#kurt vonnegut sr
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What Is Life?
Description: I am taking my OC from A03, and putting her and Rafael Barba in a different universe of how they meet. I’m new to posting on here so it might take me a little bit to figure this out lol. The title comes from a George Harrison song; it’ll make more sense the longer the story goes.
@xemopeachx @sweetsummertime99 @lyssa1385 @tropes-and-tales @esparza-army @jramirezblogs @thatesparzacrush
September 1989
“Ma why do we have to switch schools for our Freshman year?” Anthony Rossetti Jr, or Tony as he was called, practically whined while his mother, Stella fixed breakfast.
“Stop whining, Junior,” his twin sister, Elizabeth or Izzy, said as she came in the kitchen, holding her blue and white plaid tie. “Ma a little help?”
“You two are going to have to learn to tie these yourselves,” Stella laughed as she took the tie from her daughter.
Stella Rossetti had accepted a position as the guidance counselor at a Catholic school in the South Bronx, after spending many years teaching high school English at a public school in their Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst.
“And to answer your question, Junior, the schools in this neighborhood are getting worse. Plus, since I work there, your dad and I don’t have to pay tuition. Also, you two have basically went to school with the same people all your lives and it wouldn’t hurt you to make some new friends.”
“Isn’t that what college is for?” Tony asked with a mouth full of eggs.
“Could you be anymore disgusting?”
“Come on, sis, you like seafood.”
“Junior, stop being gross,” their father said as he came in for breakfast.
FDNY Lieutenant Anthony Rossetti Sr. had come in from his shift around 6 am. He wanted to see his kids off to their first day of their freshman year and to wish his wife of 17 years luck on her first day of her new position.
“Come on, kids. Hurry up and finish your breakfast. We don’t want to be late,” Stella told her twins.
“God, we’re gonna look like such nerd riding to school with our Mom,” Tony muttered. “Well, you more than me, sis.”
Izzy had braces and Tony had teased her non-stop since she got them in the summer.
“Leave your sister alone, Junior,” Anthony instructed his namesake as he loaded his plates with the scrambled eggs and bacon his wife had made.
*****
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Izzy said after she bumped into a guy, whose locker was next to hers, causing her books to fall into the floor.
“It’s okay,” he told her with a kind tone. “Hey, weren’t you in my 4th period AP Biology class?”
“Uh…yeah,” she sort of stammered as she looked into the guys green eyes. “Izzy…”
“Rossetti. I remember. You’re the daughter of our new guidance counselor.”
“That’s me,” she sort of chuckled as she took a book from his hand.
“I’m Rafael. Rafael Barba.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Rafael.”
“You, too,” he smiled as he helped her to her feet.
“Hey, Ra-ffi.”
“Hey, Eddie, Alex. This is Izzy Rossetti.”
“Hi,” she said as she sort of waved at them.
“Rossetti? Uh-oh. You’re the counselor’s daughter,” Eddie teased.
“Yeah, that’s me,” she repeated.
“Well, welcome to Monsignor Scanlan High School,” Alex said with smarmy smile that Izzy uncomfortable.
“So, what’s your next class?” Rafael asked her.
“Uh, lunch, actually.”
“Us too. You want to join us?”
“Maybe another time, Rafael. I need to find my brother.”
“I’m gonna hold you to it,” he smiled.
“It was nice to meet you guys,” she told Alex and Eddie before heading to the cafeteria.
“That girl is hot,” Eddie told Rafael.
“I don’t know about the braces,” Alex mentioned.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Rafi. You don’t want that amount of metal near your dick if she’s giving you head.”
“Seriously, man?!”
“I’m just saying. I mean, yeah, she is hot but those braces are scary.”
“I think they’re cute,” Rafael added.
“Uh-oh. Our boy has a crush,” Eddie laughed.
“Come on. I’m hungry,” Rafael told them as they headed to the cafeteria.
