Watch it.

Skip the first half, which is all about how great the program is (an a Catholic ad for a way of earning a ‘plenary indulgence’), and hit the second half, which actually explains the system.

The secret: High standards, rigorously enforced. No ‘social promotion’, no ‘equitable grading’, no educational fads. Holding teachers responsible for their ‘product’. Training teachers on phonics and other traditional, reliable methods.

Read it.

Donald Trump is the master of memes — and of the media. No modern political figure understands better how to energize the long-humiliated conservative-patriotic soul that has been crushed for decades by a left-liberal media zeitgeist. His Gaza performance is the latest chapter in the ongoing media revolution of our time.

Peace in Gaza. The guns have fallen silent between Israel Defense Forces and Hamas. What was unthinkable for decades has happened: a historic breakthrough. Hostage and POW exchanges — all brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The achievement alone commands extraordinary respect. But with Trump now mediating in Armenia-Azerbaijan, between Israel and Iran, and pressing ahead with unfinished work in Ukraine, a Nobel Peace Prize would seem almost inevitable.

And Trump, ever the media virtuoso, translated this geopolitical power move into the perfect, iconic imagery.

The Foundry.

on Wednesday. While Democrats are clinging to their $1.5 trillion demands—and Republicans, for once, are refusing to capitulate—there has been a palpable shift in the government shutdown state of play in favor of Republicans. This week, Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., joins “The Signal Sitdown” to discuss the evolving dynamics of shutdown politics and how Trump is leading the GOP to a win not seen in decades.

“Historically, it should be a surprise” that Democrats have opted to shut down the government, Haridopolos told The Daily Signal. “The Democrats historically have always got along with a clean [continuing resolution],” he added. That’s especially the case in recent history, as Democrats have voted upward of a dozen times for a nearly identical continuing resolution that kept the government open and running on spending levels set during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

To add insult to injury, the continuing resolution that would last through Nov. 21 was negotiated by Republican and Democrat appropriators. “We negotiated this ahead of time,” Haridopolos told The Daily Signal. “[House Appropriations Chairman] Tom Cole sat down, of course, with the House appropriators and Democrat appropriators, and said, ‘We’re going to have a clean [continuing resolution], what else do you need? We want to do it till January.’”

Democrats, however, wanted the continuing resolution to expire in November. “We acquiesced and said, ‘OK, fine, November 21,’” Haridopolos continued. “We negotiated. So, this drama about ‘They never had a seat at the table’ is wrong.”

Democrats went on to reject the continuing resolution because, in Haridopolos’ telling, “the modern Democrat Party is clearly being held hostage by the more left-wing, if not super left-wing, part of their party.”

Read it.

Texas is famous for its wide-open land, its independence, and its promise of freedom. Yet the truth is that Texans pay some of the highest property tax rates in the country. The state itself doesn’t collect property tax, but local governments make up for it many times over. Even with agricultural and wildlife exemptions, the real burden still falls on commercial buildings, apartment complexes, and single-family homes—the very places where most people live and work.

Better than an income tax.

Every year, I write a check for twenty-four thousand dollars in property taxes. In Texas, over half of that typically goes toward public education—sometimes up to 70 percent in certain counties. The irony is that none of it goes toward educating my own children.

I pay about the same, and I don’t even have any children. At least property taxes are under local control, unlike a state income tax.

That means I never truly own my home. The government can raise taxes whenever it wants, and if I can’t pay, it can take the property away.

That applies to your labor as well. The government can,  at any time, take the majority of your earnings as a tax of some kind, and they can put you in prison if you don’t pay. Does that mean you don’t truly own your own body? Some have argued so.

Read The Whole Thing.

Apparently ‘capitalism’ refers to anything that isn’t socialism. *sigh* Maybe I’m just being too picky….

ScienceAlert.

In the middle of the night, the world can sometimes feel like a dark place. Under the cover of darkness, negative thoughts have a way of drifting through your mind, and as you lie awake, staring at the ceiling, you might start craving guilty pleasures, like a cigarette or a carb-heavy meal.

Plenty of evidence suggests the human mind functions differently if awake at nighttime. Past midnight, negative emotions tend to draw our attention more than positive ones, dangerous ideas grow in appeal, and inhibitions fall away.

Some researchers think the human circadian rhythm is heavily involved in these critical changes in function, as they outline in a 2022 paper summarizing the evidence of how brain systems function differently after dark.

Read it.

British anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, went on trial on Monday accused of refusing to give police his phone PIN when stopped under counter-terrorism laws, and said billionaire Elon Musk was funding his defense.

Yaxley-Lennon, better known by his pseudonym Tommy Robinson, has become a flag-bearer for some British nationalists and one of Britain’s most high-profile anti-migration campaigners, recently organizing a large rally in London attended by about 150,000 people.

He said in a video posted on social media before his trial at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court that Musk, who often reposts his messages on X and appeared at the rally by videolink, had “picked up the legal bill for this absolute state persecution.”

Musk keeps doing things that I would do if I had his money. (He also keeps doing things that I wouldn’t do if I had his money, but there it is.)

Read it.

Defense attorneys representing the man accused of assassinating conservative commentator Charlie Kirk last month filed a court motion on Thursday asking a judge to allow him to attend in-person court hearings wearing plain clothes and without shackles.

During his first court appearance, Robinson was seen wearing jail clothing and what appeared to be an anti-suicide smock. He made his first court appearance virtually.

In the motion submitted to Judge Tony Graf, his attorneys argued that the change in clothes is needed to ensure that potential jurors are not impacted by seeing Robinson in jail garb and with shackles. They cited interest in the case, including 18,000 search results for his first court appearance.

Read it.

Barack Obama shared a post expressing relief that the conflict between Israel and Hamas is coming to an end, but left out one vital detail.

Couldn’t find space for President Trump’s name?

Read it.

The body clears medicines within hours to weeks. However, a recent study suggests that drugs you took years ago may continue to affect your gut—and the more frequently and the longer they’re used, the greater their effect.

Nearly nine out of 10 commonly used medications leave permanent changes in gut bacteria – including drugs never before linked to digestive effects, according to the study.

This holds true not only for antibiotics but also for drugs used to manage high blood pressure, anxiety, and stomach hyperacidity.

Watch it.

Carl Benjamin (“Sargon of Akkad”) does a great takedown of Tony Blair and the “digital ID” proposal in Britain.

This has obvious relevance to the U.S., because Britain has a habit of adopting every stupid idea about five years ahead of when the U.S. (read: Democrats) undergoes a push to adopt that same stupid idea.

I highly recommend watching the video series PERSON OF INTEREST. My public library had a set of the discs; check your public library. If they don’t have it, recommend that they purchase it.

Read it.

Given the chaos that has engulfed France for weeks, if not months, everyone is looking for a way out. But what way? The pretender to the French throne, Louis XX, Duke of Anjou and head of the elder branch of the Bourbons, and as such, king of France de jure, seized the opportunity to publish an op-ed in the French press. An alternative to the crisis of the regime?

This is not the first time that Louis has spoken out in the French press. He likes to remind the French people of his existence from time to time, especially when they are going through periods of crisis. At the time of the yellow vest crisis in 2018, he publicly expressed his support for the movement, and a delegation of yellow vests visited the Expiatory Chapel, built in memory of Louis XVI, where a mass is held every year in the presence of the heir to the throne to remember the martyred king of the Revolution—to thank him and, in a way, to pay homage to him.

Since then, he has been heard to take a stand during the pension reform crisis and the mobilisation of angry farmers. He is particularly interested in social debates, such as the inclusion of abortion in the constitution and the introduction of euthanasia in France. On these occasions, he defends a vision of humanity based on the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church, which is committed to the dignity of human life from its beginning to its natural death.

It’s all in the hypergamy….

Read it.

Just over a week into the Oct. 1 government shutdown, Yosemite National Park has seen a surge of illegal activity — from BASE jumping off El Capitan to unpermitted ascents of Half Dome’s cables, according to SF Gate.

“It’s like the Wild Wild West,” said John DeGrazio, founder of YExplore Yosemite Adventures. While he has long encountered permit violators on Half Dome, he said the shutdown has emboldened visitors: “These people are counting on no enforcement because of the shutdown.”

With rangers furloughed, enforcement is scarce. A park employee told SFGATE only one wilderness ranger — actually a volunteer — is currently patrolling. “There are lots of squatters in the campgrounds,” the employee said. “There are lots of people that truly believe they can do whatever they want because of the lack of rangers. They’ve told us.”

People doing things without government permission! The horror! The horror!

I’m imagining the purr….

Read it.

One more time: There is no such thing as free lunch. Government has no money. It acquires the money used to pay for things one of three ways: taxing, borrowing or printing.

