or any players for their religious beliefs