Belize graffiti

thanks to this reddit for helping us find a lot of cool places! i love belize so much, almost cried on the way home — being in so many majority black areas was very healing for me and we met so many kind and complimentary people. would love to return someday. this trip was me and another mid-20s woman of color. feel free to AMA about the trip!
Day 1-3 HOPKINS: picked up car at Crystal Auto rental, got a Chevy 2020 AWD fuel efficient vehicle (to try and save a little on gas). Overall, for 4 days it was about $430USD and then another $105USD for gas — split between two ppl it didn't feel too excessive and because we weren't doing any guided tours and got to drive everywhere ourselves, it felt very independent and the right choice for our duo. i liked having the AWD for driving in mountain pine ridge (more later) since some of the roads were very uneven, so it felt like extra mental security.
stopped at P&L's on the way from the airport after our flight, $4.5USD for a big box of stewed chicken, rice and potato salad was perfect first meal.
stayed at Cosmopolitan Guest House, owners are so sweet. spent a lot of time at Big Dock, their piña colada was out of this world and the waves were great to hang out in the ocean. having a car was helpful to go into the main town as well to eat. Semiti Graffiti drumming was nice but my fish came out very undercooked, but seasoned deliciously. otherwise, Hopkins had some of the best food from all trip. definitely try the hudut at Ella's cool spot and the stuffed fry jack at Tugusina Garifuna. my top meals from the whole week fr fr.
also tried hiking around Mayflower national park (i think Antelope hike?), short drive from Hopkins in the morning. swam in one of the holes — a good way to have an active morning before a slower beach afternoon.
DAY 3-4 SAN IGNACIO:
drove the hummingbird highway and stopped at Ms. Bertha's Tamales (they only had chicken, but tasty and different from the Mexican tamales i'm used to!) and The Country Barn for coconut ice cream and sour sop yogurt on the way to San Ignacio.
i speak Spanish, so it was cool to speak to people with a different accent here! ate at Erva's and the coconut spicy chicken curry was amazing, as was the vegetable coconut sauce dish. Pop's had decent fry jacks but i preferred the Hopkins ones. stayed at Rainforest Haven Inn, everything is very walkable.
we didn't do guided tours at all since we had the car. first went to Xunatunich to walk around and see the ruins, then went to the iguana sanctuary, where the guide let us hold the older green ones and small babies — super cool!
the next day we did Mountain Pine Ridge, roads were a bit difficult for me to navigate as a city driver. wasn't my favorite park in the country for all the effort. we went to some caves and went down one of the more difficult stairsteps to a waterfall, which was beautiful to swim in.
drove our rental car back to Belize City to drop off the car. they offered to drive us to our Belize City hotel, Fort George, which we stayed in for one night before we headed to Caye Caulker because i had extra credit card points. ate at the hotel restaurant which was very delicious (and had super strong margaritas!)
DAY 5-6 CAYE CAULKER:
veryyyy different from the chiller vibes earlier in the trip in a fun way. spent the mornings kayaking with free boats from our hotel Sea n Sun Guest house (very attentive manager, Cecilio) and swimming in the ocean, jumping off the Split platform and eating. no need to rent a golf cart here, very easy to get around.
recs: dee n d's conch skewer and jerk ribs/chicken. maggie's sunset kitchen grilled fish. errolyn's fry jacks. chef juan's pulled pork sandwich. the lazy lizard had great music the night we went (good mix of reggaetón, afro beats and pop) and they had a half moon party with $7.5USD entry that was SO FUN, especially when they put on soca/punta/afrobeats music and the real dancing began 😎😎 we met some fun locals and expats our age the night before and they made sure we got home safe and had a good time on both nights. also went to reggie's/i&i's for a more local dance experience and got to dance on the DJ table which was fun!
TIPS:
- microfiber towel, got mine on amazon for $12 that came in a carrying case and was super helpful for days we went to swimming holes in the national parks. wet bag. i had a free one from donating blood once, but helpful for kayaking and for transporting wet swimsuits when going swimming in the park holes. water shoes, i brought my Tevas for when i entered the springs/water holes because the rocks have a lot of algae and can get slippery. my friend couldn't attempt to move around at all because she only had flip flops
- bring a lot of USD, a lot more places were cash only than we thought, plus i felt bad hitting businesses with those credit card fees or us having to pay extra. $200USD lasted both of us the whole trip with some card usage for gas and other restaurants, but feel free to bring more if you'd like!
- restaurants go pretty slow — prep for up to an hour wait, depending. we went to go sit down before we were hungry usually, so by the time food came out we were really ready to eat all the delicious food! i also didn't find the drinks very strong across the country, so you might want to request extra alcohol in them if you want a bigger punch. maggie's in CC and fort george in BC were the exception.
- bring bug spray, especially for Caye Caulker — these bites were no joke!! baby oil wasn't necessary since we didn't go to anywhere with sand fleas. we DID sunburn for the first time in our lives as brown/black women, so make sure to reapply sunscreen and don't underestimate the sun on a cloudy day. for curly girls: put deep conditioner in your hair before you get into salt water to protect it!
overall, one of my favorite countries to travel, particularly as a black latina (got a lot of funny questions about why i can't speak Kriol or if i was secretly Belizean — i wish!!) and i can't wait to return. <333

Boquete is a small mountain town in Panama's green mountain highlands, in the westernmost province of Chiriquí, a safer, peaceful town.
Not everything here is necessarily relevant or true in relation to the tragic disappearance of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon.
Article:
CRIME AND DEVELOPMENT IN CENTRAL AMERICA
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
https://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/Central_America_Study_2007.pdf
Geographic vulnerability
Central America has the misfortune of being placed between drug supply and drug demand. The flow of cocaine from South America to the United States is one of the highest value illicit commodity streams in the world. Central America has been a conduit for these drugs for decades.
Today, Central America is a conduit for some 450 tons of cocaine headed to Mexico and the United States.
Young people have a share of youth in the population universally and most street crime and a good share of violent crime is committed by young men, usually between the ages of about 15 and 24.
The victims of this violence are often other young men, so youth may be seen as especially vulnerable to becoming both victims and perpetrators of crime.
Poverty and inequality
The relationship between poverty and criminality is a contentious one. Clearly, crimes of material desperation do occur, and those that suffer poverty may reject the legal and social systems in which this experience occurs.
But the poorest nations, and the poorest people, are not necessarily the most crime prone. According to the crime statistics, the safest countries in Central America are probably the richest (Costa Rica) and the poorest (Nicaragua).
More relevant may be the degree of inequality found in a society, as this provides both a justification (addressing social injustice) and an opportunity (wealth to steal) for crime.
Unemployment levels, especially among youth, may also be relevant, as young people are denied opportunities for economic independence and with too much time on their hands may drift into substance abuse, gang activity, and other forms of crime, including participation in drug trafficking.
There are high levels of poverty throughout Central America.
Unemployment
Unemployment is often cited as a cause of crime in popular polls and by politicians. Crime was second only to unemployment as the most important issue affecting Latin America.
There is a widely held belief in both Central America and the Caribbean that recent crime troubles can be tied directly to criminal deportees.
Many, it is popularly asserted, entered the United States at a young age, and thus their criminality is due to their upbringing in that country.
Since their families remain behind when they are deported, they are said to arrive in Central America without connections or a means of support. Many, it is claimed, cannot even speak proper Spanish.
They are thus left with little choice but to apply the criminal skills they learned in the US in their new homeland.
Conversely, there are good reasons to doubt that the average criminal deportee is responsible for the sort of crime that is of greatest concern to the governments of Central America. But there remains very little data describing the criminal deportee flows to the region.
How likely are criminal deportees inside Central America to commit crimes like murder, rape, kidnapping, and extortion upon their arrival?
Crime in Central America
There are two keys areas of crime in which Central America is remarkable by global standards: the volumes of drugs trafficked throughout the region and the rate of murder.
Central America suffers from being the conduit for the highest-value flow of drugs in the world. It also appears to host some of the world’s highest murder rates.
The group most frequently blamed for this unfortunate state of affairs are the youth gangs, or maras, fueled by criminal deportee flows from the United States.
Indeed, the most prominent anti-crime strategies in the region (the so-called mano dura approach) focus on cracking down on this group.
But there are reasons to be skeptical of this glib association. While youth gangs do represent a source of criminality, they do not appear to be responsible for a particularly disproportionate share of the murders in the countries where they predominate.
Their role in drug trafficking, even to local markets, is also dubious, rather than being the product of an easily identifiable group, it appears that violence is endemic to many Central American societies, and that the maras are merely the intensive manifestation of this violence among the population universally most likely to engage in bloodshed: marginalized urban males between the ages of 15 and 24.
The flow of drugs though Central America
The first point to be made about the flow of drugs is that it is massive. South America produces an estimated 900 tons of cocaine, most of which is shipped to 10 million users in the United States and Europe, a market that has far exceeded US$100 billion dollars a year.
Cocaine trafficking
Over the past 40 years, the impact of U.S. demand for cocaine on Central America has been profound.
This region, which does not produce cocaine and can hardly afford to consume it, has suffered massive collateral damage. Like a bystander wounded in a drive-by shooting, it has paid a dear price for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Murder
As problematic as the drug traffic is for Central America, it is not the flow of drugs itself that is most troubling. Rather, it is the effect that this flow has on crime in the region, especially violent crime on the one hand and corruption on the other.
Crime data is extremely problematic, and the Central America region provides an excellent case study of just how deceptive that statistic can be.
Official figures are generally based on police statistics, and the police figures are largely based on cases that are reported to the police by the public.
Unreported cases cannot be recorded, and there is good reason to believe a great deal of crime is not reported in this region. Murder is the crime that is most likely to come to the attention of the authorities, and for this reason it is this serious crime that gets studied internationally.
Making comparisons between jurisdictions is even more complicated. Definitions of crime vary greatly between countries. Even for what seems like an easily defined offense, such as murder, definitions vary widely. Murder is a crime of intent, and the determination of intent is a matter of judgement, not fact.
Killings performed in self-defence or the defense of others (including most killings by police) are not murders. Killings that occur by accident vary in culpability depending on the degree of negligence of the perpetrator – freak accidents are less blameworthy than acts of wanton recklessness. In many jurisdictions, attempted murder is considered equal to the completed act; the would-be killer should not be exonerated simply because he failed to do what he intended.
In summary, it appears safe to say that, in Central America, the countries rank as follows, from safest to most dangerous: Costa Rica; Nicaragua or Panama; Guatemala and El Salvador. There is not enough current data on Honduras and Belize to place them, but those that do exist suggest they should be situated near the top. Most of the data suggest that El Salvador and Guatemala stand alongside Jamaica, Colombia and South Africa/Swaziland as the most violent countries for which figures are available
Youth gangs
In this region, as elsewhere, the drugs and violence problems are often blamed on young people, especially young men banded together in ‘gangs’. Globally, young men acting in groups do dominate many forms of crime, but a distinction needs to be made between informal criminal associations and true institutionalized gangs. In many parts of the world, unoccupied boys and young men gather on street corners and engage in anti-social behavior. Many of these groupings give themselves a name and proceed to victimize their local communities.
An institutionalized gang is a framework through which the membership flows, often across generations, and has its own set of conventions and rules. These generally include a stylized and secret gang history, initiation rituals, a ranking system, rites of passage, rules of conduct, and bereavement rituals. Gang members place loyalty to the institution paramount in their lives. It becomes their primary source of identity, and is often likened to an extended family – two aspects very attractive to rudderless young men whose real families may be dysfunctional or absent. As a result, gang members take pains to identify themselves as such, adopting characteristic dress, tattoos, graffiti, hand signs, and slang. They are often, but not always, bound to a particular territory where most of the membership resides. Their relationship with this community can be either oppressive or protective or a little of both. Many institutionalized gangs started out as voluntary defensive associations of the young men of a victimized community. Over time, self-defense groups can evolve into protection rackets, demanding compensation for the security they provide. Once control over the neighborhood is absolute, they may claim the exclusive right to victimize the community.
Involvement in trafficking
It is unclear how the bulk of youth gang members, who live far from the sea and are not known for their maritime skills, would add value to the process of moving drugs northward. Even with regard to traffic along the Pan American Highway, it is unclear how mareros could assist. They could be involved in providing some minor logistic or security support, but it is highly unlikely that gang members, who are generally young street kids, are the masterminds behind the movement of cocaine to the United States.
Conclusion
Historically, there has been no shortage of anti-crime efforts, but, plainly, they have not achieved their desired result.
The police can play a vital role in identifying and helping to solve local crime problems, but they can only do so if they are systematically de-militarized and made into something quite different. They must engage with and know their communities, and be trusted by them.
All international actors in development should be involved in finding solutions. The problems of this region must be addressed regionally, with the support and cooperation of the other nations affected by regional drug flows, including the sources of drug demand. Many problems are inherently transnational.
In addition to a comprehensive strategy for crime prevention, all development efforts in this region should contain a crime prevention component, including the country development and poverty reduction strategies as well as good communication with international agencies on the problem.
In summary, this report indicates that there are several distinct areas in which the international community can assist the countries of Central America in dealing with the crime problem.
Finally, criminal justice reform is a distinct process from the drive for crime prevention, and an equally important one. Democracy itself is at stake when the rule of law is not secure.

Hi folks, and happy Saturday! Here's the latest ancient news:

