Over the years I’ve seen some writers who took the full time plunge express strong imposter syndrome and a sense of shame when going back to a day job. Sometimes it kills their desire to write because they feel like a failure. I don’t think biographies of writers emphasize how many famous writers had day […]

This is too honest by far, and I wonder if it is perhaps unhelpful for me to talk openly about. Vulnerable is hard. But, I would have loved to have read this years ago, so let’s do this: I want to talk about how much I write, and my current experiment of writing 500 words […]

I've spent a month doing my best to help my community and prepare my household for Covid-19.

So this is a test blog entry to see if Ulysses is synched up to my blog. I’ve not been blogging much, but as I recently withdrew a bit from Twitter and Facebook in order to finish a novel and wrap up another really cool freelance project, I started to think about ways to optimize […]

HBO PR reached out to me about seeing Lovecraft Country, first episode dropping tonight. As a mixed race SF author I have a complicated relationship with Lovecraft, but the trailers intrigued. Mostly Black cast? Black writer-producer? Yes please! Check Lovecraft Country out not just because HBO gave me a goody bag and a free view, […]

http://www.peremeny.ru/maze/2948/

We are joined by U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, who says Israel is committing genocide on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Facing accusations of antisemitism from Israeli and U.S. officials, Albanese is in New York to present her report, titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” which finds that Israel’s genocide is founded on “ideological hatred” and “dehumanization” and “enabled through the various organs of the state,” and recommends that Israel be unseated from the United Nations over its conduct. She argues that Israel’s attacks on U.N. employees, including the killings of at least 230 U.N. staff in Gaza, its flagrant violations of U.N. resolutions and international law and the unique status of “the first settler-colonial genocide to be ever litigated before [an international] court” justify this unprecedented measure. Israel’s continued impunity, Albanese warns, “is the nail in the coffin of the U.N. Charter.”

“There can be no middle ground, not in this moment.” As the U.S. presidential race draws to a close, Bishop William Barber, the national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School and co-author of White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, explains why he is endorsing Kamala Harris for president in his personal capacity. In contrast to Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric and policies that will benefit the rich, Barber says “we see clearly Harris trying to unify.” He makes a theological argument for opposing Trump and also discusses voting rights and access in his home state of North Carolina.

Kamala Harris is blasting Donald Trump for vowing to protect women whether they “like it or not” at the same time he is calling for Republican Liz Cheney to be shot in the face. We get response from The Nation's abortion access correspondent Amy Littlefield and talk about 10 states with abortion rights on the ballot, including Arizona, Nevada, Florida, South Dakota and Missouri. Trump's remarks are a “succinct and clear definition of patriarchy,” says Littlefield. She argues the 2024 election will be decided in large part by white women and whether they will vote for abortion rights. Trump is “laying out the bargain that white patriarchy has offered for white women in this country,” says Littlefield. “He is saying, 'White women, we will protect you from Brown and Black men.'”

We speak with The Nation's John Nichols in Wisconsin, where Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are spending a lot of their time in the closing days of the election in a tight battle for the state's 10 Electoral College votes. Nichols also discusses the battle for the Senate, with key races in Wisconsin and Nebraska; how New York races could tip control of the House to Democrats; and why Kamala Harris needs to expand her message beyond the threat of Trump’s authoritarianism. “At the doors, people want to talk about economics,” says Nichols.

With just days to go before the November 5 presidential election, fears are growing that Republicans intend to interfere with the official results in order to install Donald Trump as president. At Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally, Trump said he had a “little secret” with House Speaker Mike Johnson that would have a “big impact” on the outcome, though neither he nor Johnson elaborated on what that entailed. Elie Mystal, the justice correspondent for The Nation, says the secret is almost certainly a plan to force a contingent election, whereby no candidate wins a majority of the Electoral College and the president is instead chosen by the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority. Mystal notes that even if Democrats challenge such an outcome, the case would still end up before a Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority that is likely to side with Trump.

As Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaign in Pennsylvania on the last day before the presidential election, false claims of voter fraud are spreading. “The truth is, none of these lies have been about election integrity. It’s always been about power,” says Neil Makhija, chair of the board of elections in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania — the battleground state that “could decide the election” — in a video essay featured by The New York Times. Makhija joins Democracy Now! to discuss his work expanding access to the vote and debunking the myth of mass voter fraud.

As Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stirs up false claims of voter fraud ahead of Election Day, we look at the role of an increasingly “partisan” Federal Election Commission with former FEC general counsel Larry Noble, who explains why “voters of a lot of wealth have the ability to influence elections the way that the rest of us don’t.” As the influence of money in politics grows unchecked, he warns, it has the effect of “silencing the voter.” Noble also responds to multibillionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk’s $1 million giveaways to Pennsylvania voters and discusses the lasting impact of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision on campaign finance law.