Democrat senators, with three exceptions, voted against keeping the federal government fully running because they want to add back spending reduced under the so-called Big Beautiful Bill; they want to spend even more; and they want to extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies.

Democrats call Republicans “liars” for accusing Democrats of seeking government-provided health care for illegal aliens. But when asked whether she supports health care for illegal aliens, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said, “Democrats are demanding health care for everybody.”

At a 2020 Democratic presidential candidates’ debate, the moderator said, “Raise your hand if your government (health care) plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.” All 10 candidates put up their hands.

As for Obamacare, Democrats designed it knowing some subsidies would expire. That way they could downplay its true cost. Their expectation was simple. If Republicans refuse to extend the subsidies, Democrats would accuse Republicans of cruelty, no matter the cost to taxpayers.

In America, you note, they’re all Blue cities in Blue states.

Read it.

The Single-Family Rental (SFR) space has become the de facto middle-class housing market across America. With elevated 30-year mortgage rates and high home prices, affordability has collapsed, sidelining multiple generations of Americans from homeownership.

Thus making us more like Europe. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is an exercise left for the reader.

For expanded visibility into the SFR market, as well as homeownership affordability, demand fundamentals, supply dynamics, rental growth expectations, and the transaction environment, Goldman analysts hosted a private webinar on Tuesday with executives from several of the largest owners of single-family homes in the U.S, including David Todd (Managing Director in Brookfield’s Real Estate group as well as CEO of Maymont Homes, Brookfield’s SFR business), Chris Avallone (Amherst’s CFO & Head of Merchant Banking), and Dave Feldman (Co-President of Progress Residential).

One of the key takeaways from the webinar is that the SFR market remains resilient, driven by high homeownership costs that continue to fuel strong rental demand, particularly in the Midwest and interior Southeast, while softer conditions persist in Florida, Texas, and Phoenix.

Read it.

One of the classic tropes of science fiction is terraforming Mars: warming up our cold neighbor so it could support human civilization. The idea might not be so far-fetched, research published today in Science Advances suggests.

Injecting tiny particles into Mars’s atmosphere could warm the planet by more than 10°C in a matter of months, researchers find—enough to sustain liquid water. Although the scheme would require about 2 million tons of particles per year, they could be manufactured from readily available ingredients found in martian dust.

“It’s not that often you get some really quite new, innovative idea for terraforming,” says Colin McInnes, a space engineer at the University of Glasgow not involved with the work. “The gap between where Mars is and where Mars could be for habitability is narrower than we might think.”

Check it out.

HURDY GURDYS, LUTES, GREGORIAN CHANTS, THUNDERING DRUMS
AND PUNISHING PERCUSSIVE FOLEY FX. THE EP-1320 IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND:
FEATURING A LARGE LIBRARY OF PHRASES, PLAY READY INSTRUMENTS
AND ONE-SHOT SAMPLES FROM AN AGE WHERE DARKNESS REIGNED SUPREME,
THE INSTRUMENTALIS ELECTRONICUM IS THE ULTIMATE,
AND ONLY, MEDIEVAL BEAT MACHINE.

Read it.

There’s more than one way to animate a film. And one of the most innovative, albeit time-consuming, ways to bring a movie to life is through rotoscoping. But what is rotoscope animation? While it’s typically associated with modern works like the 2006 film A Scanner Darkly and the recent Amazon Prime series Undone, the technique has roots dating back decades. Let’s take a look at some movies that use rotoscoping to see how it can be utilized for future filmmakers.

I’ve seen this technique used quite often in commervials on TV.

Niel Gorsuch and Janie Nitze.

Our country has always been a nation of laws, but something has changed dramatically in recent decades. Contrary to the narrative that Congress is racked by an inability to pass bills, the number of laws in our country has simply exploded. Less than 100 years ago, all of the federal government’s statutes fit into a single volume. By 2018, the U.S. Code encompassed 54 volumes and approximately 60,000 pages. Over the past decade, Congress has adopted an average of 344 new pieces of legislation each session. That amounts to 2 million to 3 million words of new federal law each year. Even the length of bills has grown—from an average of about two pages in the 1950s to 18 today.

Try Hare Krishna.

Naval Gazing.

Given the current concern around drones, it seems worth surveying possible countermeasures in a reasonably systematic way, looking at each category of possible solution and listing the pros and cons of each. Now, this is a big and rapidly-evolving area, and I’m not a specialist in it. But I have done some looking around, and it seems worthwhile to bring this up as a counter to a lot of the triumphalism around drones these days.