• Queen Nefertiti's Mummy May Have Been Found, Says Leading Archaeologist — The famous Zahi Hawass has announced that he believes the mummy that he is currently studying to be that of none other than Queen Nefertiti. His exact quote was, “I'm sure I'll reveal Nefertiti's mummy in a month or two.” Nefertiti lived between 1270 and 1330 BCE. She was the wife of Akhenaten, and the two are known for a religious revolution in Egypt which focused on the worship of one god — the sun disc, Aten. Some, including Hawass, believe that she ruled after the death of her husband.
• What Ancient Dung Reveals About Epipaleolithic Animal Tending — A new study is shedding light on the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and herding. Researchers analyzed dung spherulites, which are tiny calcium carbonate clumps in dung. They found that between 12,800 and 12,300 years ago, hunter-gatherers at Abu Hureyra, an archaeological site in Syria that has been occupied for thousands of years, burned dung as fuel. And they may have kept animals near their dwellings — possibly sheep. This supports a small body of evidence that ancient peoples may have tended animals before they cultivated plants, which goes against mainstream thought. According to the authors of the study, “We were surprised when we realized that hunter-gatherers were bringing live animals to Abu Hureyra between 12,800 and 12,300 years ago and keeping them outside of their hut. This is almost 2000 years earlier than what we have seen elsewhere, although it is in line with what we might expect for the Euphrates Valley.”
• Georgian Archaeologists Find 1.8-Million-Year-Old Human Tooth — A 1.8-million-year-old tooth was found near Orozmani in Georgia, only 20 kilometers from where human skulls of the same age were found at the turn of the millennium. Together, these are the oldest human remains ever found outside of Africa. And this new find solidifies that this area may have been a place where humans settled, making it the oldest known settlement in Europe, and possibly anywhere outside of Africa. No word on what species it belonged to, but Homo erectus seems likely.
• New 249 Hieroglyphs Found in Hattusa and They Will Brighten the Hittite Period — Apparently this discovery took place in mid-August, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it and it’s a good one. While taking photos with students in the impressive (seriously, take a look at the photo in the article), 80-meter-long Yerkapı Tunnel at the site of Hattusa (the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire) in Turkey, a member of the excavation team found symbols on the stone walls that everyone else had missed. The symbols are estimated to have been drawn 1,500 years ago (EDIT: 3,500 years ago*), and they are thought to describe deities. Makes a lot of sense to me since caves — including artificial caves like this — were important to our ancestors in terms of their spiritual practices. The discovery should give researchers a better understanding of what the tunnel was used for and why it was so important to the Hittites. It also indicates that hieroglyphics were widely used, rather than being primarily used in seals and monumental inscriptions. According to Andreas Schachner, “We have determined a total of 249 Anatolian hieroglyphs here, but they are not all different from each other. We can divide them into 8 groups in total. Since they are written with paint, we need to interpret them more in a graffiti style. We think they were done quickly.”
• Another Illegal Dig Unearths Archaeological Discovery in Egypt's Giza — An illegal dig in the area of Mit Rahina (the site of the ancient city of Memphis), Egypt led authorities to a big find. The three looters, who have since been arrested, dug a hole which led authorities to ancient tunnels leading to two rooms. The rooms are limestone and engraved with hieroglyphics. According to Hussein Abdel Basir, “It seems the new discovery dates to the era of the New Kingdom in Pharaonic history and the era of Ramses II… and it may lead to a temple or a cemetery.” Ramses II reigned from 1279-1213 CE.
• Archaeologists Discover Giant Stone Jars in India — You may remember the giant stone jars that were discovered in the Assam region of India earlier this year. Well, a new paper reports seven more stone jars found not too far away in the Saipung Reserved Forest of Meghalaya, India. In general, the stone jars (and the accompanying circular flat stones) have varying sizes and shapes, but they show up in clusters. The researchers say that the sites are usually located on a flat section on the summit of a hill, near sandstone outcrops. And some of the sites have artificially-excavated twin oblong ponds with a stone slab at the center. According to the researchers, “A small-scale excavation of four jars in the East Jaintia Hills have helped to provide key insights on the mortuary practices of the people who made and used these stone jars. Material evidence from the excavation clearly suggests that the stone jars are visible relics which were erected on top of a pit where the post-cremated cultural materials of the dead are buried. Such significant findings bear relevance to the further understanding of stone jar sites within the broader context of Northeast India and Southeast Asia.”
• A Massive Railroad Project in Mexico Has Led to the Discovery of the Ancient Maya City of Paamul II — An archaeological survey was conducted between Playa del Carmen and Tulum in Mexico in preparation for a railroad. They found over 300 buildings, some of which were over 8 meters tall. They’ve recognized the site as Paamul II. This isn’t the first thing that has come to light in preparation for the railroad. An incredible 25,000 “immovable assets” have been found in total, including roads, buildings, and bones.
• Archaeologists in Prague Uncover Ancient Neolithic Structure — A roundel, a section of which was discovered by accident in the 1980’s, is being excavated on the outskirts of Prague in the Czech Republic. Roundels are circular enclosures in Europe that were built between 4900 and 4600 years BCE, making them the oldest known monumental buildings in Europe. This particular roundel, which dates back 7,000 years and measures 180 feet in diameter, is very well-preserved. It even has intact remains of postholes that held the central structure. It also has three entrances, which is unusual. According to Miroslav Kraus, “[One] theory is that it could have been used as an economic centre, a centre of trade. It could also have been a centre of some religious cult, where rites of passage or rituals connected to the time of year were performed.” This is a unique opportunity since they’ve been able to uncover almost the entire structure.
• Archaeologists Find 1,000-Year-Old Maya Settlement in Central Belize — Collapsed Maya dwellings dating back 1,000 years were discovered at a Mennonite farming community in Belize. The pottery at the site dates it to between 250 and 600 CE, the Early Classic Period, which was the peak of urbanism, large-scale construction, and monumental inscriptions in the Maya world. Plaster floors, vessels for cooking, eating, and storage, chert agricultural tools, and grinding tools were also found. This seems to have been an agricultural community, though they didn’t clear all of the land nearby, as evidenced by bones of forest animals. A building that may have been a place of meeting and/or ceremony was also found. It contained 15 stemmed points made of the highest-quality, nonlocal chert, which may have been used as offerings. And there is a large platform mound with four structures on the top — probably homes of the elite.
• Prehistoric Remains Discovered in Underwater Cave in Mexico — A skeleton was found 1/3 of a mile into an underwater limestone cave on the Caribbean coastline of Mexico. For obvious reasons, it is assumed that the remains date to before the cave was flooded — about 8,000 years ago.
• Archaeologists Unearth Blocks of Halloumi Cheese Preserved for 2,600 Years — Blocks of halloumi cheese dating to between 688 and 525 BCE were found at the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt by archaeologists opening a set of ancient pots. It is well-preserved, but it is unclear whether it is edible — apparently no one has been brave enough to do a taste-test. Similar pots have also been found nearby, but they have not yet been opened.
• Israeli Archeologists Find 4,000-Year-Old Village in Ramallah — A 4,000-year-old village was discovered by archaeologists near Ramallah in the State of Palestine. Roman and Mamluk coins, pottery from several eras, and human remains have been found. Palestinians are outraged by the excavation, as they believe it to be “part of Israel's systematic policy of targeting archaeological areas in the West Bank and appropriating Palestinian antiquities since 1967”, according to the article.
• Archaeologists Find Ornamental Bronze Wall Plate in Eastern Türkiye — In last week’s issue, we discussed findings from a midden at Ayanis Castle in Turkey, which was built in the reign of King Rusa II (680-639 BCE). Well, now they’ve found a bronze plate which would have served as an architectural embellishment. The artifact (photo in article) is in one piece, unlike other specimens found. Fascinating to consider the tastes of ancient people. Someone once looked at a wall in the castle and thought, “I know what this wall needs…” And now we’re talking about it thousands of years later.
• Ancient Remains Found at Glencore’s Project in Argentina — Human remains were found by a mine worker at Mina El Pachón in Calingasta, Argentina while he was going about his road cleaning duties. The skull, femur, humerus, radius, ulna, and various hand and foot bones were identified as belonging to a man from a tribe that has lived in the area since about 700 CE.
• Coin Hoard Uncovered from Islamic Era — Hundreds of coins from different parts of the Islamic Era were found near the temple of Esna in Egypt. They also found coin molds and weights, indicating that there may have been a mint or weighing house nearby.
• Archaeology Breakthrough: Father and Sons Unearth Real Life Game of Thrones Treasure — If you’re having visions of iron thrones, don’t get too excited — their title is pure clickbait. With the help of his metal detector, a man found a coin in a field in Harrogate, England. His sons then came to investigate and found 20 more coins and a gold ring. The find is dated to the 1470’s and is believed to have been deposited by a soldier during the War of the Roses. Most of the coins are not particularly valuable, but according to Nigel Mills, “The gold coin may have functioned as a lucky charm because of the depiction of the Holy Trinity.”
• Traces of Native American Village Found in Florida — Archaeologists have found pottery and postholes under a 19th-century house in St. Augustine, Florida in the US. The finds are from the First Nations village of Palica.
• Remains of Up To 100 Children Found in Dig at Ancient Welsh Burial Site — Several hundred skeletons, a third of which were young children, have been found in Haverfordwest, Wales. It is believed to be the burial ground for the friary of St. Saviours, which dates back over 600 years. The friary’s existence is known thanks to detailed financial records kept by the church.
• Decorative Heater Unearthed at 16th-Century Castle in Poland — Excavations at the site of Zelechów castle, a 16th century wooden castle in Poland, have revealed the base of a masonry stove and beautifully decorated tiles with geometric, plant, and animal patterns, as well as some mythological creature and coats of arms. The stove would have provided heat for the court. And since the tiles were found among burnt beams, it seems that the castle burned down. Evidence of feasting was also found.
• 3,700-Year-Old Domed Oven Found at Troy Excavation Site Closely Related to Anatolian Culture — Ah, Troy. Such a fascinating place. Archaeologists have discovered a 3,700-year-old domed oven there, which lends even more strength to Manfred Osman Korfmann’s (a previous lead in the excavations) claim that Troy was in fact an Anatolian culture.
• Archaeologists Discover Ice Age Human Settlement in Pilanduk Cave, Palawan— New dating at Pilanduk Cave on Palawan Island in the Philippines has shown that humans were there 20,000-25,000 years ago. According to Janine Ochoa, the study found, “New radiocarbon dates that securely place the age of human occupation of Pilanduk Cave at the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum)/Last Ice Age at ca. 20,000-25,000 years ago and evidence for shifting foraging behaviors (ecological and behavioral flexibility) of modern humans occupying changing tropical environments (climate and environmental changes) across ca. 40,000 years on Palawan Island.” Finds also include evidence for specialized deer hunting and freshwater mollusk foraging.
• Long Melford Archaeologists Unearth 2,000-Year-Old Dog Skull During Excavation of Rare Iron Age Building Site — A possible archaeological site was identified at a soccer (perhaps I should say “football”) field in Long Melford, England back in 2011. Now, a recent dig has confirmed Iron Age activity. They found a trench which was left by the foundations of a building, and which was filled with Gallo Belgic pottery dating to to between 20 and 50 CE — right around the time that Romans arrived in the area. They also found the skull of a terrier-like dog. Due to its placement and the lack of other bones, this is thought to have been buried deliberately, which may point to the ritual and iconographic significance of dogs in this area. According to Kenneth Dodd, “Terrier-type dogs were very popular hunting dogs. They may have had significance to the Iron Age inhabitants, as well as the Romans, so it’s a very significant find.”
• DNA Reveals Donkeys were Domesticated 7,000 Years Ago in East Africa — Domestication is such an interesting topic IMO. Until now, we haven’t had a clear picture of donkey domestication. But a new study is filling in the gaps by analyzing 207 genomes from donkeys in 31 countries dating as far back as 4,000 years. They found that donkeys were first domesticated 7,000 years ago (3,000 years before horses) in East Africa. They found that all donkeys go back to a single domestication event, perhaps in the Horn of Africa, in roughly 5000 BCE — a time when the Sahara was becoming more arid. The researchers believe that people may have domesticated donkeys to help them carry loads across the expanding desert. According to Emily Clark, “As humans, we owe a debt of gratitude to the domestic donkey for the role they play and have played in shaping society.”

Thanks for reading the news section of Ancient Beat — have a great weekend!

Hope everyone's having a great Saturday! Here's the latest ancient news:

• Queen Nefertiti's Mummy May Have Been Found, Says Leading Archaeologist — The famous Zahi Hawass has announced that he believes the mummy that he is currently studying to be that of none other than Queen Nefertiti. His exact quote was, “I'm sure I'll reveal Nefertiti's mummy in a month or two.” Nefertiti lived between 1270 and 1330 BCE. She was the wife of Akhenaten, and the two are known for a religious revolution in Egypt which focused on the worship of one god — the sun disc, Aten. Some, including Hawass, believe that she ruled after the death of her husband.
• What Ancient Dung Reveals About Epipaleolithic Animal Tending — A new study is shedding light on the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and herding. Researchers analyzed dung spherulites, which are tiny calcium carbonate clumps in dung. They found that between 12,800 and 12,300 years ago, hunter-gatherers at Abu Hureyra, an archaeological site in Syria that has been occupied for thousands of years, burned dung as fuel. And they may have kept animals near their dwellings — possibly sheep. This supports a small body of evidence that ancient peoples may have tended animals before they cultivated plants, which goes against mainstream thought. According to the authors of the study, “We were surprised when we realized that hunter-gatherers were bringing live animals to Abu Hureyra between 12,800 and 12,300 years ago and keeping them outside of their hut. This is almost 2000 years earlier than what we have seen elsewhere, although it is in line with what we might expect for the Euphrates Valley.”
• Georgian Archaeologists Find 1.8-Million-Year-Old Human Tooth — A 1.8-million-year-old tooth was found near Orozmani in Georgia, only 20 kilometers from where human skulls of the same age were found at the turn of the millennium. Together, these are the oldest human remains ever found outside of Africa. And this new find solidifies that this area may have been a place where humans settled, making it the oldest known settlement in Europe, and possibly anywhere outside of Africa. No word on what species it belonged to, but Homo erectus seems likely.
• New 249 Hieroglyphs Found in Hattusa and They Will Brighten the Hittite Period — Apparently this discovery took place in mid-August, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it and it’s a good one. While taking photos with students in the impressive (seriously, take a look at the photo in the article), 80-meter-long Yerkapı Tunnel at the site of Hattusa (the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire) in Turkey, a member of the excavation team found symbols on the stone walls that everyone else had missed. The symbols are estimated to have been drawn 3,500 years ago, and they are thought to describe deities. Makes a lot of sense to me since caves — including artificial caves like this — were important to our ancestors in terms of their spiritual practices. The discovery should give researchers a better understanding of what the tunnel was used for and why it was so important to the Hittites. It also indicates that hieroglyphics were widely used, rather than being primarily used in seals and monumental inscriptions. According to Andreas Schachner, “We have determined a total of 249 Anatolian hieroglyphs here, but they are not all different from each other. We can divide them into 8 groups in total. Since they are written with paint, we need to interpret them more in a graffiti style. We think they were done quickly.”
• Has the Maya Kingdom of Sak Tz’i’ Been Found? — On private land in southern Mexico, a fortified Maya settlement has been found which was occupied from 750 BCE until 900 CE. The site measures 100 acres and includes a 45-foot-tall pyramid, plazas, temples, reception halls, ceremonial centers, a ball court, and a palace. Also found was a wall panel from roughly 775 CE that records the names of rulers, battles, rituals, and a creation myth replete with a flood and a water serpent. The site is thought to be the capital of the Sak Tz’i’ Dynasty.
• Another Illegal Dig Unearths Archaeological Discovery in Egypt's Giza — An illegal dig in the area of Mit Rahina (the site of the ancient city of Memphis), Egypt led authorities to a big find. The three looters, who have since been arrested, dug a hole which led authorities to ancient tunnels leading to two rooms. The rooms are limestone and engraved with hieroglyphics. According to Hussein Abdel Basir, “It seems the new discovery dates to the era of the New Kingdom in Pharaonic history and the era of Ramses II… and it may lead to a temple or a cemetery.” Ramses II reigned from 1279-1213 CE.
• Archaeologists Discover Giant Stone Jars in India — You may remember the giant stone jars that were discovered in the Assam region of India earlier this year. Well, a new paper reports seven more stone jars found not too far away in the Saipung Reserved Forest of Meghalaya, India. In general, the stone jars (and the accompanying circular flat stones) have varying sizes and shapes, but they show up in clusters. The researchers say that the sites are usually located on a flat section on the summit of a hill, near sandstone outcrops. And some of the sites have artificially-excavated twin oblong ponds with a stone slab at the center. According to the researchers, “A small-scale excavation of four jars in the East Jaintia Hills have helped to provide key insights on the mortuary practices of the people who made and used these stone jars. Material evidence from the excavation clearly suggests that the stone jars are visible relics which were erected on top of a pit where the post-cremated cultural materials of the dead are buried. Such significant findings bear relevance to the further understanding of stone jar sites within the broader context of Northeast India and Southeast Asia.”
• A Massive Railroad Project in Mexico Has Led to the Discovery of the Ancient Maya City of Paamul II — An archaeological survey was conducted between Playa del Carmen and Tulum in Mexico in preparation for a railroad. They found over 300 buildings, some of which were over 8 meters tall. They’ve recognized the site as Paamul II. This isn’t the first thing that has come to light in preparation for the railroad. An incredible 25,000 “immovable assets” have been found in total, including roads, buildings, and bones.
• Archaeologists in Prague Uncover Ancient Neolithic Structure — A roundel, a section of which was discovered by accident in the 1980’s, is being excavated on the outskirts of Prague in the Czech Republic. Roundels are circular enclosures in Europe that were built between 4900 and 4600 years BCE, making them the oldest known monumental buildings in Europe. This particular roundel, which dates back 7,000 years and measures 180 feet in diameter, is very well-preserved. It even has intact remains of postholes that held the central structure. It also has three entrances, which is unusual. According to Miroslav Kraus, “[One] theory is that it could have been used as an economic centre, a centre of trade. It could also have been a centre of some religious cult, where rites of passage or rituals connected to the time of year were performed.” This is a unique opportunity since they’ve been able to uncover almost the entire structure.
• Archaeologists Find 1,000-Year-Old Maya Settlement in Central Belize — Collapsed Maya dwellings dating back 1,000 years were discovered at a Mennonite farming community in Belize. The pottery at the site dates it to between 250 and 600 CE, the Early Classic Period, which was the peak of urbanism, large-scale construction, and monumental inscriptions in the Maya world. Plaster floors, vessels for cooking, eating, and storage, chert agricultural tools, and grinding tools were also found. This seems to have been an agricultural community, though they didn’t clear all of the land nearby, as evidenced by bones of forest animals. A building that may have been a place of meeting and/or ceremony was also found. It contained 15 stemmed points made of the highest-quality, nonlocal chert, which may have been used as offerings. And there is a large platform mound with four structures on the top — probably homes of the elite.
• Prehistoric Remains Discovered in Underwater Cave in Mexico — A skeleton was found 1/3 of a mile into an underwater limestone cave on the Caribbean coastline of Mexico. For obvious reasons, it is assumed that the remains date to before the cave was flooded — about 8,000 years ago.
• Archaeologists Unearth Blocks of Halloumi Cheese Preserved for 2,600 Years — Blocks of halloumi cheese dating to between 688 and 525 BCE were found at the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt by archaeologists opening a set of ancient pots. It is well-preserved, but it is unclear whether it is edible — apparently no one has been brave enough to do a taste-test. Similar pots have also been found nearby, but they have not yet been opened.
• Israeli Archeologists Find 4,000-Year-Old Village in Ramallah — A 4,000-year-old village was discovered by archaeologists near Ramallah in the State of Palestine. Roman and Mamluk coins, pottery from several eras, and human remains have been found. Palestinians are outraged by the excavation, as they believe it to be “part of Israel's systematic policy of targeting archaeological areas in the West Bank and appropriating Palestinian antiquities since 1967”, according to the article.
• Archaeologists Find Ornamental Bronze Wall Plate in Eastern Türkiye — In last week’s issue, we discussed findings from a midden at Ayanis Castle in Turkey, which was built in the reign of King Rusa II (680-639 BCE). Well, now they’ve found a bronze plate which would have served as an architectural embellishment. The artifact (photo in article) is in one piece, unlike other specimens found. Fascinating to consider the tastes of ancient people. Someone once looked at a wall in the castle and thought, “I know what this wall needs…” And now we’re talking about it thousands of years later.
• Ancient Remains Found at Glencore’s Project in Argentina — Human remains were found by a mine worker at Mina El Pachón in Calingasta, Argentina while he was going about his road cleaning duties. The skull, femur, humerus, radius, ulna, and various hand and foot bones were identified as belonging to a man from a tribe that has lived in the area since about 700 CE.
• Coin Hoard Uncovered from Islamic Era — Hundreds of coins from different parts of the Islamic Era were found near the temple of Esna in Egypt. They also found coin molds and weights, indicating that there may have been a mint or weighing house nearby.
• Archaeology Breakthrough: Father and Sons Unearth Real Life Game of Thrones Treasure — If you’re having visions of iron thrones, don’t get too excited — their title is pure clickbait. With the help of his metal detector, a man found a coin in a field in Harrogate, England. His sons then came to investigate and found 20 more coins and a gold ring. The find is dated to the 1470’s and is believed to have been deposited by a soldier during the War of the Roses. Most of the coins are not particularly valuable, but according to Nigel Mills, “The gold coin may have functioned as a lucky charm because of the depiction of the Holy Trinity.”
• Traces of Native American Village Found in Florida — Archaeologists have found pottery and postholes under a 19th-century house in St. Augustine, Florida in the US. The finds are from the First Nations village of Palica.
• Remains of Up To 100 Children Found in Dig at Ancient Welsh Burial Site — Several hundred skeletons, a third of which were young children, have been found in Haverfordwest, Wales. It is believed to be the burial ground for the friary of St. Saviours, which dates back over 600 years. The friary’s existence is known thanks to detailed financial records kept by the church.
• Decorative Heater Unearthed at 16th-Century Castle in Poland — Excavations at the site of Zelechów castle, a 16th century wooden castle in Poland, have revealed the base of a masonry stove and beautifully decorated tiles with geometric, plant, and animal patterns, as well as some mythological creature and coats of arms. The stove would have provided heat for the court. And since the tiles were found among burnt beams, it seems that the castle burned down. Evidence of feasting was also found.
• 3,700-Year-Old Domed Oven Found at Troy Excavation Site Closely Related to Anatolian Culture — Ah, Troy. Such a fascinating place. Archaeologists have discovered a 3,700-year-old domed oven there, which lends even more strength to Manfred Osman Korfmann’s (a previous lead in the excavations) claim that Troy was in fact an Anatolian culture.
• Archaeologists Discover Ice Age Human Settlement in Pilanduk Cave, Palawan— New dating at Pilanduk Cave on Palawan Island in the Philippines has shown that humans were there 20,000-25,000 years ago. According to Janine Ochoa, the study found, “New radiocarbon dates that securely place the age of human occupation of Pilanduk Cave at the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum)/Last Ice Age at ca. 20,000-25,000 years ago and evidence for shifting foraging behaviors (ecological and behavioral flexibility) of modern humans occupying changing tropical environments (climate and environmental changes) across ca. 40,000 years on Palawan Island.” Finds also include evidence for specialized deer hunting and freshwater mollusk foraging.
• Long Melford Archaeologists Unearth 2,000-Year-Old Dog Skull During Excavation of Rare Iron Age Building Site — A possible archaeological site was identified at a soccer (perhaps I should say “football”) field in Long Melford, England back in 2011. Now, a recent dig has confirmed Iron Age activity. They found a trench which was left by the foundations of a building, and which was filled with Gallo Belgic pottery dating to to between 20 and 50 CE — right around the time that Romans arrived in the area. They also found the skull of a terrier-like dog. Due to its placement and the lack of other bones, this is thought to have been buried deliberately, which may point to the ritual and iconographic significance of dogs in this area. According to Kenneth Dodd, “Terrier-type dogs were very popular hunting dogs. They may have had significance to the Iron Age inhabitants, as well as the Romans, so it’s a very significant find.”
• DNA Reveals Donkeys were Domesticated 7,000 Years Ago in East Africa — Domestication is such an interesting topic IMO. Until now, we haven’t had a clear picture of donkey domestication. But a new study is filling in the gaps by analyzing 207 genomes from donkeys in 31 countries dating as far back as 4,000 years. They found that donkeys were first domesticated 7,000 years ago (3,000 years before horses) in East Africa. They found that all donkeys go back to a single domestication event, perhaps in the Horn of Africa, in roughly 5000 BCE — a time when the Sahara was becoming more arid. The researchers believe that people may have domesticated donkeys to help them carry loads across the expanding desert. According to Emily Clark, “As humans, we owe a debt of gratitude to the domestic donkey for the role they play and have played in shaping society.”