All eyes are on Michigan as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris battle over undecided voters in the crucial swing state, including many of the state’s 200,000 Arab American and Muslim voters who reject both the Republican and Democratic parties’ stance on Israel and Palestine. We speak to Dearborn, Michigan’s Lebanese American Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who is the first Arab and Muslim mayor of the city, about many of his constituents’ loss of support for the Democratic Party and how the Arab American vote could impact the presidential election. Hammoud, like many Dearborn residents, has lost extended family to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, and describes the climate in the city as “a blanket of grief.” Having called for a ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel, he refused to meet with Trump last week, but has also declined to endorse Harris. Hammoud calls on voters to not sit out the election entirely, but to “vote their moral conscience, and says the citizens of Dearborn are “willing to put people over party, first and foremost.”

As voters across the United States head to the polls, we speak with New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg about how Donald Trump may try to preemptively declare victory and challenge election results. The former president has ramped up claims Democrats are “a bunch of cheats” and preemptively cast doubt on a win by Vice President Kamala Harris, following a similar playbook as 2020 when he baselessly claimed the election was stolen. Rutenberg spoke to pro-Trump election officials in battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania who say they are ready to refuse to certify local election results as part of a wide-ranging effort to throw the system into disarray. Rutenberg says after the failed insurrection of January 6, 2021, many in Trump’s orbit had a clear goal for 2024: “We have to go local.” He also discusses the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 that makes it harder to stop the final certification of results.

Ari Berman, the voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, details how pro-Trump forces may try to throw out the results of the 2024 election if Kamala Harris wins, with a focus on the swing state of Georgia, the “epicenter” of Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. “It’s very dangerous to imagine what people who don’t believe in free and fair elections can do when given the power to oversee those very elections,” says Berman.

In a major piece for Mother Jones magazine on “Why Ballot Measures Are Democracy’s Last Line of Defense,” voting rights correspondent Ari Berman discusses abortion ballot measures in 10 states, important down-ballot races in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and the movement to abolish or reform the Electoral College.

Donald Trump has been reelected president of the United States. Ahead of Kamala Harris’s expected concession speech, we speak to professors Carol Anderson and Michele Goodwin to discuss Harris’s historic campaign — and historic loss. “The Confederacy won,” says Anderson, a professor of African American studies at Emory University. “It paints a picture of what Americans are willing to embrace,” says Goodwin, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown and an expert on healthcare law, who warns of the public health dangers of a second Trump administration and discusses the election’s implications for reproductive rights.

“This is a collapse of the Democratic Party.” Consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader comments on the reelection of Donald Trump and the failures of the Democratic challenge against him. Despite attempts by left-wing segments of the Democratic base to shift the party’s messaging toward populist, anti-corporate and progressive policies, says Nader, Democrats “didn’t listen.” Under Trump, continues Nader, “We’re in for huge turmoil.”

Donald Trump’s performance in the 2024 election surpassed expectations, with the candidate winning the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia and picking up larger shares of more diverse segments of the electorate, including Black and Latino male voters. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, says the blame lies squarely on the Harris campaign, which refused to differentiate itself from unpopular incumbent President Joe Biden. “The problem here is with the leadership of the Democratic Party,” adds John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation. Nichols and Taylor discuss how Democrats “demobilized” young voters and grassroots organizers, to their electoral detriment. “Donald Trump, as a president who has very few guardrails, has the potential to take horrific actions,” says Nichols. For those seeking to oppose him, says Taylor, “There’s a lot of rebuilding that has to be done.”

While Democratic candidates suffered major losses in this year’s U.S. elections, elsewhere on the ballot voters supported liberal positions. In the wake of tightening federal and state restrictions on abortion, historic ballot measures enshrining the right to an abortion passed in seven states, while other initiatives to raise the minimum wage and codify marriage equality also won by wide majorities. We’re joined by Chris Melody Fields Figueredo of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center to examine the role of ballot measures, a form of direct democracy, in elections, and why this “powerful tool” may be at risk as conservatives flood elected office. “Because we are resisting, we are winning on these progressive issues, they are trying to take that power away from us.”

We speak with historian Robin D. G. Kelley about the roots of Donald Trump’s election victory and the decline of Democratic support among many of the party’s traditional constituencies. Kelley says he agrees with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who said Democrats have “abandoned” working-class people. “There was really no program to focus on the actual suffering of working people across the board,” Kelley says of the Harris campaign. He says the highly individualistic, neoliberal culture of the United States makes it difficult to organize along class lines and reject the appeal of authoritarians like Trump. “Solidarity is what’s missing — the sense that we, as a class, have to protect each other.”