Read it.

Ka’Von Wooden loved trains. The 15-year-old had an encyclopedic knowledge of New York City’s subway system and dreamed of becoming a train operator.

‘Ka’Von’? No need to inquire into his ethnicity, I guess.

Instead, on a December morning in 2022, Ka’Von died after he climbed to the roof of a moving J train in Brooklyn and then fell onto the tracks as it headed onto the Williamsburg Bridge.

He is one of more than a dozen New Yorkers, many young boys, who have been killed or badly injured after falling off speeding trains. Other risks include being crushed between the train and tunnel walls and being electrocuted by high-voltage subway tracks. “Subway surfing” dates back a century but it has been fueled by social media.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

For generations, physicists have puzzled over life. Their theories about matter and energy have helped them understand how the universe produced galaxies and planets. But physicists have struggled to understand how lifeless chemical reactions give rise to the complexity stored in our cells.

In a new book, “Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life’s Emergence,” out on Aug. 6, Sara Walker, a physicist at Arizona State University, offers a theory that she and her colleagues believe can make sense of life. Assembly theory, as they call it, looks at everything in the universe in terms of how it was assembled from smaller parts. Life, the scientists argue, emerges when the universe hits on a way to make exceptionally intricate things.

The book arrives at an opportune time, as assembly theory has attracted both praise and criticism in recent months. Dr. Walker argues that the theory holds the potential to help identify life on other worlds. And it may allow scientists like her to create life from scratch.

Read it.

Hollywood’s middle class is collapsing, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

Production has slowed to historic lows, jobs are vanishing, and longtime workers are leaving Los Angeles in droves.

Animator Brian Mainolfi, who once worked with Chuck Jones and on Disney films like Mulan, hasn’t had steady work since 2024. His only income is $350 a week teaching three hours away. “By the end of the year if I don’t have something, I’m going to have to apply to a big-box store or a grocery store,” said the 54-year-old, now burning through savings.

DHS.

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials approached Roberts, he identified himself then sped off, abandoned his vehicle, and hid in a brushy area about 200 meters away, where ICE officers located him with help from Iowa State Patrol officers. At the time of arrest, a loaded handgun, hunting knife and $3,000 cash were found in his vehicle. On Oct. 2, he was charged with being an illegal alien in possession of firearms.

Roberts’ rap sheet and immigration history reveal a long record of criminal conduct in the United States. He should never have been serving in a role overseeing children in Iowa’s largest school district.

“Ian Andre Roberts, a criminal illegal alien with multiple weapons charges and a drug trafficking charge, should have never been able to work around children,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “When ICE officers arrested this Superintendent, he was in possession of an illegal handgun, a hunting knife, and nearly $3,000 in cash. This criminal illegal alien is now in U.S. Marshals custody and facing charges for being an illegal alien in possession of a firearms. Under Secretary Noem, ICE will continue to arrest the worst of the worst and put the safety of America’s children FIRST.”

Scientific American, a Voice of the Crust.

Almost half of all people in the world today speak an Indo-European language, one whose origins go back thousands of years to a single mother tongue. Languages as different as English, Russian, Hindustani, Latin and Sanskrit can all be traced back to this ancestral language.

Over the last couple of hundred years, linguists have figured out a lot about that first Indo-European language, including many of the words it used and some of the grammatical rules that governed it. Along the way, they’ve come up with theories about who its original speakers were, where and how they lived, and how their language spread so widely.

Most linguists think that those speakers were nomadic herders who lived on the steppes of Ukraine and western Russia about 6,000 years ago. Yet a minority put the origin 2,000 to 3,000 years before that, with a community of farmers in Anatolia, in the area of modern-day Turkey. Now a new analysis, using techniques borrowed from evolutionary biology, has come down in favor of the latter, albeit with an important later role for the steppes.

The computational technique used in the new analysis is hotly disputed among linguists. But its proponents say it promises to bring more quantitative rigor to the field, and could possibly push key dates further into the past, much as radiocarbon dating did in the field of archaeology.

NPR, a Voice of the Crust.

hink of Jennifer, or as we like to call her, “Jen.” Jen of the dazzling smile, Jen of the gorgeous chin, Jen with her hair down, Jen tousled, Jen as Rachel, Jen with Brad; Jen without Brad, Jen with Vince, Jen at the Oscars, and, of course, Jen as a neuron in the medial part of the temporal lobe.