This was the News section of Ancient Beat — thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Saturday, August 13 - Friday, August 19

New Videos

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
6	6 comments	[New Video] Stylistic Murder - Represent The Real Feat AZ, O.C. KRS-ONE & DJ Flip	[Sp] [YT]
5	1 comments	[New Video] Imam T.H.U.G. - Queensmatic	[Sp] [Dzr] [YT]
3	0 comments	[New Video] Eto - War (DJ Doo Wop Freestyle) (Prod. Havoc x Ax The Bull)
2	1 comments	[New Video] Eto x Nyce Da Future Ft. Big Twins (IM3) - Fit For The War (Prod. Eto)	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [YT]

 

New Songs

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
7	1 comments	[New] Danger Mouse & Black Thought featuring MF DOOM - Belize
6	0 comments	[News] De La Soul Reunite With Prince Paul For Studio Session: 'Magic Is Happening'
5	1 comments	[New] Stylistic Murder - Represent The Real Feat AZ, O.C. KRS-ONE & DJ Flip	[Sp] [YT]
5	0 comments	[New] ETO & FUTUREWAVE - Dead Poets LP otw (coming around October)
4	1 comments	[New] Al Skratch - Calm Steady (prod. by Stu Bangas)

 

Classic

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
6	0 comments	[Classic] Organized Konfusion - Bring It On
5	0 comments	[Classic] Black Moon - I Got Cha Opin (Da Beatminerz Remix)
5	3 comments	[Classic] Masta Ace Incorporated - Born To Roll
5	0 comments	[Classic] Audio Two - Hickeys Around My Neck
5	1 comments	[Classic] Tragedy Khadafi feat. Imam T.H.U.G. - True Confessions	[Sp] [YT]

 

Interviews

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
6	0 comments	[Interview] MASTA ACE THE GRAFFITI WRITER!: "WHILE RECORDING I WOULD RISKED MY CAREER & MY LIFE GETTING UP!!"
5	0 comments	[Interview] DJ CLARK KENT: "THE NUMBER "ONE" THING I WOULD CHANGE IN THE HIP HOP CULTURE WOULD BE....
5	0 comments	[Interview] DJ PREMIER and ERICK SERMON Chop It Up
3	2 comments	[Interview] Pete Rock: Grand Puba Wrote My First Raps, Making Heavy D’s “Don’t Curse” & "All Souled Out" Purpose

 

Top Remaining

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
11	1 comments	[Throwback] Yo! Mtv Raps - final episode
8	1 comments	[Pic] RZA & ODB in the 80's
7	1 comments	[BeatsNRhymes] Redman - Creepin'	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [SC] [YT]
6	1 comments	[Throwback] Gang Starr - Gotta Get Over (Taking Loot) (The Large Professor Remix)	[Sp] [SC] [YT]
5	2 comments	[BeatsNRhymes] PMD feat Cormega, KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, Grand Puba & Red Alert - Fresh	[Sp] [AM] [SC] [YT]

 