With former U.S. President Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term, we speak with Pakistani author and columnist Fatima Bhutto. Bhutto is an award-winning author and writes a monthly column for Zeteo on world affairs. She criticizes Kamala Harris’s campaign for relying heavily on celebrity endorsements and vague appeals to “joy” while silencing dissent on Gaza as the Biden administration continues backing Israel. “You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy,” says Bhutto.

Donald Trump has made the mass deportation of immigrants a centerpiece of his plans for a second term, vowing to forcibly remove as many as 20 million people from the country. Historian Ana Raquel Minian, who studies the history of immigration, says earlier mass deportation programs in the 1930s and '50s led to widespread abuse, tearing many families apart through violent means that also resulted in the expulsion of many U.S. citizens. “These deportations that Trump is claiming that he will do will have mass implications to our civil rights, to our communities and to our economy, and of course to the people who are being deported themselves,” says Minian. She also says that while Trump's extremist rhetoric encourages hate and violence against vulnerable communities, in terms of policy there is great continuity with the Biden administration, which kept many of the same policies in place.

In the wake of the reelection of Donald Trump, some of the richest people in the world saw their net worths soar as stock prices rapidly shot up. “What was different about this election was how central billionaires were in the entire political discourse,” says The Lever's David Sirota, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss the outsized role of the super-rich in U.S politics, pointing out that both Trump and Kamala Harris campaigned heavily with billionaires, including Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. “These people are not giving money simply out of the goodness of their hearts. They want things. They have policy demands,” Sirota says. “The investors, the donors, like billionaires, are looking for a return on their investment.” Sirota, who previously worked as a communications adviser and speechwriter for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, also explains how Elon Musk's influence on Trump’s campaign is a preview of the power he could wield if he ends up appointed to the Trump administration.

The FBI is investigating a spate of racist text messages targeting Black Americans in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory last week. The texts were reported in states including Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, addressing recipients as young as 13 by name and telling them they were “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation” and other messages referencing slavery. For more, we speak with Robert Greene II, a history professor at Claflin University, South Carolina’s first and oldest historically Black university in Orangeburg, where many students were targeted. “Initially when I heard about the texts, I thought it was a bit of a hoax, but … it quickly became clear that this wasn’t just a Claflin problem, it was a national issue, as well,” says Greene. We also speak with Wisdom Cole, senior national director of advocacy for the NAACP, who says “this is only the beginning,” with a second Trump administration expected to attack civil rights and embolden hate groups.

We speak with Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani about the latest developments in the Middle East as Israel continues its deadly assaults on Gaza and Lebanon. Qatar recently announced it will no longer act as mediator for ceasefire talks, saying the two sides were not serious about reaching a deal to stop the fighting. “This entire process from the outset has been a complete charade,” Rabbani says of the U.S.-backed ceasefire negotiations, urging Egypt to follow suit and also stop acting as a mediator. Rabbani also discusses how a second Trump administration could deal with the region, saying Trump’s “erratic” behavior makes predictions difficult, but that signs point to a more aggressive posture toward Iran.

Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani discusses the violence that broke out last week between visiting Israeli soccer fans and pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam. The Dutch authorities made over 60 arrests, and at least five people were hospitalized as a result of the clashes, which local and international leaders were quick to brand as antisemitic, even though observers in Amsterdam have said it was Israeli hooligans who instigated much of the violence. Rabbani says that while it’s common for rival teams’ fans to get into skirmishes, what happened in Amsterdam was different. “What we’re talking about here in Amsterdam is not a clash between the hooligans of two opposing sides, but rather these Israeli thugs attacking people who, in principle, had nothing to do with the game, and then afterwards being confronted by their victims,” Rabbani says.

President-elect Donald Trump reportedly plans to appoint his former senior adviser Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller will play a key role along with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who will reportedly be the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Miller is the architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, an avowed white nationalist and a man who is spurred by his “animus to the notion of the United States as a multicultural and multiethnic democracy,” says author Jean Guerrero, author of Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. Guerrero says the Trump administration’s “obsessive deportation” attempt to “radically reengineer the racial demographics of the United States” will “backfire” on the U.S. economy and destroy “the United States’ global reputation as a safe haven for the persecuted.”

Young gamers in the UK can now transport themselves inside the iconic world of Doctor Who for a limited time in Nightfall, the BBC’s online multiplayer game.

