Respect women. Full Stop. [Times Of India, January 2013.]
Hell. Yes.
You’re loud and messy and chaotic but you’re also the kids who dance in the street in the monsoons, you’re the beat of the dhol, you’re the 20 simultaneous games of cricket on any given ground, you’re the only people who believe that luddo is a game of skill, you’re endless streams of chai, you’re the maker of the best damned chappli kababs anywhere in the world, you’re a survivor despite bombs and tragedy and hate. You’re the place with the most heart l’ve ever seen. Happy birthday Pakistan, you gorgeous old thing.
We were kind of hoping that NASA’s Curiosity rover would have sent this back as its first picture from Mars.
The Marvelous Mixology of the Martini
Whether you like them shaken or stirred, here’s all you need to know to mix the king of all cocktails.
I grew up in Pakistan with two Americas. One was the America of To Kill a Mockingbird and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, of the young Michael Jackson and Laura Ingalls Wilder, of Charlie’s Angels and John McEnroe and Rob Lowe’s blue eyes. Of Martin Luther King and Snoopy. That America was exuberance and possibility. But there was another that I lived with. The America which cozied up to Pakistan’s military dictator, Zia-ul-Haq, because it served its own interests in Afghanistan to do so.
Pakistani Novelist Kamila Shamsie - The Storytellers of Empire for The Guernica Magazine.
This America threw vast amounts of money at Zia, propping up his rule, strengthening his military, turning a blind eye to its nuclear program, working with him to promote the war in Afghanistan as a jihad for all Muslims rather than a territorial matter between Afghans and Soviets; this America spoke eloquently of the Afghan people’s right to freedom and self-determination but decided it was an internal matter when Zia’s government cracked down on pro-democracy protestors in Pakistan, or when he instituted public floggings and hangings, or when he passed a law which made it possible for a woman who had been raped to be stoned to death for adultery.
Janus-faced American policies. Something you won’t find openly discussed in political discourse: US regime(s)’s habit of backing up dictators in third world countries.
Your soldiers will come to our lands, but your novelists won’t. The unmanned drone hovering over Pakistan, controlled by someone in Langley, is an apt metaphor for America’s imaginative engagement with my nation.
Oh, Kamila. I love you.
(via mehreenkasana)
Is Congress getting dumber, or just more plainspoken?
Congress now speaks at almost a full grade level lower than it did just seven years ago, with the most conservative members of Congress speaking on average at the lowest grade level, according to a new Sunlight Foundation analysis of the Congressional Record using Capitol Words.
Of course, what some might interpret as a dumbing down of Congress, others will see as more effective communications. And lawmakers of both parties still speak over the heads of the average American, who reads at between at 8th and 9th grade level.
Today’s Congress collectively speaks at a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005.
You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.
Up Top, Little Man
Kissing babies is so passé.
President Barack Obama arrives at at Buckley Air Force Base, Tuesday, April 24, 2012, in Aurora, Colo. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Welcome to our new feature (that by Tumblr necessity must end with a question mark):
“What would you caption this photo?”
The 13 Most Useless College Majors (As Determined By Science)
“Useless” major # 13 has kept me employed since before I graduated college…
Science be damned!
1. Fine Arts
3. Film, Video, and Photographic Arts
4. Commercial Art and Graphic Design
5. Architecture
6. Philosophy and Religious Studies
7. English Literature and Language
8. Journalism
9. Anthropology and Archeology
11. Music
12. History
13. Political Science and Government
(Ed: Your primary tumblrs majored in two of these and now work in the field of a third.)
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