​
Doug Jensen was a young man making his way in New York and becoming famous among a certain category of educated readers. I was introduced to Doug and Katherine Miller by my friend at the time, John Kearnish, but I never became part of the circle around Doug and the woman they both loved.
I wasn't invited to participate in John's friendship with Doug, nor did I share the secrets of their common infatuation with Katherine Miller, and I felt somewhat jealous, though I didn't care to spend evenings with Katherine and her circle. They’d get high on the hard stuff, which made them talk nonsense for hours, laughing too much. I happened to get high, on occasion, but not like them.
These young people were too young and too rich for me and John. Approaching forty, I was finally getting a full-time job teaching in the New York public university system. My friend John was a salesperson in one of the last second-hand bookstores of the city. He could not make more than the minimum wage, had a bleak future in this dead-end job, and he was pushing forty-two. However, John had an amazing intellect, and a rare attitude: regular book-lovers and also grad students—and who knows if assistant professors at Columbia U. or New York University were not also among those who lined up to solicit his attention to their particular issue and tap into his generosity of mind? John had no problem attending to your topic for as long as it took if you cared to stand while he sat on the lower echelons of his ladder. He’d give you keen insight, key references, as he did to me when I thought about a thesis, and for free. You didn’t even have to buy the second-hand masterpiece he was selling you.
Katherine and Doug had walked together into the bookstore on 82nd St. and Broadway when John happened to deliver one of his all-encompassing speeches and he’d dazzled both with his encyclopedic knowledge. Thin, very white, loosely elegant, and very delicate, Katherine Miller had this deep masculine voice and the discreet assurance that accompanies someone born in the gentry. The fact that she was only nineteen did not seem to interfere. She did not have to say much to nail him to the floor. American John was in awe of everything British. The problem, which he was later to discover: Katherine Miller was the daughter of a diplomat destined to return to England with his family. She was already the fiancée of a future diplomat who’d been waiting for too long in London. As for Doug, he clearly was on his way to riches…
The few times I saw him, Doug struck me as a very intelligent twenty-year-old tired to death of the protected, unconcerned, and conservative environment he came from. He amazed everyone with his radical way of living like a tramp, of denying himself basic comforts (except when it came to eating, drinking, or getting high), and of saying "no" to everything while being productive, talented, and financially independent. Doug published articles in national journals about events in Belize, Iraq, or Tibet, where he had not set foot. It seemed to me that Doug offered John the precocious image of what he might have been if he had been someone.
John liked so much to surround himself with youth it was embarrassing. He was afraid of growing old and thinking of reviving in Doug's company his own fruitless, unproductive youth. All these years of arduous and persistent study in the sciences and the Humanities had produced nothing. There had been a time when John was brilliant enough to be accepted at Brown University on a full scholarship. It had all gone down the drain since.
John was seduced by Doug's intelligence. Doug was even more excessive in his rejection of the world that past generations have bequeathed to us. John began to seek Doug's company assiduously when he understood that he was going to lose Katherine. For a young adventurous woman like her, it had been a lot of fun to bum around New York in the company of promising writers and failed thinkers, but it was time to return home and get serious. One phone call from her diplomatic daddy must have clinched the decision.
I will not dwell on the attractions of Katherine, whose dubious behavior regarding my friend remains an enigma to me. Doug was a close friend of Katherine, but not her lover. Not like John, who’d lived with one woman in the West Village for the last ten years and loved another.
They went regularly to The National, a dive, cutthroat bar on Avenue A and 10th Street. Literally ensconced in layers of dirt, the walls vibrated with the deafening sound of Grunge, Metal, and the first invasion of Rap. After a few drinks, the tin ceiling felt to me like it was oozing sweat, tears, and pain. But once you walked beyond the bar, there was a pleasant garden offering quite a different atmosphere. Spaced out in the gravel, pretty wrought iron tables formed rows of white spots in the darkness; and in the far corners, behind tall vases from which grew gorgeous plants, you could see reclining silhouettes and hear their laughter. No one seemed to keep watch over this garden surrounded by high walls lined with ivy and flowers. The garden had an air of exclusivity, you had to be in the know.
You couldn't see the stars at night because they're hard to see in Manhattan, but you could feel a shiver when the night fell at dusk. I didn’t go there more than a couple of times, but I do remember smoking hashish and drinking French Millesime wine. A bottle of Armagnac was shared around the table. At one end sat John, Katherine, and Doug (in this order). The latter was very close to her, they looked like intimate friends, as much if not more than John and her.
Doug was genuinely in adoration of Katherine who still did not impress me. She was the queen of this cénacle, where I don't remember anything significant being said. We had a good time, laughed our hearts out. Everyone enjoyed the mellow tone, the softened echoes of the music inside, and you could say the craziest thing without anyone remembering the next morning. Alone with himself, at the height of his high, John was still trying to say things that made sense, he was building systems of thoughts and taking urgent political positions. We all smiled an ecstatic smile at his expense because no one gave a damn. Poor John! Cigars, joints, and flasks of exquisite liquors, a Rémy Martin cognac, a box of Belgian chocolates circulated between the tables. There were flowers, perfumes, a cake... These evenings were well organized. People came prepared. Nobody listened to John, who, as happened more often, was too busy talking to notice. Doug drank and smoked more than everyone else, then he talked as much if not more than John, who was no longer the center of the conversation. Katherine had ears only for Doug, who brought her joy, while John's words brought her tears. Doug was not trying to establish complicated arguments. He spoke about music, and foreign countries where everyone dreams of going.
Then, before John left without saying goodbye, just before he returned to his mother's house on Rhode Island and disappeared there—a few days before, something terrible happened to Doug, something which I cannot wrap my mind around. And it affected John, changed his life, broke him, and put the last nail in the coffin of his great expectations.
Doug also suffered from Katherine's imminent departure for England, as much and perhaps more than John. They must have sympathized and mourned together at The National, where they drank and smoked heavily. I was not there but rumor has it that this time a pipe of crack circulated between the tables. Doug smoked, maybe not John; less John than Doug—or else John had a thicker skin. Anyway, on the way back Doug felt bad. He recovered after they smoked more weed and drank a fine California wine—this, according to John, who in the morning recounted the details to Ingrid Otlaf, the woman he’d been living with for the last ten years.
It so happened that we had become confidants in our common concerns and worries about John. Ingrid was a no-nonsense grown woman who took charge and worked for more than just herself.
Here is what I know. At around 2:30 a.m., John leaves Doug’s company to go home; he lies down next to Ingrid at around 3 a.m. Later, something happens in him because, around 5 am John wakes up without waking Ingrid (who nevertheless opens an eye), gets dressed on the sly, and takes the opposite route, the one that brings him back to Doug’s. There's over a city mile between Waverly Place and East Broadway, it's not around the corner. How does he get into Doug's? He knows the door to the building isn't locked, it's one of the last run-down buildings of the Lower East Side, all covered in graffiti, crumbling inside and out. As for the door to Doug's apartment, Doug couldn't think of closing it after John had left his house at 2:30 a.m. Doug is in no state of mind, no state at all, I believe, to close anything. When he returns to the apartment at 5:45 a.m., John knows the door will be open.
Otherwise, how to explain that he is invaded by a feeling of remorse strong enough to bring him back to Doug on the dawn of a night of debauchery? To me, Ingrid will say during the day: “John told me how he found Doug at 5:45 this morning, on his back, lying flat on his futon, his head twisted in the corner, dead in his vomit. I am not the first, thank God, to whom he told this. Doug's glasses were swimming in vomit... It was grotesque and horrible to see such a fine man as Doug…"
Ingrid can no longer restrain herself, bursts into tears. I take her in my arms, but without squeezing her, without approaching her body. Is she crying for Doug? Rather, she cries for her poor John, who must have suffered so much seeing death in the face of his dear friend, him so sensitive. She adds with a big sigh of relief: “John didn’t touch anything, he immediately called the police and told them all the details. Their getting high, the crack and all... John is not involved in anything. »
Ingrid still didn't know or wanted to know about Katherine Miller. However, she understood that after that night John might want to take a break and go back to his mother, back to his childhood, if only for a few days. We often talked about John, especially towards the end. But I didn't tell Ingrid what I knew about his double life. I had a hard time hiding John's secrets, as though they were my secrets. Why destroy her idol? Why make Ingrid even more unhappy?
A few days before he left us for good, she said to me with the solemnity she found appropriate when talking about John: “He is the most devoted man to his ideas I have ever known. It's not easy for people like him, who are rare… The rest of us take advantage of what we learn, and in the first place we learn to take advantage, to put ourselves on top; not John, he sacrifices himself to understand. He has already wasted his life pursuing his convictions? He’d kill himself gladly for them!”
She was not blind, she saw his self-destructive drive, but she continued to believe in John enough to see him as the passive agent of that tragic night. Ingrid said to me that John repeated the same thing to the police ten times without flinching. Since Doug's death, John had been admirable in hosting the parents, two tottering old people from Massachusetts who had never visited the hovel in which their son lived. Doug had escaped them, they understood, because of his astounding success. They didn't want to bother him and were content to read their family name written in fat letters on the glossy pages of renowned magazines. John told them what little they could grasp about their son's life, without mentioning The National. They’d lost contact with him alive, it’s not now that they’d restore it.
Blind was Ingrid when it came to John’s affair. And on the other hand, not naïve or innocent—duplicitous since she lied to the police to corroborate John’s lie. She is central to perhaps a murder that succeeded to hide in plain sight. It would be difficult to make of her the protagonist in a novel, she didn't change, hadn't learned to suspect John after ten years of living next to him. But, this is much more serious than an affair. How did she explain to herself the gap between 1 and 3 am? How did she square the discrepancy with her conscience? Did she confront him? Did she ask him why she had to lie? I don’t know. I can only suppose she did. And he found a way to assuage her fears, he had a way to bring her around. He asked her to help him not to get mixed up in an overdose case he had nothing to do with. She’d provided lodging and feeding, care and attention (and love) and would have accepted the unimaginable from him. Educated, insightful, and witty, Ingrid lacked substance when it came to John. She had no recourse, the ground under her feet broke away. That’s how it is when someone loves unconditionally.
Admirable, no doubt, John's attitude towards Doug's entourage and the authorities, but one can still wonder why he retraced his steps on the dawn of that gloomy Sunday to find Doug dead. He told the police that he’d returned as agreed with Doug early to play music. They were on a musical project. That should have seemed far-fetched, right? The thing is, though, that Doug also played guitar and they would occasionally sing and play together. Ingrid said John was excited but also frustrated after an entire day with Doug trying to play something.
I don't know if their singing ever reached a perfect pitch. But the fact is that John lied to the police by saying that he had returned from Doug's house at 1 a.m. Why take this risk? Two hours earlier than what Ingrid blurted out to me. Maybe her tongue slipped off the agreed schedule when she became emotional. Ingrid had no reason to lie to me. She had followed John’s demand regarding the police, taking a serious risk for him. The police believed him (and her) and the autopsy supported the idea that Doug died around 2:30 a.m. That’s around the time when John and Doug actually broke up. John was never suspected of wrongdoing, let alone crime. The death of Doug asleep in his vomit was considered an unfortunate accident, the result of a physical and mental state weakened by intense drugs. It was classified as “involuntary death,” not even as a suicide.
But this question has always bothered me, even as I didn’t spell it out the way I do now: is it after John left him that Doug died that night? Or did John see Doug die in his vomit just before he left? Which brings up the worst alternative: if John was there, did he let him die—or did he contribute to it, did he sink him into his vomit?
Now, assuming that he let him die (which is still better than pushing him), why? Where would John have found the cruelty to let Doug die? I can't help thinking it's big brother who brought younger brother to the brink. It was John who pushed Doug over the edge. It was John's competitive spirit that caused Doug to get stoned more than his young age allowed that night. Maybe he and John took as much candy from the cookie jar, but John should have seen that Doug was going too far. Like John, Doug liked to impress people with his prowess. The difference, however, was that John was tough, he'd seen much more. Doug was a gentler, softer human being.
I am not saying John was solely responsible for how it ended, but he was involved in Doug's death. He's got something to do with it. They had a fight coming back from The National. I am not making this up. I’ve seen them play-fight in the street and it irked me that John could be so playful with Doug when he was a pure intellect with me. Like two brothers. They were having great fun. Except that John cannot lose, he couldn't just have a mock-fistfight with a younger one. He must win, be the stronger, at any cost, friendship paying the price. The reason why he had so few friends. And he'd never had a friend like Doug before, who was what poor John could not become assuming he lived a thousand lives.
No one will ever say what happened at Doug's. But we can see the immediate result. John left New York abruptly. Was he no longer comfortable in Ingrid’s cushy studio on Waverly Place? Didn’t she give him enough room? When she realized John was leaving for good, Ingrid begged him to stay even though she understood why he had to leave. And so, the man who explained Gödel's Theorem to you while opening a pack of cigarettes; the friend who spoke of John Milton and William Blake as if he had met them in person during the day, that formidable intellect and personality retreated to his mother’s on Rhode Island. According to Ingrid, John settled right back into the bedroom of his childhood, posters on the walls, flags, trophies and all. And we, his few friends in New York, hardly ever heard of him again. Not a word. Even Ingrid has by now more or less forgotten about him.
And I’ve missed my friend whenever I had to write a paper that needed feedback and informed criticism as only John could provide. I’ve long missed the moment to press Ingrid on the troubling aspects of Doug’s death. It’s recently, after searching on the Internet to finally get to the bottom of this and clear my mind, that I have become aware of the discrepancy…
I'm the only one who still obsesses over that night at Doug's, but with good reasons. So, if you please, bear with me just a while longer: John got to Ingrid’s home at 3:00 a.m. after leaving Doug around 2:30 and not 1 a.m. as the police believed. It now seems to me that the Police didn’t really question anything or anyone. They wanted to close the case quickly as one more drug incident. Maybe the parents begged them to close the case. Doug Jensen was almost famous, myriad other journalists would have rushed to Doug’s destiny if there had been any sticking point. The NYPD didn't even question the fact that John returned at 5:45 a.m. to stay in the apartment for fifteen minutes before he called them at 6 o'clock. Fifteen minutes to do what? Clean behind himself? Get his fingerprints off Doug's forehead, neck, hands? Wipe the last bit of DNA off of Doug’s spectacles?
Had they fought again like two brothers at Doug's? Until John pushed him into that corner where Ingrid said Doug's neck was twisted grotesquely… Pushed him and let him sink, heard bubbles pop on the surface and fewer and fewer bubbles… Without intervening to save Doug, clean him… Why? Out of jealousy, to make Doug pay for his closeness to Katherine Miller? His advantages in general?
John couldn't be viscerally jealous of Doug since there had been nothing between Doug and her, nothing more than late teenage, platonic love. No, definitely, I cannot go as far as stating that John saw Doug die before leaving, then that he rewound his steps in order to eliminate suspicious traces on Doug before calling the police. My friend John was not a killer. His head was in the Logic of Hegel while his feet got entangled in petty problems and avoidable obstacles. But I can’t put the label “criminal” on him.
He loved Doug with brotherly love. He will have realized a little too late the possible effects of their rough game on Doug, given the advanced state of weakness of his friend, and he will have worried when waking up from the torpor of the drugs...
But what if, after all, it’s minutes after 2 30 a.m. that Doug died in his vomit. After John had left, Doug took more weed, or more crack until he vomited, and therefore John had nothing to do with his death.
But then again, why go back precipitously at 5 in the morning to check on Doug if he had left Doug groggy but safe and sound? What bothered John so much in his sleep?
I keep a nagging doubt because of a few experiences with John. I remember inviting him to use the gym facilities at City College. Mistake. I found myself flattened under John, his weight crushing me and his knee on my spine for daring to dispute a point. He has the strength of a soldier, and an animal rage at the service of a military determination developed early on, I bet.
It's also true that they didn't play racquetball in the bedroom where I never went and didn’t intend to go because, I was told, it was strewn with debris and trash, all pell-mell, fashionable magazines, chicken bones, ketchup, empty bottles of beer and the boxes of junk food that Doug and his company of rich kids had been eating for the past few weeks. He didn't use a trash can, Doug. The trash can was his floor. "New York is a big turd,” repeated Doug, “it's not me who's going to clean it up.” The least we can say is that in the middle of the rubbish something did not communicate well, and the song that Doug and John were trying to sing that night didn’t help.
I have no proof of John's involvement. The episode with Doug is speculative on my part and I should never publish this story. But I can't help wondering—in the event that John let his friend Doug die in front of him, under his eyes… Or worse… What if, wildest guess, John wanted to test our idea of ​​Desistence on Doug?
Without going into the mysteries of this indefinable idea here, let's just say that John and I toyed with striking examples of what we called (and spelled) Desistence, a word that exists neither in French nor in English. He liked to use the example of Millenarism: “We know that on the eve of the year 1000, during the last day of the year 999 to be exact, peasant masses throughout Europe left their homes, left their animals to graze uncontrolled, no longer did they serve priests, lords, and masters. There were thousands, millions, a real social epidemic… Carrying their best, dressed for Sunday mass, they walked with sausages and wine (read the historians), and their large well-baked bread, to the end of the cultivated lands, there to wait, kneel, and with their arms up, pray for the end of time. I call this Desistence. Centuries later, the clerk Bartleby will answer 'I would prefer not to' to whatever his boss asked him to do—without raising his voice, ‘softly, but firmly’ as Herman Melville specifies (you can verify)… Such a ‘passive resistance’ would paralyze Wall Street if other clerks responded like Bartleby the Scrivener. They should all be made to read the short story. “I would prefer not to” is a very contagious expression. Try it yourself. I call this Desistence. It’s nothing but a humble refusal. Anyone can opt out of almost everything in the following second. Everyone wants to desist at some point without knowing it. And that is the ultimate power in the hands of ordinary men and women. To say no. This is not for me, thank you very much. Or even say nothing and think no less and do no less.”
If he couldn't write—he did, in fact, write in his notebook but didn't have the courage to let himself be read… kept his writings hidden, immune from criticism, even after Ingrid offered to type up his notes for him—John could speak convincingly. I fall far short here of his eloquence. What if he convinced Doug that night to join Desistence? Doug was already the perfect desistant without knowing it. All John had to do was pass the word on to Doug…
And what if, in the feeling of omnipotence swollen by the drugs, in the assurance of their immunity, there had been a brief but absolute understanding between them, a moment of tandem delirium during which they agreed to brave death together, to open the maw of hell (John Milton) and look inside, to grab the goat by the horns, to end their life together by taking too much?
Two brothers in spirit who in the next second should find themselves fused in eternity by joining what is greater than each one (William Blake). Infinity is present in the smallest grain of sand. The apocalypse can take place in the next second.
And Doug died and not John.
Assuming. Does that make John a killer? Or just a witness? A witness who left no testimony because he could hardly talk after that night, he fell silent as a matter of fact. Maybe there are notes in his notebook about that near-death experience and the return to life—face to face with his dead friend. We’ll never know since John took the notebook with him.
I don’t have the answers.
But I bear some responsibility. To say the least, I lent a favorable ear to John’s extremism, helped him develop it orally, and used Desistence (without ever using the word) when defending my thesis and, later, when writing papers for conferences. Desistence looks great on paper because it is a great idea.
Much less beautiful when applied to reality. What happened to the poor peasants in the year 1000, after they’d exhausted bread, wine, and prayers—and still no end of time in sight? After they’d returned to their lords, priests, and domesticated animals?

