firehose

“Hello, this is. Charlene Campbell hey didi with important information from the city is, some’ll beginning on August 19th. The sulfide apartment. We’ll be conducting the annual hide inspections throughout the city, work away done Monday through Saturday from 9 AM to 4 PM. And if necessary. In the evening from 6:15. To 8:15 PM, over the next 2 week AS as work as been completed. Residents may notice a temporary period. A water just coloration, although the water. Maybe this collard it is safe to drink until the water runs clear. However, you may wish to avoid washing clothes, especially, why fabrics. If any of our standard kind of wet laundry the close should not be dried and you should contact. 311, for for you both rushing over updated information on affected streets and date to flashing can be found on the city’s website. www, dot, some’ll and I got cut off. Thank you for your cooperation with the Central Public Safety Program For additional information, please contact 311.”

- https://www.google.com/voice/fm/00903414171667579649/AHwOX_AmLzwzh0YQWj_yD7S6ZZY1syx9Atk0LJzU4yGjuMRWtZLSH1KdUXjw7HJ9KBrVeUPdeAZzOv3sfaAeBoYRot9Lu6_w3YgKPOip4MNMmS1IgkY28Un4wzcV6DRPbYuRV9XnCPSxzLTBhpEeSTHpVnhetOlSmw

PokeStory zine needs contributors, your attention ⊟

Here’s a pretty cool project promising “stories of exploration and discoveries in the Pokemon World.” The zine focuses on original/non-canon trainers, which put me off at first, but I’m told that this approach gives creators free reign to “interpret the characters as passages in their own experiences in the games.” It already has a long list of contributors, but organizers will accept applications from artists and writers until the end of the month.

PokeStory will release as a free PDF. There’s also a Pokemon X/Y giveaway going on at the project’s Tumblr if you want to score a free copy — I stole and butchered this GIF from the contest post.

PREORDER Pokemon X and Y, upcoming releases

Mexico captures leader of cocaine-trafficking Gulf Cartel - reports swissinfo.ch MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican security forces on Saturday caught the leader of the cocaine-trafficking Gulf Cartel, local media reported, the second major gang boss capture in just over a month as President Enrique Pena Nieto fights cartel violence. and more »

saint-just:

sarahstarseed:

*GROSS SOBBING AT HOW UNBEARABLY BEAUTIFUL THESE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE*

From Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein

Egyptian soldiers, after a daylong gunbattle and siege involving tear gas, have cleared out a Cairo mosque that had been one of the wellsprings (and hospital and morgue) of the pro-Muslim Brotherhood protests still convulsing the country more than a month after a military-led coup. After its yearlong grip on the presidency, a stunning reversal after decades in the political underground, the Brotherhood could be headed back to Egypt's official shit list.

The United States has had a long, strong relationship with the Egyptian military—to the point that the logistics of our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan would be terribly complicated if it ever went awry. That's why the president has enacted only token measures of punishment despite the slaughter of hundreds of Egyptians refusing to sit silently in the face of a coup.

When calling 911 is bad: If you live in a housing development where the landlord is allowed to kick you out because of perceived drama and disruption. Rules against excessive 911 calls are meant to keep away drug dealers and gang members, but they also wind up dragooning victims of domestic violence who must choose between escaping abuse or keeping their homes.

Rainbow-painted fingernails may be a violation of anti-politicking rules, a Swedish athlete competing in the world track and field championships in gay-abusing Moscow has been told. A Russian athlete with no apparent sense of shame had complained the small statement was "disrespectful."

Michael Bloomberg's dystopian urges: 1) Placing fingerprint-activated locks on New York City's public housing towers. 2) Maybe not caring, because he'll be out of office next year, when crooks start paying tenants or cutting off hands or putting knives to throats (how convincing!) to get around them.

Chris Christie, New Jersey governor and Republican presidential hopeful, just vetoed an assault weapon ban he'd actually partially proposed.

The Republican Party hated that everyone got to watch them fly their crazy flag so proudly during last year's presidential primary—a nasty little affair that made every candidate look terrible and damaged—so the trick is to hold way fewer primary debates and pick friendlier moderators for the ones that remain.

Rupert Murdoch now makes money whenever you read or buy VICE Magazine. He bought a 5 percent, $70 million stake in a company he sees as a "wild, interesting effort to interest millennials who don't read or watch established media. Global success."