********************
“Baby girl why are you eating lunch in my office?” Stella asked her daughter.
“I don’t fit in here, Ma.”
“It’s been a half a day. Have you met anyone?”
“Well…I met a guy,” Izzy said with a small smile.
“Really? Is he cute?”
“Unbelievably so, Mom. His name is Rafael Barba.”
“Barba…Barba? I wonder if he’s Lucia’s son?”
“Who?”
“You remember Lucia Barba. She taught with me at PS 128.”
“Sort of,” Izzy shrugged as she picked at the cheeseburger she had got from the cafeteria.
“What happened to my daughter that didn’t meet a stranger?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s still there,” Stella chuckled as she took a bite of her own cheeseburger.
“Why are me and Tony on different schedules?”
“Because I thought it would be best. You two have been joined at the hip since before you were born. You need to make new friends, meet new people.”
“I guess.”
The first bell rang, signaling to the 11:30 lunchers that they had 10 minutes to get to their 6th period class.
“I gotta go, Ma. Thanks for letting me have lunch with you.”
“Of course, baby girl. I know this is different from public school but you’re gonna do great.”
“Thanks.”
Izzy headed to her AP American History class.
“Ah, yes, Miss Rossetti. There is an empty desk next to Mr. Barba. Rafael, raise your hand so Elizabeth can find her desk.”
“It’s Izzy,” she told her teacher as she made her way to the desk next to Rafael.
She opened her book to the page Mr. Cervantes had said and was doing her best to concentrate but her attention was mainly on Rafael. He had his hand up to answer any question that was asked.
“Miss Rossetti?”
“Huh?”
“What started World War I?”
“The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand from Austria,” she answered without missing a beat.
“Just making sure you were paying attention to something other than Mr. Barba.”
Some of the kids in the class giggled as she wanted to die in her seat.
***********
“Don’t let Cervantes get under your skin,” Rafael told her as they walked out of class.
“I was just amazed at your knowledge,” she lied.
“I like to read,” he shrugged as they walked down the hall. “Speaking of…did I see a copy of ‘Less Than Zero’ in your hand earlier?”
“You did. Bret Easton Ellis is one of my favorite authors.”
“I saw the movie…”
“Oh no. The movie and the book are so different. Julian, Robert Downey Jr’s character, doesn’t die in the book.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Have you ever read anything by Kurt Vonnegut?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“You should. ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ is really good. I think you’d like it.”
“Well, I might have to check it out.”
“So, my friend Alex thinks you’re hot.”
“Yeah?” She asked, even though she didn’t want Alex to be one of the three to think she was hot.
“Yeah. You think you might be interested…”
“Not really. I mean, no offense but I have basketball try-outs next week and honestly, he doesn’t seem like my type.”
“I understand,” Rafael chuckled. “So, you’re an athlete, huh?”
“I’ve been playing basketball since I was 10. You?”
“The only thing I play is Chess…and Nintendo.”
“I could give you a run for your money.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve beat Super Mario Brothers 1 & 2 several times.”
He laughed at her joke.
“I could probably kick your ass at Chess, too, though.”
“Challenge accepted, Rossetti,” he told her with a smirk.
*********
“Hey, you’re Izzy, right?” A girl with brown hair asked as she opened the other locker next to Izzy’s.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Erin Harris. We have History together.”
“Right, yeah. You sit in the back.”
“So Mr. Cervantes will leave me alone. How do you like it here so far?”
“It’s been a week,” Izzy shrugged. “It’s not so bad, I guess. I’ve just been used to public school all my life.”
“I know the feeling. My parents made me transfer here to the junior high last year because I kept ‘getting in trouble’,” Erin laughed.
“I see.”
“I’m not that bad. Honestly. Just hung around with the wrong crowd. Dying my hair pink was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Wow.”
“So, uh, you like Rafael?”
Izzy was a little taken aback by Erin’s blunt question. “Wha-what do you mean?”