Thanks for your patience, friends. This should be my last week as the one-handed wonder typist, and I’m grateful, because this is a mood spoiler for sure. Will the scar pictures be exciting? I don’t know, but I’m blaming Jovi.
Welcome to your weekly 90DF recap, where Stephanie happens, along with a tidal wave of boring retreads you’re better off skimming over while knitting, or in my case, typing with one dumb hand.
Stephanie is looking to slap away Darcey's cougar crown by having multiple fiancés in a single trip to Belize, and a full supporting cast that's in it for the payday. A sans makeup, pre-morning-injection Stephanie is checking in with the office, which to Steph means pinning every employee under the weight of multiple empty romances. Her assistant knows that if you don’t pee out the fire it’s just going to grow, so she tells Stephanie that her would-be mother-in-law called to try and better understand what detonated the family’s income. Steph knows that if she responds to mom the chances of Ryan being left without options save for reaching out are slim, and she's super glad she encouraged the family to be fully financially dependent on her.
“I mean, only one message, what does that even mean?” Steph wonders, reaching for her phone so she can send Ryan the next sixty lines of War and Peace. Stephanie tells the assistant to block everyone in his family, including cousins, which leaves Harris with questions, but none that he’s going to articulate with words. He's just going to sit with his arms inside the cart until the ride has come to a complete stop.
This insight from the office is enough ammo for Steph to justify swaying around for another day, so she challenges Harris to “surprise her” with something fun, no expense spared, while she dusts off the dress she hasn’t worn since Phish stopped touring.
Harris wonders if it’s still a surprise if you’re just following orders, and then he vows to honor the confusion of this request with the bare minimum. Parasailing? Helicopter tour? Boat adventure? Nah, how about sitting on a dock? Ain’t no party like no party at all. It really doesn’t matter what Harris does, so long as he continues to reference the ways he bests Ryan in the boyfriend department.
A few hours Steph embraces her surprise, and her favorite wine, which Harris has waiting for her, along with a case of its best friends.
“You know my favorite wine is the one in the bottle!” Steph is pleased to learn she has the same taste in wine as everyone at home. “You pour that puppy up and order a second bottle.”
“I love you so much. I wanna be by your body girl,” Harris yucks.
“You mean that?” Stephanie Yolandas.
Stephanie truly needs to call Tarik’s best friend Angela, but she decides to call Maria the Not-Psychic Friend instead. Maria, I don’t think you’re going to be enjoying an uptick in business based upon the crackerjack cold reading you’ve dolled out to America’s favorite sucker, but if you wait by the phone Stephanie should call again any second. Forever. You might already know this.
Harris says he’s not afraid of any psychic Stephanie has selected. “I always come down from the jungle and I always be for her.”
“It’s true, he does come from the jungle,” Paul iseager to offer reassurance.“He gave me some Adidas slides. I wear them when I go looking for an el job-o.”
Maria introduces herself to Harris as an “astrologer and psychic,” since she intuited Team Tarot would be coming for her the minute she bungled that description of the Chariot.
“Well Maria, started at the bottom now we're here,” Steph begins. “I wish I had met Harris first. Then I wouldn’t have to make excuses for sleeping with him.”
Before she can unfurl a ringing endorsement, Maria the Not-Psychic Friend asks about the baby mama, phrased in a way that suggests she’s a romantic obstacle and not a mother of young children who might need the father to be around. Harris assures them that she dumped him, and is guaranteed to do so again after they get back together next week.
“I am as done with my ex as is necessary, which is not very much,” Harris explains, sweating like he’s about to be detained in Mexico with only Andrew to save him. “I want to be with Stephanie. I want to be her body guard and landscaper, which is how I’ll serve her in America.”
“Hold on,” Brandon’s mom crawls out from under the table. “Did you say unpaid landscaper?”
“Well, my laser-sharp perception is just vibrating at 0 on the nothing scale,” Maria is going to order that imitation garnet ring from Home Shopping Network, because she deserves it. “I think this guy could be your knight in shining armor, so long as you pay for it. You should definitely stay with him long enough to contact me daily for analysis of his every move.”
“Yes, this is clearly a very good psychic,” Harris is not about to turn away an assist.
“Now we just have to break this to Ryan. That should finally give me the reaction I’ve been looking for since I got off the plane,” Steph snaps her fingers to signal to the waiter to dust off that spare case they’ve been hiding for New Year’s to fill mama’s tumbler.
“Wait till Harris finds out he has to suckle my cat.” Steph has big dreams, and she’s not afraid to inject them.
Mike is either driving, arguing, or blowing shit up in the backyard, and the truck is cooling and he’s out of words, so boom, bitches. COVID has come to Washington, and kinda came to Washington first, thanks to scientists who opted to pass on waiting for Trump to exhaust his racism. So Mike is out doing emergency grocery shopping at the paint store, while Natalie is forced to wash her hands with dish soap and clean the counter with baby wipes. This is what Natalie does every day, before calling her mother to cry over the latest matrimonial obstacles. This round it’s a big one: the clamped shut airports.
“I thought in America they have fake news?” Natalie dreams. “All you must do is say this, to say fake news, and news no longer exists.”
The pandemic means that Mike is getting the no-key wedding he’s always wanted, and he’s so thrilled he feels inspired to give Natalie a lap dance, complete with stonewashed jeans gyrations, and at the peak, firing a bottle rocket from his held together teets.
“This is like we have fun together,” Natalie giggles.
“No way this isn’t ending up on the editing room floor,” Mike knows.
The next day Natalie is packing and making terrible phone calls, because Mike dumped her the day of their wedding.
“This totally bests giving the ring back,” Mike punches himself in the shoulder. "Oh man, she's so crying now. I'd better drive this out."
Natalie has reached her breaking point, too, and finds a pre-wedding cancellation sufficient grounds for relationship exile. A few boring phone calls go down, and then Natalie is crying and reporting that Mike told her he can’t do it. She calls Mike’s mom, who isn’t surprised at all, and simply skims around the brutal dumping part to get to the conversation place where she tells Natalie to move on. Not the phone call Natalie was hoping for. Then the producers ask if she’s told her own mom, and Natalie snaps and asks what they want her to say, and the producer locks himself in the bathroom to let some of that pout out. Natalie’s only friend/neighbor Tamra is letting her stay the night at her house, so she can get the fuck away from Mike and his empty promises before her outbound flight.
“I don’t understand,” Natalie is distraught. “It seem like he want to get married when he give me ring and say, ‘put this on, I guess. I don’t have receipt.’ What happened?”
“Whoa, lots of good observations there,” Maria the Not-Psychic is back. “I feel that Mike is trustworthy, and is doing this because you put nuts in his banana bread. Now I’m seeing a name. It starts with an Aaaaaaa.....um, b? C? D-d-d-D? M? Mike! OMG I’m amazing.”
“Isn’t she amazing,” Stephanie, you’re banished from Natalie.
Now it’s time to ready the hose and tarp to give the poor stripper forced to give Jovi a private dance a prison shower, which should prime her for the three indoor showers she’ll need to erase this memory.
“You should see who else comes in,” the stripper counts her money. “Hmm, I just made more in one night than most of you do in two weeks. Does anyone have something to say about me standing on my head with my legs open now? If you need me, I’ll be at the bank, buying your defaulted mortgage.”
Having spent all of That Guy’s money, Jovi knows it’s time to go home, to make Yara anxious, sad, and stressed before they hit the airport. Jovi reports the need to throw a handful of things into a suitcase, and that he needs to “wear stuff” to prepare for the wedding, and I wonder if he means the weird white girdle revealed when Yara demands he de-pant and leave the stripper outside the bed.
“Those are his garments,” The Mormons from Love After Lockup are not afraid to stop by with pamphlets. “We noticed she’s not wearing her garments. Won’t someone think of the garments?”
“I’m not drunk,” Jovi drunks to a less than enthused Yara. She tells him to go to sleep and stop talking, so she can lay there with her eyes open, wondering how many years she’ll apologize for him without ever believing he loves her.
“I’m so mad at Jovi,” Yara is going to say this a lot.
The next day they manage to fold themselves into a cab to hustle to the airport, where That Guy and Dad-bro are waiting to fuck up his marriage before it happens.
“I invite Jovi’s mom, because she’s nice,” Yara breaks down how they landed in these waters. “Then Jovi invites his friends, which is why I did not invite Jovi’s mom in first place. Now there will only be drunk people at wedding.” Yara was hoping to put-off the soul-crushing disappointment of their union a few more days, but the whole timeline is tanked now that the douchekateers have assembled for another round of sabotage.
“We’re landing at 5pm, just in time for a pre-Vegas airport booze,” That Guy woos into the phone.
“Wow, you said that on speakerphone,” Jovi is nervous, because they only have time for two more rages before he stumbles down the aisle and Yara starts regretting things.
Yara ignores Jovi, and That Guy's phone call the entire car ride to the airport.
“She won’t tell me what’s wrong,” Jovi is probably still drunk from the night before, and certain that his actions don’t affect others.
“You’re gonna want to start listening to me now, at least a little,” Dad-bro is trying to help, but it’s so much work pulling a grown man out of boyhood.
“I think this could be your knight in shining armor,” Maria, goddammit.
“No. I don’t believe you,” Yara is not swallowing that bullshit from anyone but Jovi.
Rebecca has been with Zied for over two years and was married to a Muslim before, and somehow is still surprised to learn Ramadan is like, a thing. Rebecca is bringing her best sulking to Zied for a talk about the religion she’s pretending he doesn’t have, probably because he’s been pretending this mostly, too. They have a big problem, and Rebecca wants to know what Zied’s idea is for a solution, because otherwise her solution is going to be to return to the wedding plans that didn’t give her problems.
“So you’re a strict Muslim one month out of year?” Rebecca has questions.
“What is problem?” Zied is not having it. “Many Christian have religion on Christmas, and that is all. Why you have pagan tree for Jesus?”
“I’m trying really hard not to compare him to my ex,” Rebecca lies. “This is a lot to take, and I’m not happy about it.”
“Oh, it’s a lot to take?” Armando would like to compare notes.
“It’s a lot to take?” Amira has just this phone call from her detention center.
“It’s a lot to take?” Hazel is bringing her best dead expression and a wrinkled photo of her son to this meeting.
“Is lot to take? You take Jovi,” Yara is wondering if she can marry Amira and somehow become American that way.
Since Rebecca’s hard lines are always squishy and wavy, after a few sentences she sighs and asks when Ramadan starts. “You’re happy and I’m not, just so we’re clear.”
“Me not understand why this problem,” Zied is the voice of reason.
The next day Rebecca is pacing and tossing cushions, on the hunt for the $200 engagement ring she bought herself, and an actual worst day ever. When the couch cushions reveal nothing but inconvenience, she asks Zied to assist her in the hunt, which requires briefly looking up from his video game.
“What you want me do?” Zied is officially American. Rebecca continues to be upset, but Zied is so used to it he shrugs and returns to his video games.
Tiffany hurt her foot, so Rebecca goes to visit her to comfort her by talking about her own relationship. Children are always the parent on this show, so Tiffany asks how things are going with Rebecca’s little boyfriend, and if they’re exchanging friendship bracelets or what. Rebecca doesn’t understand why Ramadan was never brought up in their many pre-wedding conversations, and now she has a lost ring and a dress that doesn’t fit. Tiffany thinks this is a trifecta of warning signs that Little Becky should note.
“You’ve got to break up with him,” Maria turns over the taco card in her ChiChi’s deck. “Yep. That’s right. Right here, under the lettuce and tomato.”
“Me no accept this,” Zied is not about this Maria person, and is pretty sure Ramadan spares him further contact.
Rebecca tells him that the government is shut down, so they can’t just wander into a courthouse to get married, and she doesn’t think trying to find speedy options is in her best interest, since she’s stressed out and working like a dog. My preferred confrontation between these two goes like this:
Zied: What you want me do?
Rebecca: Well, this is called a computer. It contains something called Google. Let me know when you’re done planning our wedding-in-two-weeks.
Zied: What?
Rebecca: Exactly. Don’t forget the cake!
Aloha from sunny Serbia! Amira and Andrew are the most unbelievable couple since Yolanda was sold on Williams, but sure, let’s pretend for a few more episodes and a miserable hotel stay. As always, Amira isn’t sure going to Serbia is the best idea, but Andrew doesnt give a fuck unless it happens to him, and Amira has no ideas to counter Andrew’s best one.
After a few days of hotel-hiding, Amira emerges to find where the food is hiding under all this graffiti and rubble. She arrives at the store just as it’s closing, so it’s back to the hotel and another evening of non-events to enjoy alone. All this is getting to her, so she calls Andrew, and he wants her to feel excited about going to the US, and not so miserable. So he butters her up by talking about all the “exciting things” they’ll be doing once she’s stateside. When the producers press, he offers camping and child-rearing as options to send Amira’s heart a flutter.
“Is there Sephora in the woods?” Amira knows there’s got to be something for her in this plan.
“No,” Andrew can’t believe she thought that.
“He’s a coward!” Amira’s dad can host the tell-all with Angela.
To make matters worse, Amira refuses to promise Andrew children before there’s evidence they can get along in person.
“I don’t get it. Why doesn’t she just over-promise? I promised Mexico and Serbia would be just fine, and they were, for me.” Andrew is appalled.
Andrew wouldn’t be an edge lord if he didn’t make some sad attempt to twist this around on her, so he asks whether the conversation they’re having right now would be considered a fight, and if so, if she wants to admit she’s wrong about anything.
“I’m sorry if you believe any of that happened,” Andrew has said this before. A lot. The producer asks if he’ll be a good parent, and Andrew says of course, so long as another person is doing all the hard stuff and he’s just dressing up like Phantom of the Opera and yell-singing at the kid twice a day.
Back in the US of A, Andrew is walking around holding tiny lawnmowers, and is ready to give a unique interpretation of events to his mother. In just five days he and Amira’s visa expires, and Amira told Andrew that she doesn’t want to have children if they’re fighting, and Andrew translates this as she “doesn’t want to have children” because selective information is how a narcissist wins. Mom is shocked to learn Amira said something she didn’t, and wonders if these two crazy kids are going to be able to eek out a romance. Sure enough, Andrew receives a text from Amira saying that she didn’t get on the plane, because the beaches in Serbia are just too luxurious for hasty abandonment.
“I can’t believe I’m not getting my way,” Andrew has no idea what’s happening. “I’m going to need to make a list of people to blame other than myself. You would think this conversation could happen before I bought her plane ticket to Serbia.”
“If he did not buy airfare to Serbia, I would not have my revenge,” Amira is going places.
Tarik’s friend Angela has come down from the mountain where she normally dispenses advice, because sometimes that mountain has to move. When Tarik and Hazel meet her for lunch, Hazel is borderline mute, and Angela asks whether Hazel is incorporating something blue into their wedding, and Hazel is lost.
“Okay, what has he done?” Angela knows things.
Hazel says that Tarik has been messaging yet another mysterious female friend, and doesn’t seem to get that this is supposed to be about finding her a girlfriend so she can explore her bisexuality, not about finding a second girlfriend for Tarik. Hazel insists that she should get to choose the girl, not Tarik, but Tarik is rushing to ignore that, because Thailand. Angela quickly corrects Tarik and says that Hazel is about to be his wife, and if he’s talking to someone who makes her uncomfortable, he needs to stop. Tarik checks his notes from last week, and says by his count he should just keeping doing what he’s doing, and maybe ask Minty for advice about Christmas decorations and toothpaste flavors, and Angela wilts him with a look.
Tarik knows better than to question his wise BFF, and knows he needs a romantic gesture to right things. He dresses up and gets busy with candles and flower petals.
“Don’t even think about leaving those petals for some janitor!” Angela, we needed you a few seasons ago.
"I'm not!" Tarik is defensive, and almost out of roses.
"Or Hazel." Angela always knows.
Tarik agrees to call Minty for advice on how to clean them up later. He lights some candles, and then tells Hazel she can come in. Hazel promptly gets teary-eyed, because it’s a solid romantic gesture. Instead of apologizing for creeping while off the clock, Tarik reminds Hazel that her perception is wrong, and so Hazel tells him that it’s hard to trust him. Then Tarik polishes his game and reassures Hazel that no one is ever going to come before her, which is exactly what Hazel needs to hear.
“I hope you do what you say now,” Hazel is cautious in her optimism.
Tarik then proposes to Hazel all over again, so she knows he still means it, and Hazel says yes again and actually smiles, which is this relationship's four leaf clover. This makes it easier to overlook his crimes against fondue, while everyone at home pleads with the man to get a candle warmer, for fuck's sake.
Next time: Yara is miserable, Harris tries to escape Stephanie by climbing a tree, Hazel gets a stripper of one’s own, Zied’s sister makes another bid at breaking up Zied and Rebecca, Brandon’s mom eagerly embraces COVID calendar rearrangement, Tamra tries to drive away while Nat and Mike argue around her, and Mike tries to cop a feel one last time before curtains.
Thank you, Patreon supporters! Patreon.com/fractalfay