AWWW! LOOK AT THE NICE OLD LADIES AT THE LIBRARY WHO DRESSED UP AND PLAY-ACTED LIKE THEY WERE THE BEASTIE BOYS IN THAT ONE VIDEO EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT. #TEAMBRANCA

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“…for the contingent out there who sneer at heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman and Captain America, those icons who still, at their core, represent selfless sacrifice for the greater good, and who justify their contempt by saying, oh, it’s so unrealistic, no one would ever be so noble… grow up. Seriously. Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters.”

- Greg Rucka (via murmurandshout)

Like many Americans, I turned to yoga because of the tremendous physical and spiritual benefits it promised. But as a South Asian, my experience with yoga was at once confirming and unsettling due to the cultural heritage I share with it.

I took my first yoga lesson more than 15 years ago with a basic understanding of yoga’s roots. Still, it was new to me because no one in my family was a practitioner. So I went to my first yoga class with some trepidation. Would I be expected to be able to do a headstand on my first day? Would the teacher be a New Age type who exotified my culture?

As it turned out, my first yoga teacher was a young white woman in her twenties with a strong knowledge of yoga and its roots as well as a wonderful teaching style. This enabled her to accommodate people of all levels of flexibility in a beginner class, from lithe dancers to middle-aged students with joint issues (I was somewhere in between). She knew how to expertly loosen up our minds and our bodies. We didn’t attempt any asanas (positions) without her first grounding us in the spiritual aspects, which often draw from Hindu philosophy, as well as the physical aspects, which include attention to body and breath. She was encouraging but not pushy, cultivating a safe and positive space. I left each lesson knowing a bit more about yoga and about what I was capable of. In fact, after a few months and with her coaching and encouragement, I did manage to do the dreaded headstand.

Soon after, my yoga teacher announced that she was leaving. Our new teacher, another young white woman, had given herself a Hindu name: Lakshmi. She spoke in a high-pitch whisper, which I suppose was meant to evoke a mystical aura. But beyond her voice, it was what she said that was most unsettling. On our first day, she told me she loved my coloring. To which I replied, “Thank you?”

The instructor peppered the lesson liberally with exotic tidbits about chakras (which she mispronounced shaakras). Then she began citing Hindu mythology and being a practicing Hindu, I noted that some of what she mentioned was patently wrong. I didn’t return to her class the next week.

As yoga’s popularity has grown over the last decade and a half, so too did my disillusionment. I’ve had mostly white female teachers and few have had the spiritual and cultural knowledge about yoga’s roots that my first teacher had. Even more disconcerting, some of them did not feel like they needed it: “I don’t believe in all that spiritual mumbo jumbo. I’m just here to teach stretches.” I’ve watched with a strange combination of bemusement and sadness the rise of yogaerobics and sexy yoga classes; even elementary schools are adding yoga to their curricula, but feel the need to assure parents of its secular nature. For me, these developments confirm that, in many places, the soul of yoga has been lost.

A poignant moment in my yoga journey came several years ago when I visited my in-laws in Bangalore, India. They had been receiving treatment for physical ailments from a yoga therapist and suggested I meet with him one morning. Imagine my surprise to meet a middle-age Indian gentleman dressed as if he was on his way to the office. I couldn’t shake a feeling of suspicion. After our meeting, he called my husband aside and spoke with him. Later my husband told me, “He said he can’t help you if you don’t believe in it, if you don’t want it.”

I was shocked. And then I had to acknowledge that over the years I had been programmed to believe only in certain extreme images of yoga. To me, a yogi was either an ascetic Indian man, clad in saffron robes, with a long beard. Or a fit person, showing off a nubile body in form-fitting yoga pants. Over the last few years, I’ve practiced yoga sporadically in my cramped apartment in New York City’s Union Square, noting the irony of being surrounded by countless yoga studios within a three-block radius.

Recently, I attended a panel discussion to launch the South Asian American Perspectives on Yoga in America (SAAPYA), a new initiative that seeks to restore yoga’s South Asian heritage. Specifically, the group was founded to provide a “platform and network for the voices of yoga teachers and students from across the South Asian diaspora.” Among its findings: a survey of more than two years worth of yoga journals yielded no South Asians on covers or articles authored by South Asians. Similarly, at a major yoga conference, out of 64 presenters, only seven of them were people of color. Of them, three were of South Asian origin; none was a woman.