Maybe you missed that last Jen.

A few years ago, a UCLA neurosurgeon named Itzhak Fried, while operating on patients who suffer from debilitating epileptic seizures, discovered what he now calls the “Jennifer Aniston Neuron.”

Read it.

Many of us have repeated the assertion that writing paper in early modern England was expensive and scarce, but it has always bothered me. After hearing this fairly regularly in response to two common questions —“Why did people write on the endleaves of printed books?” and “Why are there no ‘Shakespeare manuscripts’?”—I started keeping track of paper prices in account books and bills and receipts to see if this was actually true. I was suspicious because a considerable number of early modern manuscript books at the Folger and elsewhere are mostly blank.

The majority of letters from this period are written on the first page of a four page bifolium, with the inner two pages left blank and the last page used to write the superscription (the address). An etiquette manual published in 1675 encourages the ostentatious display of blank paper as a show of respect, its writer suggesting that when composing a letter, to “make use of large Paper rather than small, and a whole sheet (though we write but six lines in the first Page) rather than half a one, is no inconsiderable piece of ceremony, one shewing reverence and esteem, the other familiarity or indifference” (Antoine de Courtin, The Rules of Civility).

However, even drafts of letters are often written on whole sheets, suggesting that leaving blank paper unused was hardly considered decadent and not only meant to impress.

Read it.

Fundamentally, any kind of “superbaby” or “designer baby” project depends on two steps:
1.) figure out what genes you ideally want;
2.) create an embryo with those genes.
It’s already standard to do a very simple version of this two-step process. In the typical course of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), embryos are usually screened for chromosomal abnormalities that would cause disabilities like Down Syndrome, and only the “healthy” embryos are implanted.
But most (partially) heritable traits and disease risks are not as easy to predict.

Let’s see–nope, no sign of Grievance Studies majors, ‘journalism’, ‘communications’, or DEI administrators.

The Spectator (UK).

When I was offered the chance to review two new books about the Devil, I thought, “what fun!” I wouldn’t describe myself as a particularly diabolical person, but as someone whose deep love of Paradise Lost has made me, as good old William Blake didn’t quite put it, “of the devil’s party while very much knowing it,” I rubbed my hands together in glee at the prospect of getting down and dirty with Old Nick.

Not, you understand, that my purely literary interest can begin to compare to the “Satanic Panic” outbreak that gripped the imaginations of middle America in the late 1980s and 1990s. “Satanic cults! Every hour, every day, their ranks are growing!” So began one typically understated NBC special that boasted macabre stories of animal sacrifice, cannibalism, ritualistic child abuse and grisly ceremonial murders, all described with a mixture of apparent shock and prurient relish. People genuinely feared that agents of the Devil walked among them. Not least because the media whipped them up into a frenzy.

It is easy to look back at Satanic Panic and chuckle at its absurdity. For a brief moment, we might pity the teenage goths and emos who were suspected of unspeakable crimes because they liked the color black. We can do this because, of course, in our enlightened age, nobody really believes in the Devil anymore. Even the camp but hardly blood-curdling flamboyance of the Satanic Temple is somewhat restrained today; its adherents now spend their time rather quaintly fighting for “representation in schools.”

What I find interesting is that humans, uniquely among the animal world, have developed social institutions to constrain or even suppress natural instinctive behaviors. No other animal species has anything resembling a police force. Whence comes the notion that certain proclivities (that we all have) are somehow not-good?

Pro bono publico has a lot of stretch to it.

Read it.

The troops entering Portland are drawn from a pool of 300 guard members who are either trained as military police or have been certified by the state’s police standards agency. Of the 300 qualified guard members, 166 members primarily from the I-5 corridor have already volunteered for service in Portland.

The situation is without precedent, as Trump’s order marks the first time Oregon’s National Guard has been deployed within the state over the objections of its governor, Bomar said. The only other time the president has deployed Oregon’s National Guard was for airport security in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

Military.com

The white hats of the graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy sailed high in the clear skies above Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis in May of 1994, after President Bill Clinton gave the commencement address and the Navy’s Blue Angels roared overhead.

Mikie Sherrill, now a New Jersey Democratic congresswoman running for governor, saw none of it.

She was caught up in a months-long investigation of the worst cheating scandal in the academy’s history, leading to the expulsion of 24 midshipmen. Sherrill says she did not cheat but was penalized because she would not turn in her classmates involved in the infamous scandal.

