Belala 💤

ATX

[Belala 💤 @belladelgado19]

somehwere downtown

[Samurai Shiba @SamuraiShibaJP]

My wife has taught high school in Tokyo for twenty years.

Every year, a few of her students spend a year living with a family in America. When they come home, she asks each of them one question.

"What do you miss?"

She expects hamburgers.

She almost never gets hamburgers.

And these aren't old stories. Most of these kids came home in the last two years.

"Every time I left the house, my host mom said, 'Text me when you get there.' In Japan, nobody needs to know where I am. In Ohio, somebody always did." (Mina, 17, Ohio)

"If you walk toward a door, an American will hold it open. Even if you are very far away. So you have to run. I ran to so many doors." (Itsuki, 16, Georgia)

"My host brother screamed on the floor of a grocery store. A stranger walked by and said to my host mom, 'You're doing great, Mama.' She almost cried. I didn't know strangers were allowed to say that." (Aoi, 17, Texas)

"We went away for the weekend and left our trash can at the curb. When we got back, it was by the garage. Nobody said who. My host dad said if it had been there one more day, the neighbor would have knocked." (Haruto, 16, Minnesota)

"A car got stuck in the snow in front of our house. Four men came out of four houses. Nobody called them. They pushed, the car drove away, and they went back inside without saying their names." (Ren, 17, Michigan)

"Every American has jumper cables. Maybe half of them know which clip goes where. The other half help anyway." (Shin, 16, Montana)

"In July, my host family put a cooler on the porch. Cold water, snacks, and a sign: 'For our delivery drivers. Thank you!' I asked if they knew the drivers. They said no." (Nanami, 16, Arizona)

"Downtown, there are banners on the lampposts. Photos of soldiers from the town. Some old, some very young. My host grandpa walked me down the street and told me every name." (Yuna, 16, Iowa)

"I got a C-plus on my first test. My host dad said, 'I'm proud of you,' and put it on the fridge. In Japan, nobody is proud of a C-plus." (Takeru, 17, Pennsylvania)

Then the quietest girl in the class raised her hand.

Sora. Seventeen. Missouri.

"Nobody asks me 'home safe?' anymore," she said.

She was wrong.

In September, there was a typhoon warning for Tokyo. At 2 a.m., Sora's phone lit up.

It was her host mom. In Missouri. Watching the weather in a country she had never been to.

"Saw the storm. You home safe?"

Sora told my wife she cried for a long time. Then she typed the answer she had typed a hundred times, from football games and friends' driveways.

"Home safe."

Her host mom wrote back one line.

"Good. That's all I needed."

My wife has asked that question for twenty years. Not one kid has ever said they missed how big America is.

They miss how America says goodbye. And how it checks that you got home.

So, America. You think you've lost something.

You haven't. It's on a porch in Arizona. It's pushing a car in Michigan. It's awake at 2 a.m. in Missouri, watching our weather.

You don't remember doing any of it.

A kid in Tokyo will never forget.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.

She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.

The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.

She handed out the checks herself.

In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.

When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.

You've probably heard that part.

Here's the part you haven't:

The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.

Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.

She built her county an entire hospital.

She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.

In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.

Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.

In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.

And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.

She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.

She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.

Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸

[ABC News @ABC]

This animation shows NASA’s Artemis II mission path, a journey of nearly 685,000 miles. The crew will travel in a figure-eight trajectory, looping out from Earth, around the Moon, and back again.

Follow live updates: https://t.co/PikF0FNlO9

[Sen. Lisa Murkowski @lisamurkowski]

Best part of the SOTU was seeing so many American heroes honored

[Real Defender @real_defender]

Some of the democrats refused to stand for the Gold Metal winning Men’s Olympic hockey team.

Democrats are the most miserable people on Earth.

#SOTU2026 #StateOfTheUnion

[Thrilla the Gorilla @ThrillaRilla369]

The CDC Doesn’t Want You to Hear This Conversation

KENNEDY: “The cost of autism is now a trillion dollars a year. My generation, I’m 70, you’re 60.”

BECK: “I didn’t know anybody with autism.”

KENNEDY: “No, we knew nobody when we were a kid.”

BECK: “I didn’t know anybody with peanut allergies.”

KENNEDY: “No. I had eleven siblings [and] 70 cousins — nobody with a peanut allergy. Why do five of my seven kids have allergies? The autism rate in my generation today, right now, 2024, One in 10,000 70-year-old men have autism. In my kid’s generation, it’s One in every 34 kids. One in every 22 boys, according to CDC. Nobody’s talking about this? These are bankrupting our country. It’s a trillion dollars a year just for autism... Nobody’s talking about why is this happening?”

[Dr. Simone Gold @drsimonegold]

WOW: Old video of actor Jim Carrey resurfaces where he lambasts the children’s vaccine schedule and pharmaceutical industry.

“I don’t think we can afford to assume that the people that are charged with our public health have our best interest at heart.”

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

Not a single store in Milwaukee boarded up their businesses when thousands of Republicans came to the RNC.

These business owners are boarding up ahead of the DNC.

Why are Democrats always so violent?

[K-Doll @kdollsweety]

The Gold in women’s boxing will go to a man. The best female cyclist is a man. The best female swimmer is a man. The best female runner is a man. The best woman's basketball player is a man. Dylan Mulvaney, a man, won woman of the year.

Why does the left hate women so much?

[The Butcher of Wall Street | Marcel Kalinovic @BossBlunts1]

Illegal migrant from Venezuela left her receipt at the grocery store. Cashier took a photo...

EBT Food Stamp balance: $13,401.82

EBT Cash balance: $4,498.85

[Brandon Tatum @TheOfficerTatum]

This will NEVER get old! 🤣https://t.co/uAH1iUaigv

[DOPE DIGITAL 🌐 @TheDopeDigital]

Nah this is fire. I love when concepts like this are executed properly. https://t.co/IQicrqlJ1M

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@kanyewest Jesus taught love, kindness and forgiveness.

I used to think that turning the other cheek was weak & foolish, but I was the fool for not appreciating its profound wisdom.

[Belala 💤 @belladelgado19]

@averagemagz @NaxSmokeShop okay (:

[Drew @itslithoe]

I love driving alone cause if the song slaps ima play it 18 times in a row

[puff @rishipuff]

this entire thread has me in tears