On a personal level, SAAPYA rekindled my interest in taking yoga classes. But this time around, I’m curious about how a South Asian teacher might enhance my experience, perhaps deepening rather than circumventing the cultural ties I share with yoga.

Many believe yoga’s heritage is a non-issue. They see its growing popularity as just another example of the US as a bastion of multiculturalism. To them, I leave these questions and answers, rooted in my own lived experiences. Do I believe that yoga is for everyone? Absolutely. Do I believe that yoga can be taught effectively by non-South Asians? Definitely. Do I believe yoga can be imparted without being grounded in its cultural and spiritual heritage? No. Whatever that is, it isn’t yoga. Namaste.

Portions of this piece originally ran on The Aerogram. Follow Kavita on Twitter at @kavitamix. We welcome your ideas at ideas@qz.com.

Fresno Bee

5 decades later, some JFK probe files still sealed Fresno Bee FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 22, 1978 file photo, House Assassinations Committee chief counsel G. Robert Blakey, second left, meets with committee chairman Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, left, before the panel went into closed session in Washington to explore new ... 5 decades later, some JFK files still sealedFort Worth Star Telegram JFK Assassination Files On The CIA And Lee Harvey Oswald Still Classified ...International Business Times 5 decades later, JFK probe files still sealed | GALLERYEvansville Courier & Press all 18 news articles »

Yesterday, we started noticing traffic on a story from February 2012 -"Inclusion: What Jennifer Hepler's Story is all About." It was a while later we realized the traffic was as a result of a new story popping up saying the BioWare employee was quitting her job there as a result of the terrible harassment she received, including threats against her children. But here's the thing, according to Jennifer Hepler herself - that's not why she quit. This story just happened to bookend a week when we posted about another instance of video game related harassment so we're going to fill you in on the latest for both. 

amipunkyet:

WE TRIED TO TAKE SOME PICS OF GEORGE WITH CHERRY BLOSSOMS FALLING IN THE AIR BUT WHEN THEY FELL HE MADE THIS FACE

laughingsquid:

Things From Space, Surreal Sci-Fi Paintings of a Futuristic Earth Under Attack by Robots & UFOs

No Satan only corg

No God only shiba

adriofthedead:

neilcicierega:

I was gonna make Emmy draw this but she said no so I drew it myself.

I’ve never drawn a comic before!

oh my god

Duas amigas lá em Israel resolveram pegar um ônibus completamente escangalhado e transformar esse lixo numa casa moderna e bonita. A “obra” no busão foi completa: parte externa, parte interna, banheiro, cozinha, parte elétrica e até os pneus!!

A Buscasa (dei esse nome pra ela agora) ficou mais bonita do que muita casinha chique que tem por aí, inclusive a minha que nem roda tem!!

Confira as fotos dessa belezura de residência veicular e morra de inveja, pois você não tem uma Buscasa:

In the past year, a grand total of $7,680 worth of booze was lost to burglaries and theft in Oregon, or 0.003 percent of the state's $237 million stash, according to OLCC data. Oregon's average yearly liquor theft is $9,206 or about one-tenth of 1 percent. Those numbers are infinitesimal compared to what's happened in Washington since most sales moved from state-controlled liquor stores into more loosely monitored supermarkets. "No one has a real handle on the amount of theft" because stores are no longer required to report it, said Brian Smith, who is Scott's counterpart on the Washington State Liquor Control Board. But anecdotes and news reports suggest the amount lost to theft in a single week might surpass Oregon's annual figure.

Owners associations at four Pearl District and downtown Portland condo buildings are suing the supplier of valves, gaskets and other piping products used in the buildings, claiming widespread failures have caused water damage in some units and will cost millions in repairs and temporary relocations. But for owners and would-be residents, the biggest inconvenience may come from the lawsuits themselves. Litigation tends to cut off financing for purchases in affected condo buildings, so owners are left to find all-cash buyers. Or, more likely for many, just wait things out. Identical products were installed in many other area buildings during the condo boom of the mid-2000s, too, meaning the current battle may only be a precursor to an even bigger fight down the road. Property managers in other buildings have notified residents they're inspecting the plumbing and examining their options.