Read An Ivy League Bad Apple

One day, we hired this new hotshot who had no trouble constantly reminding us that he graduated from Harvard. Probably because I would barely give him the time of day, he immediately zeroed in on me.

Read An Ivy League Bad Apple

Read A Big Spicy Mayo No No

Customer: "I need your help! I'm looking for [brand] of spicy mayo!"
Me: "It can be found on aisle nine, top shelf in the middle."
Customer: "I know! I was just there! The label said it should be there, but it's not! You haven't put them where they should be!"

Read A Big Spicy Mayo No No

Read The High Cost Of Lazy Reading

Manager: “[My Name], why are our material costs this month £2.5 million?!”

Read The High Cost Of Lazy Reading

Read The Only Thing They’ll Be Read Is The Riot Act

Clerk: "Okay, ma'am, do you have the required documents to complete this process?"
Customer: "What?! No one ever told me I needed anything!"

Read The Only Thing They’ll Be Read Is The Riot Act

Read The Customer Used “Call Corporate”: It Was Not Very Effective

Customer: "Well if you're not going to be doing [possibly illegal thing] for me then I suppose I will just need to call your Corporate office!"
Me: *Not skipping a beat.* "Well, actually I think you’d be better off contacting Jane Lastname at the regional office; here’s her card."

Read The Customer Used “Call Corporate”: It Was Not Very Effective

अमेरिका में ट्रंप सरकार 2.0 (Trump Government 2.0) के आने के बाद रिपब्लिकन पार्टी के लिए चुनावी प्रचार अभियान में अग्रणी भूमिका निभाने वाले भारतीय मूल के अमेरिकी इंटरप्रिन्योर विवेक रामास्वामी की धमकी बढ़ने की पूरी उम्मीद है। अब तक रिपब्लिकन

Yoga Guru Sharath Jois passes away: योग गुरु शरथ जोइस के निधन हो गया। उन्होंने अमेरिका में स्थानीय समय अनुसार दोपहर करीब 3 बजे अंतिम सांस ली। 53 वर्षीय आर. शरथ जोइस अक्टूबर ही अपने शिष्यों को योग सिखाने अमेरिका गए

By Election 2024 Live Voting: झारखंड में विधानसभा चुनाव के पहले चरण के साथ आज 10 राज्यों की 31 विधानसभा सीटों पर उपचुनाव के लिए वोट डाले जा रहे हैं। जबकि केरल की वायनाड और महाराष्ट्र की नांदेड़ लोकसभा सीट पर भी

केरल में वायनाड सीट पर आज उपचुनाव है। यहां से पहली बार चुनावी मैदान में प्रियंका गांधी वाड्रा अपनी किस्मत आजमा रही हैं। ऐसे में हर किसी की नजर इस सीट पर है। यहां से पहले राहुल गांधी चुनाव जीते थे।

Karnataka By Election News Hindi: कर्नाटक विधानसभा की तीन सीटों पर उपचुनाव के लिए मतदान हो रहा है। मतदान सुबह 7 बजे शुरू हुआ  है और शाम 6 बजे तक चलेगा। शिगगांव, संदूर और चन्नपटना में 770 मतदान केंद्रों पर सात

By-Election News: झारखंड विधानसभा चुनाव के साथ-साथ आज देशभर में 11 राज्यों की 33 विधानसभा सीटों पर उपचुनाव हो रहे हैं। बायपोल्स के लिए वोटिंग सुबह 7 बजे से शुरू हो चुकी है। इनके अलावा 2 लोकसभा सीटों पर भी आज

Assam Bypolls: असम में पांच विधानसभा सीटों के लिए उपचुनाव हो रहे हैं।   9.1 लाख मतदाताओं में से करीब 13% ने पहले दो घंटों में मतदान कर लिया है। चुनाव आयोग के अनुसार, सुबह 9 बजे तक 9,09,057 पात्र मतदाताओं में

Karnataka By election 2024 :कर्नाटक के तीन विधानसभा क्षेत्रों में उपचुनाव के लिए मतदान बुधवार सुबह 7 बजे शुरू हुआ, पहले दो घंटों में 10.14% मतदान हुआ। मतदान शिगगांव, संदूर और चन्नपटना में हो रहा है, जहां लगभग 770 मतदान केंद्रों

Vivek Ramaswamy: पूर्व रिपब्लिकन राष्ट्रपति पद के उम्मीदवार विवेक रामास्वामी, निर्वाचित राष्ट्रपति डोनाल्ड ट्रंप की एक घोषणा के बाद Google पर सबसे ज्यादा खोजे जाने वाले नामों में से एक बन गए हैं कि विवेक रामास्वामी। अरबपति एलन मस्क के साथ