Welcome to your weekly 90DF recap, where Stephanie happens, along with a tidal wave of boring retreads you’re better off skimming over while knitting, or in my case, typing with one dumb hand.
Stephanie is looking to slap away Darcey's cougar crown by having multiple fiancés in a single trip to Belize, and a full supporting cast that's in it for the payday. A sans makeup, pre-morning-injection Stephanie is checking in with the office, which to Steph means pinning every employee under the weight of multiple empty romances. Her assistant knows that if you don’t pee out the fire it’s just going to grow, so she tells Stephanie that her would-be mother-in-law called to try and better understand what detonated the family’s income. Steph knows that if she responds to mom the chances of Ryan being left without options save for reaching out are slim, and she's super glad she encouraged the family to be fully financially dependent on her.
“I mean, only one message, what does that even mean?” Steph wonders, reaching for her phone so she can send Ryan the next sixty lines of War and Peace. Stephanie tells the assistant to block everyone in his family, including cousins, which leaves Harris with questions, but none that he’s going to articulate with words. He's just going to sit with his arms inside the cart until the ride has come to a complete stop.
This insight from the office is enough ammo for Steph to justify swaying around for another day, so she challenges Harris to “surprise her” with something fun, no expense spared, while she dusts off the dress she hasn’t worn since Phish stopped touring.
Harris wonders if it’s still a surprise if you’re just following orders, and then he vows to honor the confusion of this request with the bare minimum. Parasailing? Helicopter tour? Boat adventure? Nah, how about sitting on a dock? Ain’t no party like no party at all. It really doesn’t matter what Harris does, so long as he continues to reference the ways he bests Ryan in the boyfriend department.
A few hours Steph embraces her surprise, and her favorite wine, which Harris has waiting for her, along with a case of its best friends.
“You know my favorite wine is the one in the bottle!” Steph is pleased to learn she has the same taste in wine as everyone at home. “You pour that puppy up and order a second bottle.”
“I love you so much. I wanna be by your body girl,” Harris yucks.
“You mean that?” Stephanie Yolandas.
Stephanie truly needs to call Tarik’s best friend Angela, but she decides to call Maria the Not-Psychic Friend instead. Maria, I don’t think you’re going to be enjoying an uptick in business based upon the crackerjack cold reading you’ve dolled out to America’s favorite sucker, but if you wait by the phone Stephanie should call again any second. Forever. You might already know this.
Harris says he’s not afraid of any psychic Stephanie has selected. “I always come down from the jungle and I always be for her.”
“It’s true, he does come from the jungle,” Paul iseager to offer reassurance.“He gave me some Adidas slides. I wear them when I go looking for an el job-o.”
Maria introduces herself to Harris as an “astrologer and psychic,” since she intuited Team Tarot would be coming for her the minute she bungled that description of the Chariot.
“Well Maria, started at the bottom now we're here,” Steph begins. “I wish I had met Harris first. Then I wouldn’t have to make excuses for sleeping with him.”
Before she can unfurl a ringing endorsement, Maria the Not-Psychic Friend asks about the baby mama, phrased in a way that suggests she’s a romantic obstacle and not a mother of young children who might need the father to be around. Harris assures them that she dumped him, and is guaranteed to do so again after they get back together next week.
“I am as done with my ex as is necessary, which is not very much,” Harris explains, sweating like he’s about to be detained in Mexico with only Andrew to save him. “I want to be with Stephanie. I want to be her body guard and landscaper, which is how I’ll serve her in America.”
“Hold on,” Brandon’s mom crawls out from under the table. “Did you say unpaid landscaper?”
“Well, my laser-sharp perception is just vibrating at 0 on the nothing scale,” Maria is going to order that imitation garnet ring from Home Shopping Network, because she deserves it. “I think this guy could be your knight in shining armor, so long as you pay for it. You should definitely stay with him long enough to contact me daily for analysis of his every move.”
“Yes, this is clearly a very good psychic,” Harris is not about to turn away an assist.
“Now we just have to break this to Ryan. That should finally give me the reaction I’ve been looking for since I got off the plane,” Steph snaps her fingers to signal to the waiter to dust off that spare case they’ve been hiding for New Year’s to fill mama’s tumbler.
“Wait till Harris finds out he has to suckle my cat.” Steph has big dreams, and she’s not afraid to inject them.
Mike is either driving, arguing, or blowing shit up in the backyard, and the truck is cooling and he’s out of words, so boom, bitches. COVID has come to Washington, and kinda came to Washington first, thanks to scientists who opted to pass on waiting for Trump to exhaust his racism. So Mike is out doing emergency grocery shopping at the paint store, while Natalie is forced to wash her hands with dish soap and clean the counter with baby wipes. This is what Natalie does every day, before calling her mother to cry over the latest matrimonial obstacles. This round it’s a big one: the clamped shut airports.
“I thought in America they have fake news?” Natalie dreams. “All you must do is say this, to say fake news, and news no longer exists.”
The pandemic means that Mike is getting the no-key wedding he’s always wanted, and he’s so thrilled he feels inspired to give Natalie a lap dance, complete with stonewashed jeans gyrations, and at the peak, firing a bottle rocket from his held together teets.
“This is like we have fun together,” Natalie giggles.
“No way this isn’t ending up on the editing room floor,” Mike knows.
The next day Natalie is packing and making terrible phone calls, because Mike dumped her the day of their wedding.
“This totally bests giving the ring back,” Mike punches himself in the shoulder. "Oh man, she's so crying now. I'd better drive this out."
Natalie has reached her breaking point, too, and finds a pre-wedding cancellation sufficient grounds for relationship exile. A few boring phone calls go down, and then Natalie is crying and reporting that Mike told her he can’t do it. She calls Mike’s mom, who isn’t surprised at all, and simply skims around the brutal dumping part to get to the conversation place where she tells Natalie to move on. Not the phone call Natalie was hoping for. Then the producers ask if she’s told her own mom, and Natalie snaps and asks what they want her to say, and the producer locks himself in the bathroom to let some of that pout out. Natalie’s only friend/neighbor Tamra is letting her stay the night at her house, so she can get the fuck away from Mike and his empty promises before her outbound flight.
“I don’t understand,” Natalie is distraught. “It seem like he want to get married when he give me ring and say, ‘put this on, I guess. I don’t have receipt.’ What happened?”
“Whoa, lots of good observations there,” Maria the Not-Psychic is back. “I feel that Mike is trustworthy, and is doing this because you put nuts in his banana bread. Now I’m seeing a name. It starts with an Aaaaaaa.....um, b? C? D-d-d-D? M? Mike! OMG I’m amazing.”
“Isn’t she amazing,” Stephanie, you’re banished from Natalie.
Now it’s time to ready the hose and tarp to give the poor stripper forced to give Jovi a private dance a prison shower, which should prime her for the three indoor showers she’ll need to erase this memory.
“You should see who else comes in,” the stripper counts her money. “Hmm, I just made more in one night than most of you do in two weeks. Does anyone have something to say about me standing on my head with my legs open now? If you need me, I’ll be at the bank, buying your defaulted mortgage.”
Having spent all of That Guy’s money, Jovi knows it’s time to go home, to make Yara anxious, sad, and stressed before they hit the airport. Jovi reports the need to throw a handful of things into a suitcase, and that he needs to “wear stuff” to prepare for the wedding, and I wonder if he means the weird white girdle revealed when Yara demands he de-pant and leave the stripper outside the bed.
“Those are his garments,” The Mormons from Love After Lockup are not afraid to stop by with pamphlets. “We noticed she’s not wearing her garments. Won’t someone think of the garments?”
“I’m not drunk,” Jovi drunks to a less than enthused Yara. She tells him to go to sleep and stop talking, so she can lay there with her eyes open, wondering how many years she’ll apologize for him without ever believing he loves her.
“I’m so mad at Jovi,” Yara is going to say this a lot.
The next day they manage to fold themselves into a cab to hustle to the airport, where That Guy and Dad-bro are waiting to fuck up his marriage before it happens.
“I invite Jovi’s mom, because she’s nice,” Yara breaks down how they landed in these waters. “Then Jovi invites his friends, which is why I did not invite Jovi’s mom in first place. Now there will only be drunk people at wedding.” Yara was hoping to put-off the soul-crushing disappointment of their union a few more days, but the whole timeline is tanked now that the douchekateers have assembled for another round of sabotage.
“We’re landing at 5pm, just in time for a pre-Vegas airport booze,” That Guy woos into the phone.
“Wow, you said that on speakerphone,” Jovi is nervous, because they only have time for two more rages before he stumbles down the aisle and Yara starts regretting things.
Yara ignores Jovi, and That Guy's phone call the entire car ride to the airport.
“She won’t tell me what’s wrong,” Jovi is probably still drunk from the night before, and certain that his actions don’t affect others.
“You’re gonna want to start listening to me now, at least a little,” Dad-bro is trying to help, but it’s so much work pulling a grown man out of boyhood.
“I think this could be your knight in shining armor,” Maria, goddammit.
“No. I don’t believe you,” Yara is not swallowing that bullshit from anyone but Jovi.
Rebecca has been with Zied for over two years and was married to a Muslim before, and somehow is still surprised to learn Ramadan is like, a thing. Rebecca is bringing her best sulking to Zied for a talk about the religion she’s pretending he doesn’t have, probably because he’s been pretending this mostly, too. They have a big problem, and Rebecca wants to know what Zied’s idea is for a solution, because otherwise her solution is going to be to return to the wedding plans that didn’t give her problems.
“So you’re a strict Muslim one month out of year?” Rebecca has questions.
“What is problem?” Zied is not having it. “Many Christian have religion on Christmas, and that is all. Why you have pagan tree for Jesus?”
“I’m trying really hard not to compare him to my ex,” Rebecca lies. “This is a lot to take, and I’m not happy about it.”
“Oh, it’s a lot to take?” Armando would like to compare notes.
“It’s a lot to take?” Amira has just this phone call from her detention center.
“It’s a lot to take?” Hazel is bringing her best dead expression and a wrinkled photo of her son to this meeting.
“Is lot to take? You take Jovi,” Yara is wondering if she can marry Amira and somehow become American that way.
Since Rebecca’s hard lines are always squishy and wavy, after a few sentences she sighs and asks when Ramadan starts. “You’re happy and I’m not, just so we’re clear.”
“Me not understand why this problem,” Zied is the voice of reason.
The next day Rebecca is pacing and tossing cushions, on the hunt for the $200 engagement ring she bought herself, and an actual worst day ever. When the couch cushions reveal nothing but inconvenience, she asks Zied to assist her in the hunt, which requires briefly looking up from his video game.
“What you want me do?” Zied is officially American. Rebecca continues to be upset, but Zied is so used to it he shrugs and returns to his video games.
Tiffany hurt her foot, so Rebecca goes to visit her to comfort her by talking about her own relationship. Children are always the parent on this show, so Tiffany asks how things are going with Rebecca’s little boyfriend, and if they’re exchanging friendship bracelets or what. Rebecca doesn’t understand why Ramadan was never brought up in their many pre-wedding conversations, and now she has a lost ring and a dress that doesn’t fit. Tiffany thinks this is a trifecta of warning signs that Little Becky should note.
“You’ve got to break up with him,” Maria turns over the taco card in her ChiChi’s deck. “Yep. That’s right. Right here, under the lettuce and tomato.”
“Me no accept this,” Zied is not about this Maria person, and is pretty sure Ramadan spares him further contact.
Rebecca tells him that the government is shut down, so they can’t just wander into a courthouse to get married, and she doesn’t think trying to find speedy options is in her best interest, since she’s stressed out and working like a dog. My preferred confrontation between these two goes like this:
Zied: What you want me do?
Rebecca: Well, this is called a computer. It contains something called Google. Let me know when you’re done planning our wedding-in-two-weeks.
Zied: What?
Rebecca: Exactly. Don’t forget the cake!
Aloha from sunny Serbia! Amira and Andrew are the most unbelievable couple since Yolanda was sold on Williams, but sure, let’s pretend for a few more episodes and a miserable hotel stay. As always, Amira isn’t sure going to Serbia is the best idea, but Andrew doesnt give a fuck unless it happens to him, and Amira has no ideas to counter Andrew’s best one.
After a few days of hotel-hiding, Amira emerges to find where the food is hiding under all this graffiti and rubble. She arrives at the store just as it’s closing, so it’s back to the hotel and another evening of non-events to enjoy alone. All this is getting to her, so she calls Andrew, and he wants her to feel excited about going to the US, and not so miserable. So he butters her up by talking about all the “exciting things” they’ll be doing once she’s stateside. When the producers press, he offers camping and child-rearing as options to send Amira’s heart a flutter.
“Is there Sephora in the woods?” Amira knows there’s got to be something for her in this plan.
“No,” Andrew can’t believe she thought that.
“He’s a coward!” Amira’s dad can host the tell-all with Angela.
To make matters worse, Amira refuses to promise Andrew children before there’s evidence they can get along in person.
“I don’t get it. Why doesn’t she just over-promise? I promised Mexico and Serbia would be just fine, and they were, for me.” Andrew is appalled.
Andrew wouldn’t be an edge lord if he didn’t make some sad attempt to twist this around on her, so he asks whether the conversation they’re having right now would be considered a fight, and if so, if she wants to admit she’s wrong about anything.
“I’m sorry if you believe any of that happened,” Andrew has said this before. A lot. The producer asks if he’ll be a good parent, and Andrew says of course, so long as another person is doing all the hard stuff and he’s just dressing up like Phantom of the Opera and yell-singing at the kid twice a day.
Back in the US of A, Andrew is walking around holding tiny lawnmowers, and is ready to give a unique interpretation of events to his mother. In just five days he and Amira’s visa expires, and Amira told Andrew that she doesn’t want to have children if they’re fighting, and Andrew translates this as she “doesn’t want to have children” because selective information is how a narcissist wins. Mom is shocked to learn Amira said something she didn’t, and wonders if these two crazy kids are going to be able to eek out a romance. Sure enough, Andrew receives a text from Amira saying that she didn’t get on the plane, because the beaches in Serbia are just too luxurious for hasty abandonment.
“I can’t believe I’m not getting my way,” Andrew has no idea what’s happening. “I’m going to need to make a list of people to blame other than myself. You would think this conversation could happen before I bought her plane ticket to Serbia.”
“If he did not buy airfare to Serbia, I would not have my revenge,” Amira is going places.
Tarik’s friend Angela has come down from the mountain where she normally dispenses advice, because sometimes that mountain has to move. When Tarik and Hazel meet her for lunch, Hazel is borderline mute, and Angela asks whether Hazel is incorporating something blue into their wedding, and Hazel is lost.
“Okay, what has he done?” Angela knows things.
Hazel says that Tarik has been messaging yet another mysterious female friend, and doesn’t seem to get that this is supposed to be about finding her a girlfriend so she can explore her bisexuality, not about finding a second girlfriend for Tarik. Hazel insists that she should get to choose the girl, not Tarik, but Tarik is rushing to ignore that, because Thailand. Angela quickly corrects Tarik and says that Hazel is about to be his wife, and if he’s talking to someone who makes her uncomfortable, he needs to stop. Tarik checks his notes from last week, and says by his count he should just keeping doing what he’s doing, and maybe ask Minty for advice about Christmas decorations and toothpaste flavors, and Angela wilts him with a look.
Tarik knows better than to question his wise BFF, and knows he needs a romantic gesture to right things. He dresses up and gets busy with candles and flower petals.
“Don’t even think about leaving those petals for some janitor!” Angela, we needed you a few seasons ago.
"I'm not!" Tarik is defensive, and almost out of roses.
"Or Hazel." Angela always knows.
Tarik agrees to call Minty for advice on how to clean them up later. He lights some candles, and then tells Hazel she can come in. Hazel promptly gets teary-eyed, because it’s a solid romantic gesture. Instead of apologizing for creeping while off the clock, Tarik reminds Hazel that her perception is wrong, and so Hazel tells him that it’s hard to trust him. Then Tarik polishes his game and reassures Hazel that no one is ever going to come before her, which is exactly what Hazel needs to hear.
“I hope you do what you say now,” Hazel is cautious in her optimism.
Tarik then proposes to Hazel all over again, so she knows he still means it, and Hazel says yes again and actually smiles, which is this relationship's four leaf clover. This makes it easier to overlook his crimes against fondue, while everyone at home pleads with the man to get a candle warmer, for fuck's sake.
Next time: Yara is miserable, Harris tries to escape Stephanie by climbing a tree, Hazel gets a stripper of one’s own, Zied’s sister makes another bid at breaking up Zied and Rebecca, Brandon’s mom eagerly embraces COVID calendar rearrangement, Tamra tries to drive away while Nat and Mike argue around her, and Mike tries to cop a feel one last time before curtains.
Thank you, Patreon supporters!