Which is just as much a violation of the Honor Code as actually cheating.

While allowed to graduate, Sherrill was not permitted to walk in the procession with the rest of her classmates in that joyous ceremony. She was among 64 who received lesser punishment.

Read it.

Many socialists have bypassed the foundational principle of collective ownership of production and have instead jumped straight to demands for ownership or redistribution of the output of production. Production is seemingly taken for granted. This conceptual shortcut makes socialism seem like a dream economic system by avoiding what socialism really is.

Therefore, although many public and political arguments are made in the name of socialism, what is often advocated for is not true socialism. In reality, the debate has rarely centered on collective ownership of the means of production—such as the factories, tools, land, and capital that make production possible—but instead on ownership or control of the outputs of production (goods and services).

Simply put, many self-identified socialists are less interested in owning the means of production and more interested in claiming entitlement to what is currently being produced or the production that someone else already owns.

Thus, the economic system debate is rarely about who controls the means of production itself but rather about the redistribution of final goods and services.

Read it.

A new finding by American surgeon John Sottosanti adds an astonishing detail to the Shroud of Turn debate: the faint outline of human teeth beneath the cloth’s imprint.

…

But to Sottosanti, trained in facial anatomy, the discovery is groundbreaking, according to an article published in The Blaze.

It not only demonstrates the Shroud came from a real human being, but also deepens the mystery of how the Shroud’s image was formed.

Read it.

It’s only been a couple of days since Biden stepped down and endorsed Kamala Harris. I’ve lost count of the “first Black/Indian American/Asian American female president” emails and ads flooding my inbox. Just last week, I learned that JD Vance was Trump’s running mate when I got a dozen messages asking about the Telugu-speaking Kamma caste. And no, these weren’t from the extended family WhatsApp group gossiping about a cousin. Most messages were from Americans trying to understand the buzz around JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance (née Chilukuri), an American born to Telugu-speaking Indian immigrants.

That buzz around Indian Americans in politics only intensified with Vivek Ramaswamy’s speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) and Nikki Haley following the party line to endorse Trump. With Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket, Indian Americans are making waves on both sides of the political aisle, and everyone’s taking notice.

Indian Americans, though just 1.5% of the U.S. population, have an outsized impact. They’re not only the highest-earning ethnic group but also occupy top positions at Microsoft, Google, IBM, Adobe, and FedEx. They dominate the field in STEM and medicine, and now, they’re stepping into the political spotlight on both sides of the aisle.

…

How did the children of Indian immigrants reach the top of US establishments in just one generation? Should we view them as part of the elite or categorize them as BIPOC — Black, Indigenous, and People of Color? Are they more likely to vote – or now, increasingly run – as Democrats or Republicans? And what does all this mean for the broader political landscape and policies on immigration, race, and DEI?

I answer all these questions by explaining (1) the composition of Indian Americans in the US, especially from the lens of caste; (2) the origins of when and how Indian Americans came to the US; (3) the political leanings and views of the more recent Indian immigrants on immigration reform and DEI as a relatively small minority in the US.

Epicurious.

As you cut sweet, creamy, and slightly airy slices of yellow banana into your morning cereal, it may be hard to imagine the familiar fruit tasting any different. Like the prisoners in Plato’s allegory of the cave, most Americans are unaware that today’s yellow banana is like a shadow of the one that preceded it—a yellow banana with a sweeter flavor, firmer texture, and better culinary versatility was once the norm. The long, curved, school-bus yellow banana that America first marveled at was a variety called the Gros Michel, or “Big Mike.”

…

For a long time, I casually searched for the Gros Michel. I knew it would be difficult to find in stores, though from what I’d read the variety still existed. The longer I searched and the more I paid attention, the more it became incredibly clear to me how many bananas this country has for sale. Bodegas, convenience stores, airport kiosks, chain grocery stores, corporate cafeterias, hotel breakfast buffets—everywhere I happened upon a yellow banana, it was always a Cavendish.

Finally, one day, I was pleasantly surprised to find an online Gros Michel retailer called Miami Fruit. I ordered a small box of Gros Michel bananas and patiently waited for them to arrive at my door but realized I didn’t quite know how to qualitatively judge one banana against another. To truly understand how the elusive Gros Michel from years past compares to the Cavendish that litters produce stands today, I knew I had to speak with a bona fide fruit expert.