It isn’t surprising that the Gulf Union Summit won’t yield serious results. The smaller states with denser income per capita have more to lose. If they need military protection, the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) already has a pact intact. If all else fails in that regard, renting the US army ala…
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Augustine
Probably would have been amazing! First he was absolutely brilliant, and he fully believed in making beautiful memories as a gateway to the soul. He seems like a sensitive bad boy, and we all know what that means! But then, he found God and started to feel bad about all of his licentious acts and had to refrain from sins of the body. Damn Catholic guilt!
When Gandhi was asked why he travelled second-class train, he famously said because there was no third. Gandhi’s class, or SC, transported last year 3x India’s population. This is how India travels.
Spring turning, the agrarian nation eagerly took a week off, to go home to lob Holi colors & imbibe cannabis. I had to be in Varanasi. Travel was squatting room only. I could travel SC, sans confirmed ticket, if I waited in line overnight.
4am: I arrive, the line is thirty-deep. A watchman notes my name in a list. With our places ratified, passengers mingle, sow groups off fickle kinships: accents, faiths, destinations: laborers, clergy, peons holding place for bosses.
The counter opens, frees a frenzy. The list is wielded to control chaos. Within an hour, we have waitlisted tickets, which offer two things- a place in line awaiting the train, a chance to squat anywhere we could in SC.
I hold our place, as my group of tailors buys samosas, soda, smokes. A rumble, chatter, the train pulls. The line flocks to train-entrances. We press in, nest at the entrance. Some carriages will hold 4x more passengers than capacity.
Enroute, the holy solicit our spot, we scuttle- the red Siva disciple packs a chillum, the green Islamic saint fires a beedi. They smoke & chant devotions, retreat. The high officials whose tickets their peons secured, could afford the bribed benches. The clergy displaces the bureaucracy, which yells at the laborers, who climb luggage racks, we hold the entrance.
Hawkers board at every stop. Pav Baji in Pune, oranges in Nagpur, fried chilis in AP, a steady stream of chai.
An hour to Varanasi, the clergy wake, boot us again, light up. We share a meal. Covered in grime, smoke, sweaty newsprint, we share stories, laugh. Thus end rapports that had served their time.
SC stages in microcosm, the chaotic Indian experience: smells, class, red tape, deified clergy, India’s overcrowded everywhere. This is India on wheels
daugherty covers lady gaga - poker face!
“(W)hile the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” - Justice John Harlan, Cohen vs. California.
Freedom of Speech, FTW!
i want. http://bit.ly/7LP8j …and my birthday is coming up as well. just saying.
how twitter literally killed a girl. http://bit.ly/BVd4B (via @christophernull)
RT @nytimes: Apple’s Secrecy on Products and Top Executives http://bit.ly/1wj9IX and CEO’s health http://tinyurl.com/lsp9zl
usama: 1, junebug: 0! boom muthafucka!
RT @austinist: Traffic on Mopac near 360 is backed up as authorities investigate a suicide at the greenbelt, says @statesman Blotter
RT @nytimeskristof: Women marginalized in Iran, yet ubiquitous in protests. Best explanation:education! 65% of univ students are women. #fb
RT @JTSampson with this tweet i control the elections of iran. dance, puppets.