Welcome to your weekly 90DF recap, where Stephanie happens, along with a tidal wave of boring retreads you’re better off skimming over while knitting, or in my case, typing with one dumb hand.
Stephanie is looking to slap away Darcey's cougar crown by having multiple fiancés in a single trip to Belize, and a full supporting cast that's in it for the payday. A sans makeup, pre-morning-injection Stephanie is checking in with the office, which to Steph means pinning every employee under the weight of multiple empty romances. Her assistant knows that if you don’t pee out the fire it’s just going to grow, so she tells Stephanie that her would-be mother-in-law called to try and better understand what detonated the family’s income. Steph knows that if she responds to mom the chances of Ryan being left without options save for reaching out are slim, and she's super glad she encouraged the family to be fully financially dependent on her.
“I mean, only one message, what does that even mean?” Steph wonders, reaching for her phone so she can send Ryan the next sixty lines of War and Peace. Stephanie tells the assistant to block everyone in his family, including cousins, which leaves Harris with questions, but none that he’s going to articulate with words. He's just going to sit with his arms inside the cart until the ride has come to a complete stop.
This insight from the office is enough ammo for Steph to justify swaying around for another day, so she challenges Harris to “surprise her” with something fun, no expense spared, while she dusts off the dress she hasn’t worn since Phish stopped touring.
Harris wonders if it’s still a surprise if you’re just following orders, and then he vows to honor the confusion of this request with the bare minimum. Parasailing? Helicopter tour? Boat adventure? Nah, how about sitting on a dock? Ain’t no party like no party at all. It really doesn’t matter what Harris does, so long as he continues to reference the ways he bests Ryan in the boyfriend department.
A few hours Steph embraces her surprise, and her favorite wine, which Harris has waiting for her, along with a case of its best friends.
“You know my favorite wine is the one in the bottle!” Steph is pleased to learn she has the same taste in wine as everyone at home. “You pour that puppy up and order a second bottle.”
“I love you so much. I wanna be by your body girl,” Harris yucks.
“You mean that?” Stephanie Yolandas.
Stephanie truly needs to call Tarik’s best friend Angela, but she decides to call Maria the Not-Psychic Friend instead. Maria, I don’t think you’re going to be enjoying an uptick in business based upon the crackerjack cold reading you’ve dolled out to America’s favorite sucker, but if you wait by the phone Stephanie should call again any second. Forever. You might already know this.
Harris says he’s not afraid of any psychic Stephanie has selected. “I always come down from the jungle and I always be for her.”
“It’s true, he does come from the jungle,” Paul iseager to offer reassurance.“He gave me some Adidas slides. I wear them when I go looking for an el job-o.”
Maria introduces herself to Harris as an “astrologer and psychic,” since she intuited Team Tarot would be coming for her the minute she bungled that description of the Chariot.
“Well Maria, started at the bottom now we're here,” Steph begins. “I wish I had met Harris first. Then I wouldn’t have to make excuses for sleeping with him.”
Before she can unfurl a ringing endorsement, Maria the Not-Psychic Friend asks about the baby mama, phrased in a way that suggests she’s a romantic obstacle and not a mother of young children who might need the father to be around. Harris assures them that she dumped him, and is guaranteed to do so again after they get back together next week.
“I am as done with my ex as is necessary, which is not very much,” Harris explains, sweating like he’s about to be detained in Mexico with only Andrew to save him. “I want to be with Stephanie. I want to be her body guard and landscaper, which is how I’ll serve her in America.”
“Hold on,” Brandon’s mom crawls out from under the table. “Did you say unpaid landscaper?”
“Well, my laser-sharp perception is just vibrating at 0 on the nothing scale,” Maria is going to order that imitation garnet ring from Home Shopping Network, because she deserves it. “I think this guy could be your knight in shining armor, so long as you pay for it. You should definitely stay with him long enough to contact me daily for analysis of his every move.”
“Yes, this is clearly a very good psychic,” Harris is not about to turn away an assist.
“Now we just have to break this to Ryan. That should finally give me the reaction I’ve been looking for since I got off the plane,” Steph snaps her fingers to signal to the waiter to dust off that spare case they’ve been hiding for New Year’s to fill mama’s tumbler.
“Wait till Harris finds out he has to suckle my cat.” Steph has big dreams, and she’s not afraid to inject them.
Mike is either driving, arguing, or blowing shit up in the backyard, and the truck is cooling and he’s out of words, so boom, bitches. COVID has come to Washington, and kinda came to Washington first, thanks to scientists who opted to pass on waiting for Trump to exhaust his racism. So Mike is out doing emergency grocery shopping at the paint store, while Natalie is forced to wash her hands with dish soap and clean the counter with baby wipes. This is what Natalie does every day, before calling her mother to cry over the latest matrimonial obstacles. This round it’s a big one: the clamped shut airports.
“I thought in America they have fake news?” Natalie dreams. “All you must do is say this, to say fake news, and news no longer exists.”
The pandemic means that Mike is getting the no-key wedding he’s always wanted, and he’s so thrilled he feels inspired to give Natalie a lap dance, complete with stonewashed jeans gyrations, and at the peak, firing a bottle rocket from his held together teets.
“This is like we have fun together,” Natalie giggles.
“No way this isn’t ending up on the editing room floor,” Mike knows.
The next day Natalie is packing and making terrible phone calls, because Mike dumped her the day of their wedding.
“This totally bests giving the ring back,” Mike punches himself in the shoulder. "Oh man, she's so crying now. I'd better drive this out."
Natalie has reached her breaking point, too, and finds a pre-wedding cancellation sufficient grounds for relationship exile. A few boring phone calls go down, and then Natalie is crying and reporting that Mike told her he can’t do it. She calls Mike’s mom, who isn’t surprised at all, and simply skims around the brutal dumping part to get to the conversation place where she tells Natalie to move on. Not the phone call Natalie was hoping for. Then the producers ask if she’s told her own mom, and Natalie snaps and asks what they want her to say, and the producer locks himself in the bathroom to let some of that pout out. Natalie’s only friend/neighbor Tamra is letting her stay the night at her house, so she can get the fuck away from Mike and his empty promises before her outbound flight.
“I don’t understand,” Natalie is distraught. “It seem like he want to get married when he give me ring and say, ‘put this on, I guess. I don’t have receipt.’ What happened?”
“Whoa, lots of good observations there,” Maria the Not-Psychic is back. “I feel that Mike is trustworthy, and is doing this because you put nuts in his banana bread. Now I’m seeing a name. It starts with an Aaaaaaa.....um, b? C? D-d-d-D? M? Mike! OMG I’m amazing.”
“Isn’t she amazing,” Stephanie, you’re banished from Natalie.
Now it’s time to ready the hose and tarp to give the poor stripper forced to give Jovi a private dance a prison shower, which should prime her for the three indoor showers she’ll need to erase this memory.
“You should see who else comes in,” the stripper counts her money. “Hmm, I just made more in one night than most of you do in two weeks. Does anyone have something to say about me standing on my head with my legs open now? If you need me, I’ll be at the bank, buying your defaulted mortgage.”
Having spent all of That Guy’s money, Jovi knows it’s time to go home, to make Yara anxious, sad, and stressed before they hit the airport. Jovi reports the need to throw a handful of things into a suitcase, and that he needs to “wear stuff” to prepare for the wedding, and I wonder if he means the weird white girdle revealed when Yara demands he de-pant and leave the stripper outside the bed.
“Those are his garments,” The Mormons from Love After Lockup are not afraid to stop by with pamphlets. “We noticed she’s not wearing her garments. Won’t someone think of the garments?”
“I’m not drunk,” Jovi drunks to a less than enthused Yara. She tells him to go to sleep and stop talking, so she can lay there with her eyes open, wondering how many years she’ll apologize for him without ever believing he loves her.
“I’m so mad at Jovi,” Yara is going to say this a lot.
The next day they manage to fold themselves into a cab to hustle to the airport, where That Guy and Dad-bro are waiting to fuck up his marriage before it happens.
“I invite Jovi’s mom, because she’s nice,” Yara breaks down how they landed in these waters. “Then Jovi invites his friends, which is why I did not invite Jovi’s mom in first place. Now there will only be drunk people at wedding.” Yara was hoping to put-off the soul-crushing disappointment of their union a few more days, but the whole timeline is tanked now that the douchekateers have assembled for another round of sabotage.
“We’re landing at 5pm, just in time for a pre-Vegas airport booze,” That Guy woos into the phone.
“Wow, you said that on speakerphone,” Jovi is nervous, because they only have time for two more rages before he stumbles down the aisle and Yara starts regretting things.
Yara ignores Jovi, and That Guy's phone call the entire car ride to the airport.
“She won’t tell me what’s wrong,” Jovi is probably still drunk from the night before, and certain that his actions don’t affect others.
“You’re gonna want to start listening to me now, at least a little,” Dad-bro is trying to help, but it’s so much work pulling a grown man out of boyhood.
“I think this could be your knight in shining armor,” Maria, goddammit.
“No. I don’t believe you,” Yara is not swallowing that bullshit from anyone but Jovi.
Rebecca has been with Zied for over two years and was married to a Muslim before, and somehow is still surprised to learn Ramadan is like, a thing. Rebecca is bringing her best sulking to Zied for a talk about the religion she’s pretending he doesn’t have, probably because he’s been pretending this mostly, too. They have a big problem, and Rebecca wants to know what Zied’s idea is for a solution, because otherwise her solution is going to be to return to the wedding plans that didn’t give her problems.
“So you’re a strict Muslim one month out of year?” Rebecca has questions.
“What is problem?” Zied is not having it. “Many Christian have religion on Christmas, and that is all. Why you have pagan tree for Jesus?”
“I’m trying really hard not to compare him to my ex,” Rebecca lies. “This is a lot to take, and I’m not happy about it.”
“Oh, it’s a lot to take?” Armando would like to compare notes.
“It’s a lot to take?” Amira has just this phone call from her detention center.
“It’s a lot to take?” Hazel is bringing her best dead expression and a wrinkled photo of her son to this meeting.
“Is lot to take? You take Jovi,” Yara is wondering if she can marry Amira and somehow become American that way.
Since Rebecca’s hard lines are always squishy and wavy, after a few sentences she sighs and asks when Ramadan starts. “You’re happy and I’m not, just so we’re clear.”
“Me not understand why this problem,” Zied is the voice of reason.
The next day Rebecca is pacing and tossing cushions, on the hunt for the $200 engagement ring she bought herself, and an actual worst day ever. When the couch cushions reveal nothing but inconvenience, she asks Zied to assist her in the hunt, which requires briefly looking up from his video game.
“What you want me do?” Zied is officially American. Rebecca continues to be upset, but Zied is so used to it he shrugs and returns to his video games.
Tiffany hurt her foot, so Rebecca goes to visit her to comfort her by talking about her own relationship. Children are always the parent on this show, so Tiffany asks how things are going with Rebecca’s little boyfriend, and if they’re exchanging friendship bracelets or what. Rebecca doesn’t understand why Ramadan was never brought up in their many pre-wedding conversations, and now she has a lost ring and a dress that doesn’t fit. Tiffany thinks this is a trifecta of warning signs that Little Becky should note.
“You’ve got to break up with him,” Maria turns over the taco card in her ChiChi’s deck. “Yep. That’s right. Right here, under the lettuce and tomato.”
“Me no accept this,” Zied is not about this Maria person, and is pretty sure Ramadan spares him further contact.
Rebecca tells him that the government is shut down, so they can’t just wander into a courthouse to get married, and she doesn’t think trying to find speedy options is in her best interest, since she’s stressed out and working like a dog. My preferred confrontation between these two goes like this:
Zied: What you want me do?
Rebecca: Well, this is called a computer. It contains something called Google. Let me know when you’re done planning our wedding-in-two-weeks.
Zied: What?
Rebecca: Exactly. Don’t forget the cake!
Aloha from sunny Serbia! Amira and Andrew are the most unbelievable couple since Yolanda was sold on Williams, but sure, let’s pretend for a few more episodes and a miserable hotel stay. As always, Amira isn’t sure going to Serbia is the best idea, but Andrew doesnt give a fuck unless it happens to him, and Amira has no ideas to counter Andrew’s best one.
After a few days of hotel-hiding, Amira emerges to find where the food is hiding under all this graffiti and rubble. She arrives at the store just as it’s closing, so it’s back to the hotel and another evening of non-events to enjoy alone. All this is getting to her, so she calls Andrew, and he wants her to feel excited about going to the US, and not so miserable. So he butters her up by talking about all the “exciting things” they’ll be doing once she’s stateside. When the producers press, he offers camping and child-rearing as options to send Amira’s heart a flutter.
“Is there Sephora in the woods?” Amira knows there’s got to be something for her in this plan.
“No,” Andrew can’t believe she thought that.
“He’s a coward!” Amira’s dad can host the tell-all with Angela.
To make matters worse, Amira refuses to promise Andrew children before there’s evidence they can get along in person.
“I don’t get it. Why doesn’t she just over-promise? I promised Mexico and Serbia would be just fine, and they were, for me.” Andrew is appalled.
Andrew wouldn’t be an edge lord if he didn’t make some sad attempt to twist this around on her, so he asks whether the conversation they’re having right now would be considered a fight, and if so, if she wants to admit she’s wrong about anything.
“I’m sorry if you believe any of that happened,” Andrew has said this before. A lot. The producer asks if he’ll be a good parent, and Andrew says of course, so long as another person is doing all the hard stuff and he’s just dressing up like Phantom of the Opera and yell-singing at the kid twice a day.
Back in the US of A, Andrew is walking around holding tiny lawnmowers, and is ready to give a unique interpretation of events to his mother. In just five days he and Amira’s visa expires, and Amira told Andrew that she doesn’t want to have children if they’re fighting, and Andrew translates this as she “doesn’t want to have children” because selective information is how a narcissist wins. Mom is shocked to learn Amira said something she didn’t, and wonders if these two crazy kids are going to be able to eek out a romance. Sure enough, Andrew receives a text from Amira saying that she didn’t get on the plane, because the beaches in Serbia are just too luxurious for hasty abandonment.
“I can’t believe I’m not getting my way,” Andrew has no idea what’s happening. “I’m going to need to make a list of people to blame other than myself. You would think this conversation could happen before I bought her plane ticket to Serbia.”
“If he did not buy airfare to Serbia, I would not have my revenge,” Amira is going places.
Tarik’s friend Angela has come down from the mountain where she normally dispenses advice, because sometimes that mountain has to move. When Tarik and Hazel meet her for lunch, Hazel is borderline mute, and Angela asks whether Hazel is incorporating something blue into their wedding, and Hazel is lost.
“Okay, what has he done?” Angela knows things.
Hazel says that Tarik has been messaging yet another mysterious female friend, and doesn’t seem to get that this is supposed to be about finding her a girlfriend so she can explore her bisexuality, not about finding a second girlfriend for Tarik. Hazel insists that she should get to choose the girl, not Tarik, but Tarik is rushing to ignore that, because Thailand. Angela quickly corrects Tarik and says that Hazel is about to be his wife, and if he’s talking to someone who makes her uncomfortable, he needs to stop. Tarik checks his notes from last week, and says by his count he should just keeping doing what he’s doing, and maybe ask Minty for advice about Christmas decorations and toothpaste flavors, and Angela wilts him with a look.
Tarik knows better than to question his wise BFF, and knows he needs a romantic gesture to right things. He dresses up and gets busy with candles and flower petals.
“Don’t even think about leaving those petals for some janitor!” Angela, we needed you a few seasons ago.
"I'm not!" Tarik is defensive, and almost out of roses.
"Or Hazel." Angela always knows.
Tarik agrees to call Minty for advice on how to clean them up later. He lights some candles, and then tells Hazel she can come in. Hazel promptly gets teary-eyed, because it’s a solid romantic gesture. Instead of apologizing for creeping while off the clock, Tarik reminds Hazel that her perception is wrong, and so Hazel tells him that it’s hard to trust him. Then Tarik polishes his game and reassures Hazel that no one is ever going to come before her, which is exactly what Hazel needs to hear.
“I hope you do what you say now,” Hazel is cautious in her optimism.
Tarik then proposes to Hazel all over again, so she knows he still means it, and Hazel says yes again and actually smiles, which is this relationship's four leaf clover. This makes it easier to overlook his crimes against fondue, while everyone at home pleads with the man to get a candle warmer, for fuck's sake.
Next time: Yara is miserable, Harris tries to escape Stephanie by climbing a tree, Hazel gets a stripper of one’s own, Zied’s sister makes another bid at breaking up Zied and Rebecca, Brandon’s mom eagerly embraces COVID calendar rearrangement, Tamra tries to drive away while Nat and Mike argue around her, and Mike tries to cop a feel one last time before curtains.
Thank you, Patreon supporters!

So I guess it's believe me or not since I post my story here, but I will post some sources, though it will be in french, sorry. Google Translate might help. Throwaway account 'cause I'm going to give lot of details about me. Sorry in advance for my bad grammar, english is not my native language, of course.
So I used to live in a village in the south of France, Saint Paul sur Save. The kind of place where there is nothing special, really. Really small, in the middle of nowhere. Well, it is known for one big, kind of scary thing. It was the origin of a cult that spread across the world, called "Le Patriarche" (The Patriarch). It started out as a non-profit association in 1974 and as Wikipedia will tell you, its purpose was to rehabilitate drug addicts in a communitarian environment.
The leader was Lucien Engelmajer, aka this dude. He also wrote poem books. I had one but lost it. But nothing much in here, just cheesy poems about hope and finding your way.
Between 1970 and 1980 this association was very popular. There was not much hospitals or facilities that were taking care of drug addicts, and there was a lot of demand when the HIV epidemic started. So the association received a lot of praise, and a lot of money from the french government. So it spread acrosse the globe, with 210 centers in 17 countries, including USA it would seem (Though I don't know anything else about it). But the epicenter of it was in Saint Paul sur Save, in a property called "La Boëre" (I don't know what that means), near a house I used to live in. Most of it is now destroyed, but if you're curious, here's an old picture I took. In the 00's, there was a huge trial. There was a charge of money laundering (Lucien had a limo at one point), charge of physical and sexual abuse (The "group leaders" in the centers liked underage girls it would seem), and charges of rape for Lucien Engelmajer. Indoctrinated teenagers were protesting in front of the courthouse at one point. So as you can tell, the cult took advantage of weak drug-addicts teenagers, give them love, a community, and work. I read somewhere that they even experimented HIV treatments at one point with unspecified drugs. There is a testimony somewhere on the net (not about the HIV treatments), I can write a translation if you're interested.
When I moved in Saint Paul sur Save, the assocation stopped a year or two ago. The property of La Boëre was abandoned, and I love abandoned places. I remember there was at least three buildings in the property, including a dormitory now destroyed, the "castle" you can see in the above picture, and Lucien's house (I believe). I went to the dormitory when I was younger, I have no picture of it, but I remember there was lot of bathrooms covered with hand made mosaïcs. As I said, they worked a lot in here, apparently to keep the need for drugs away, so they were doing lot of manual labour. For free, of course. A few years later, I went with a friend in the "castle", at night, because it was scarier. The place was sealed off, so it was pretty much illegal. I don't have many picture left of it, sorry, so I'll add pictures I took later, during the day.
Here's a few pictures. Yeah, it was just lot of junk. We had to climb through a half sealed off window, and we landed in a big empty room with colums with carved polystyrene, and windows made of glass bottles. It was cold, and the air was humid, so of course it was a bit scary, we went there for the scare after all. There was a lot of junk, a lot of old books. Nothing upstairs. We tried to go to the room a the top of the "tower", but we couldn't find any stair or door or anything to go there. So that's a mystery. But on the room in the middle the tower, I remember there was a graffiti, something like "Go to the dream castle". The place was really vandalized so it could have been a recent graffiti.
But there was one place that was more ominous than the others, the chapel.
The windows are kind of the only clue that showed it was a chapel. We felt really uneasy in here for a lot of reasons. First, one wall was covered with this. and second... The eyes.
They were made with plaster I believe. There were a the opposite side of the windows, watching the whole small chapel. And well, it felt like they were watching me. Under the eyes, there was a door leading to a corridor, and to a stair... And upstairs was... The inside of the eyes.. And yes, you could see the inside of the chapel from there, although the plastic glass was a bit foggy.
I don't know if the moustache is meant to represent Lucien, even though his main feature was his beard. I don't know what kind of ceremony used to take place in here, why it needed a special room upstair just to see through the eyes. I have no clue. This place was weird as hell, and we were eager to leave after that.
Nowadays this cult had been completely forgotten. La Boëre buildings were destroyed and replaced with social housing. Sometimes I still think about all the young men and women dragged to it, working all day, trying to ignore the need for drugs, believing in the words of hope and wisdom from The Patriarch... While researching, I found some testimonies that praised the place, as it did a great job curing drug addicts. Well, if you forget the rapes and sexual abuse.
I guess I was affected by all of this because I lived near it. I know there's a ton of cults like that. But I'm still thinking that not everything has been said about "Le Patriarche". That there was tons of unspeakable madness that happened in La Boëre that no one wants to talk about. I don't believe in ghosts or anything, but in this place, you could feel what the people living here felt. Every decoration was handmade, like they were working in in every inch of every room. You could feel exhaustion in here.
As for Lucien Engelmajer, he never went to prison, and died peacefully in Belize.
Some sources (In French) :
http://www.sos-derive-sectaire.fFICHES/patriarche.htm http://www.prevensectes.com/patriarc.htm

Looking for some idea on a time frame and cost to travel around South America to a few specific destinations:
Peru - Machu Pichu/Inca Trail Chile - La Silla Observatory Bolivia - Salt Flats Galapagos/Easter Islands Argentina - Whale watching, Glaciers, Iguazu Falls Brazil - Beach, rain forest, Amazon river trip to Colombia Colombia - The Lost City Belize - Scuba diving, caving
This is a rough idea of the activities I would like to do while on my trip. Don't really have a time frame but I am budgeting for about $15,000. I've read the best way to travel around is by bus, also I don't speak any Spanish will this be a problem? Any more information would be great, I like hiking/camping, scuba diving, museums, graffiti, delicious food, and taking too many pictures.
Best places to travel to the above islands? Do I need to book my hiking/camping in advance? Any more good trails I should check out? I was thinking 2-3 weeks for each destination (probably less in Colombia and more in Belize), too long or too short? Any and all suggestions welcome!

