Stateside, a gas station. I drank a frozen blue beverage too quickly, and was struck down by a punishment this entire nation knows, and accepts, and has named.
The drink is called a slush. Ice, sweetness, and a blue that does not occur in nature. The day was hot. I was thirsty. I drank like a soldier at a river.
The pain arrived in my skull like a war horn.
Behind the eyes. Above everything. Total. I gripped the roof of my car. I may have made a sound.
"Brain freeze," said the cashier through the door, with no urgency whatsoever.
It has a NAME. The affliction is so common it has a household name, like a cousin.
"Tongue on the roof of your mouth," called a man at the pumps. He did not look over. He prescribed the remedy mid-pump, casually, the way one mentions weather.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The war horn faded. The healer nodded at his pump, finished, and was gone in a Chevrolet.
In my land, punishment follows crime by way of courts and seasons. Here, the sentence is instant. Drink with greed, and the ice strikes the mind directly. No trial. No appeal. Perfectly fair.
And here is what moves me. EVERYONE has felt it. The cashier. The healer. Children. Elders. An entire nation united by the same small lightning, all taught the same cure, all passing it on to strangers at gas stations, free of charge.
You cannot fully distrust a country once you know it shares one pain.
The freeze does not punish thirst. It punishes haste.
I finished the slush slowly, like a scholar. Blue tongue. Clear mind.
Then at the door I forgot everything, drank deeply, and was struck down again.
"Tongue, hon," said the cashier, without looking up.
Discipline is a journey.
Hey, @KathyHochul, it’s not “New York’s World Cup.” The games are in Jersey.
The bills are in Jersey. Cops, fire, and EMS? Jersey too.
You can cross the river, just don’t cross the goal line and take the credit.
Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.
People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.
A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.
Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.
All my love and congratulations to @NASA and @NASAArtemis crew (and everyone involved) for a successful mission!!!! Making the impossible look easy! -B #NASA
Four humans are about to fall into a 10,000°C wall of plasma at 25,000 mph with a heat shield NASA knows is flawed. Tomorrow evening. Off the coast of San Diego.
Orion hits the atmosphere at 36 times the speed of sound. The air can't move out of the way fast enough, so it compresses into a shockwave twice as hot as the surface of the Sun. The plasma ionizes the surrounding air and blocks all radio signals. For several minutes, the crew is falling faster than any humans have ever traveled inside a spacecraft, and nobody on the ground can talk to them.
The heat shield is 186 blocks of a material called Avcoat glued to a titanium skeleton. It works by charring, melting, and disintegrating on purpose. The destruction of the outer layer is the cooling mechanism. There is no backup system. No redundancy. The heat shield works or the crew doesn't come home.
The Artemis I heat shield came back with over 100 locations where chunks had ripped off. NASA spent two years figuring out why, concluded it was gas pressure building up inside the material during reentry, and decided not to replace the shield. They changed the flight path instead. Steeper angle, less time in the danger zone. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said publicly that this approach "is not the right way to do things long term."
The capsule will slow from 25,000 mph to 17 mph in thirteen minutes. Parachutes don't even deploy until the last four. Everything before that is managed by a curved piece of titanium and glue entering air twice as hot as the Sun.
Tomorrow at 5:07 PM Pacific, San Diego might hear a sonic boom. That sound is four people betting their lives on NASA's math being right.
Under the 8+ years of control by Democrats, New Jersey now ranks as the WORST state in the nation for retirement.
Now, the Sherrill administration wants to cut the StayNJ program without addressing the underlying affordability issues, making life harder for the same seniors who built the communities we call home.
Democrats need to sober up and begin to tackle high taxes and promote affordability, not gamble with the hard-earned livelihoods of seniors.
Another whale has washed ashore on the NJ coast—a humpback, approximately 30 feet long, found in Sandy Hook today.
At the same time, construction on the Empire Wind 1 offshore project has resumed, now underway just 19 miles offshore.
Grateful to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center for their tireless efforts responding to these heartbreaking events.
Look at this insane stat from the 2025 fake election in NJ.
New votes: ~719k more cast. Sherrill gained ~557k over Murphy; Ciattarelli gained ~163k over his prior run.
@NJGovPress And what exactly is that path? Can you please get President Trump out of your head and focus on lowering property taxes and electricity costs? Also, please don't mess with NJ's seniors.
@UPS I just found out that My Choice Premium subscriptions no longer cover the ground shipping method most retail merchants use and this was a new policy that started at the beginning of the year. Would’ve been nice to know before I renewed. 🤷🏼♀️ Not a good change.
Paparazzi stalking lawmakers ruining the country > paparazzi stalking celebrities minding their business
We’ve been utilizing this profession incorrectly