1. Teachers in Australia are being encouraged to report school children to police if their artwork resembles graffiti. ^{google.com.au comments worldnews}
   
2. My Scientology Excommunication - I was one of the world's top 50 church members -- then one mistake changed my life ^{salon.com comments worldnews}
   
3. Russians protest over Putin's return as president ^{reuters.com comments worldnews}
   
4. Scientologist-run rehab centre ordered closed in Quebec ^{cbc.ca comments worldnews}
   
5. The Roman Catholic Church has protected evil for too long ^{telegraph.co.uk comments worldnews}
   
6. In its case against 26 major record labels at BC Supreme Court in Canada, BitTorrent index isoHunt argues that not only do they pose no threat to the music industry, it’s the copyright industry itself that’s threatening the freedom of expression of millions on the Internet ^{torrentfreak.com comments worldnews}
   
7. Greeks take austerity fury out at polls ^{abc.net.au comments worldnews}
   
8. Indian drug giant Cipla said Friday it has slashed by up to 76 percent prices of generic medicines used to treat brain, lung and kidney cancer in what the company called a "humanitarian move" ^{medicalxpress.com comments worldnews}
   
9. Philippines Erects Wall to Obscure View of Slums - ABC News ^{abcnews.go.com comments worldnews}
   
10. [Nuclear-free Japan braces for severe power shortages
    
11. Reuters](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/06/us-nuclear-japan-idUSBRE84405820120506) ^{reuters.com comments worldnews}
    
12. "The CIA received secret permission to attack a wider range of targets, including suspected militants whose names are not known, as part of a dramatic expansion of its campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan's border region, according to current and former counter-terrorism officials." ^{latimes.com comments worldnews}
    
13. Tornado hits near Tokyo, injuring over 30 The Japan Times Online ^{japantimes.co.jp comments worldnews}
    
14. "File-sharing was firmly on the agenda when the head of the US DHS visited the Australian capital last week. The four new agreements were less about sharing season two of Game of Thrones and more about sharing the private, govt held information of Australian citizens with U.S. authorities." ^{torrentfreak.com comments worldnews}
    
15. Mali rebels burn Timbuktu tomb listed as U.N. World Heritage site - CNN.com ^{cnn.com comments worldnews}
    
16. Russian oil giant Rosneft has signed a deal with Norway's Statoil to explore the sea around the Arctic ^{bbc.co.uk comments worldnews}
    
17. Russian police and protesters battle in the town of Zhukovsky over clear cutting of Tsagovsky Forest. ^{youtube.com comments worldnews}
    
18. Madonna criticised by Malawi president for 'changing her mind' over plans to build schools - Telegraph ^{telegraph.co.uk comments worldnews}
    
19. [The Rise in the Number of Farm Animals Being Slaughtered by Having Their Throats Cut While Fully Conscious is "Unacceptable", says former president of the British Veterinary Association - Calls for action to curb throat-cutting without prior stunning, as it can cause unnecessary suffering
    

](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/05/vet-condemns-slaughter-farm-animals) ^{guardian.co.uk comments worldnews}

1. McAfee Founder Arrested in Belize on 'Bogus' Charges ^{pcmag.com comments worldnews}
   
2. World News - Hundreds of pelicans die; stay away from beaches, Peru urges ^{worldnews.msnbc.msn.com comments worldnews}
   
3. Japan shuts down last working nuclear reactor- All 50 reactors now closed for maintenance after 2011 tsunami but government faces major public opposition to reactivation ^{guardian.co.uk comments worldnews}
   
4. Europe’s far right is the true winner of France’s presidential election. - Slate Magazine ^{slate.com comments worldnews}
   
5. 90% of school graduates in Asian cities are found to be myopic due to their study habits preventing access to natural light. ^{business-standard.com comments worldnews}
   
6. Iran double-crossed Osama bin Laden ^{theaustralian.com.au comments worldnews}
   
7. France's Sarkozy Set For Defeat by Socialist ^{voanews.com comments worldnews}
   
8. Could India become the first country to dissociate healthcare from affluence? ^{aje.me comments worldnews}
   
9. Fighting A Last-Ditch Battle To Save the Rare Javan Rhino: In Indonesia, conservation groups are engaged in a desperate struggle to save the last 40 Javan rhinos on earth ^{e360.yale.edu comments worldnews}
   
10. Tornado strikes city near Tokyo; 1 killed 200 homes were damaged(VIDEO) ^{youtube.com comments worldnews}
    
11. Thousands in Jordan call for end of peace treaty with Israel ^{haaretz.com comments worldnews}
    
12. Women in the Media: Underrepresented & Misrepresented ^{thinktransatlantic1.com comments worldnews}
    
13. Legoland Windsor closed for day due to power failure ^{bbc.co.uk comments worldnews}
    
14. Wealthy French looking to London as refuge from fresh taxes pledged in presidential elections. ^{ft.com comments worldnews}
    

1. ACTA Gets Killed ^{cinemablend.com comments worldnews}
   
2. My Scientology Excommunication - I was one of the world's top 50 church members -- then one mistake changed my life ^{salon.com comments worldnews}
   
3. Teachers in Australia are being encouraged to report school children to police if their artwork resembles graffiti. ^{google.com.au comments worldnews}
   
4. Scientologist-run rehab centre ordered closed in Quebec ^{cbc.ca comments worldnews}
   
5. Russians protest over Putin's return as president ^{reuters.com comments worldnews}
   
6. The Roman Catholic Church has protected evil for too long ^{telegraph.co.uk comments worldnews}
   
7. In its case against 26 major record labels at BC Supreme Court in Canada, BitTorrent index isoHunt argues that not only do they pose no threat to the music industry, it’s the copyright industry itself that’s threatening the freedom of expression of millions on the Internet ^{torrentfreak.com comments worldnews}
   
8. Indian drug giant Cipla said Friday it has slashed by up to 76 percent prices of generic medicines used to treat brain, lung and kidney cancer in what the company called a "humanitarian move" ^{medicalxpress.com comments worldnews}
   
9. Greeks take austerity fury out at polls ^{abc.net.au comments worldnews}
   
10. Philippines Erects Wall to Obscure View of Slums - ABC News ^{abcnews.go.com comments worldnews}
    
11. Mali rebels burn Timbuktu tomb listed as U.N. World Heritage site - CNN.com ^{cnn.com comments worldnews}
    
12. Tornado hits near Tokyo, injuring over 30 The Japan Times Online ^{japantimes.co.jp comments worldnews}
    
13. [Nuclear-free Japan braces for severe power shortages
    
14. Reuters](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/06/us-nuclear-japan-idUSBRE84405820120506) ^{reuters.com comments worldnews}
    
15. Russian oil giant Rosneft has signed a deal with Norway's Statoil to explore the sea around the Arctic ^{bbc.co.uk comments worldnews}
    
16. [The Rise in the Number of Farm Animals Being Slaughtered by Having Their Throats Cut While Fully Conscious is "Unacceptable", says former president of the British Veterinary Association - Calls for action to curb throat-cutting without prior stunning, as it can cause unnecessary suffering
    

](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/05/vet-condemns-slaughter-farm-animals) ^{guardian.co.uk comments worldnews}

1. Madonna criticised by Malawi president for 'changing her mind' over plans to build schools - Telegraph ^{telegraph.co.uk comments worldnews}
   
2. World News - Hundreds of pelicans die; stay away from beaches, Peru urges ^{worldnews.msnbc.msn.com comments worldnews}
   
3. "The CIA received secret permission to attack a wider range of targets, including suspected militants whose names are not known, as part of a dramatic expansion of its campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan's border region, according to current and former counter-terrorism officials." ^{latimes.com comments worldnews}
   
4. Pirate Bay 'banned' in India ^{rediff.com comments worldnews}
   
5. France's Sarkozy Set For Defeat by Socialist ^{voanews.com comments worldnews}
   
6. Europe’s far right is the true winner of France’s presidential election. - Slate Magazine ^{slate.com comments worldnews}
   
7. Russian police and protesters battle in the town of Zhukovsky over clear cutting of Tsagovsky Forest. ^{youtube.com comments worldnews}
   
8. Fighting A Last-Ditch Battle To Save the Rare Javan Rhino: In Indonesia, conservation groups are engaged in a desperate struggle to save the last 40 Javan rhinos on earth ^{e360.yale.edu comments worldnews}
   
9. Japan shuts down last working nuclear reactor- All 50 reactors now closed for maintenance after 2011 tsunami but government faces major public opposition to reactivation ^{guardian.co.uk comments worldnews}
   
10. 90% of school graduates in Asian cities are found to be myopic due to their study habits preventing access to natural light. ^{business-standard.com comments worldnews}
    
11. "File-sharing was firmly on the agenda when the head of the US DHS visited the Australian capital last week. The four new agreements were less about sharing season two of Game of Thrones and more about sharing the private, govt held information of Australian citizens with U.S. authorities." ^{torrentfreak.com comments worldnews}
    
12. Thousands in Jordan call for end of peace treaty with Israel ^{haaretz.com comments worldnews}
    
13. McAfee Founder Arrested in Belize on 'Bogus' Charges ^{pcmag.com comments worldnews}
    
14. A northeastern town has declared the king of Spain an unwelcome person, dealing another blow to the 74-year-old monarch who has faced scalding criticism for going on an elephant hunting trip during a severe financial crisis. ^{google.com comments worldnews}
    
15. Bahrain arrests main human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, as brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters continues ^{rt.com comments worldnews}
    
16. Armenian political rally ends in tragedy when political hydrogen balloons burst into flames ^{boingboing.net comments worldnews}
    

1. My Scientology Excommunication - I was one of the world's top 50 church members -- then one mistake changed my life ^{salon.com comments worldnews}
   
2. ACTA Gets Killed ^{cinemablend.com comments worldnews}
   
3. Teachers in Australia are being encouraged to report school children to police if their artwork resembles graffiti. ^{google.com.au comments worldnews}
   
4. Scientologist-run rehab centre ordered closed in Quebec ^{cbc.ca comments worldnews}
   
5. The Roman Catholic Church has protected evil for too long ^{telegraph.co.uk comments worldnews}
   
6. In its case against 26 major record labels at BC Supreme Court in Canada, BitTorrent index isoHunt argues that not only do they pose no threat to the music industry, it’s the copyright industry itself that’s threatening the freedom of expression of millions on the Internet ^{torrentfreak.com comments worldnews}
   
7. Indian drug giant Cipla said Friday it has slashed by up to 76 percent prices of generic medicines used to treat brain, lung and kidney cancer in what the company called a "humanitarian move" ^{medicalxpress.com comments worldnews}
   
8. Russians protest over Putin's return as president ^{reuters.com comments worldnews}
   
9. Greeks take austerity fury out at polls ^{abc.net.au comments worldnews}
   
10. Philippines Erects Wall to Obscure View of Slums - ABC News ^{abcnews.go.com comments worldnews}
    
11. Mali rebels burn Timbuktu tomb listed as U.N. World Heritage site - CNN.com ^{cnn.com comments worldnews}
    
12. Tornado hits near Tokyo, injuring over 30 The Japan Times Online ^{japantimes.co.jp comments worldnews}
    
13. [The Rise in the Number of Farm Animals Being Slaughtered by Having Their Throats Cut While Fully Conscious is "Unacceptable", says former president of the British Veterinary Association - Calls for action to curb throat-cutting without prior stunning, as it can cause unnecessary suffering
    

](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/05/vet-condemns-slaughter-farm-animals) ^{guardian.co.uk comments worldnews}

1. France's Sarkozy Set For Defeat by Socialist ^{voanews.com comments worldnews}
   
2. World News - Hundreds of pelicans die; stay away from beaches, Peru urges ^{worldnews.msnbc.msn.com comments worldnews}
   
3. Madonna criticised by Malawi president for 'changing her mind' over plans to build schools - Telegraph ^{telegraph.co.uk comments worldnews}
   
4. Fighting A Last-Ditch Battle To Save the Rare Javan Rhino: In Indonesia, conservation groups are engaged in a desperate struggle to save the last 40 Javan rhinos on earth ^{e360.yale.edu comments worldnews}
   
5. Thousands in Jordan call for end of peace treaty with Israel ^{haaretz.com comments worldnews}
   
6. [Nuclear-free Japan braces for severe power shortages
   
7. Reuters](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/06/us-nuclear-japan-idUSBRE84405820120506) ^{reuters.com comments worldnews}
   
8. 90% of school graduates in Asian cities are found to be myopic due to their study habits preventing access to natural light. ^{business-standard.com comments worldnews}
   
9. A northeastern town has declared the king of Spain an unwelcome person, dealing another blow to the 74-year-old monarch who has faced scalding criticism for going on an elephant hunting trip during a severe financial crisis. ^{google.com comments worldnews}
   
10. McAfee Founder Arrested in Belize on 'Bogus' Charges ^{pcmag.com comments worldnews}
    
11. "The CIA received secret permission to attack a wider range of targets, including suspected militants whose names are not known, as part of a dramatic expansion of its campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan's border region, according to current and former counter-terrorism officials." ^{latimes.com comments worldnews}
    
12. Armenian political rally ends in tragedy when political hydrogen balloons burst into flames ^{boingboing.net comments worldnews}
    
13. Hundreds of Zombies take to the streets of Prague ^{bbc.co.uk comments worldnews}
    
14. Bahrain arrests main human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, as brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters continues ^{rt.com comments worldnews}
    
15. Japan shuts off nuclear power as thousands celebrate ^{news.ca.msn.com comments worldnews}
    
16. Disabled couple thrilled they'll be able to keep their baby ^{thestar.com comments worldnews}
    
17. Canada Quits Making Pennies - Says the coin was too expensive to produce & no longer needed for business ^{bloomberg.com comments worldnews}
    
18. Europe’s far right is the true winner of France’s presidential election. - Slate Magazine ^{slate.com comments worldnews}
    
19. Iran Elections 2012: Ahmadinejad Routed By Rivals ^{huffingtonpost.com comments worldnews}
    
20. Fourteen beheaded corpses found in Nuevo Laredo, hours after nine bodies were discovered hanging from a bridge ^{aljazeera.com comments worldnews}