“I sit behind you and see the way you stare at him during class.”
“I mean…he’s cute,” she shrugged.
“Well, he’s in love with Yelina Ortiz so, don’t get your hopes up.”
“Who’s she?”
“Come on. She has the same lunch we do. I’ll show her to you.”
After Izzy and Erin sat down with their diet cokes and nachos they had gotten from the a la carte table, Erin pointed out Yelina to Izzy. She was tall, long dark hair, and very beautiful dark skin. Izzy gave up any hope of dating Rafael in that instance. She saw the way he practically fawned over her; Alex did, too, though.
“Are they dating?”
“No. That’s the thing. He follows her everywhere but she only dates older guys.”
“How do you know this?”
“It was like that last year in eighth grade even. It’s kinda sad cause he’s a very nice guy. Really sweet.”
Just then, across the lunch room, Rafael looked up to see Izzy looking at him. He sort of smiled, causing her to blush and look back to Erin.
“He’s coming over here.”
“No, he’s not.”
“If you’re gonna make the basketball team, shouldn’t you be eating better?” Rafael teased as he took a seat at their table. “Hey, Erin.”
“What’s up?”
“It doesn’t hurt to cheat once in a while,” Izzy giggled. “Hey! Don’t you have your own lunch?”
“I already ate it,” he smiled as he popped the cheese drenched chip in his mouth.
Izzy couldn’t help but laugh at the cheese that had dripped onto his chin.
“What?”
“You got…you…here,” she told him as she wiped his chin.
“Oops,” he laughed. Erin nudged Izzy and discreetly motioned toward Yelina, who was burning a hole through Izzy at that very moment.
“I think you’re…uh…friend is getting a little jealous.”
“She’ll be fine,” Rafael told her as he continued to sit with Erin and Izzy for the remainder of lunch before their history class.
The three of them walked down the hall after lunch to their class. Erin took the desk directly behind Izzy instead of her normal seat in the very back.
“You’re in my seat, Erin,” Bradley Walker told her.
“Now it’s mine. There’s a few other empty ones.”
“Ugh, whatever.”
********************
“You’re not going to the winter formal?”
“No, Ma,” Izzy answered as they worked on dinner one night in November.
“Why not. We could get you a beautiful dress, get your hair done…”
“No one’s asked me,” she shrugged.
“I thought Alex Munoz asked you. That’s what your brother said.”
“I can’t stand Alex, Ma. And he didn’t ask me. He told me I was gonna go with him more or less. I don’t need someone making decisions for me.”
“He was probably just playing around.”
“Still…there is nothing attractive about him whatsoever.”
“Well, you and Erin could always go with each other. Surely guys would ask you to dance.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you know this girl your brother is taking?”
“Heather? A little, not well though. She seems nice enough.”
“How’s my two favorite girls?” Anthony asked as he kissed his wife on the cheek.
“Good. How’d you sleep?”
“Decent enough. Uh, Izz, there’s someone in the living room to see you.”
“Me? Who?”
“That boy that hangs out with your brother.”
“That could be anybody, Pop.”
“I can’t keep all his friend’s straight. Just go see. I can finish helping your mother.”
“Okay.”
She opened the kitchen door and found Rafael, still in his school uniform.
“Hey, Raf,” she smiled. “My dad did tell you Tony was…”
“Yeah, I know. I came to see you, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You know the winter formal is in a few weeks?”
“I’m aware,” she laughed.
“Your brother said you didn’t have a date and I was wondering if you’d like to come with me?”
“Uh…uh…”
“It’s just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” he said with a smirk.
“I just thought maybe you’d go with Yelina.”
“Yelina?” He laughed. “Please. She wouldn’t go to the dance with a nerd like me.”
“You’re not a nerd,” she told him as she tilted her head. “And yes, I’d like to go with you.”
“Are you saying that out of pity or because you really want to go with me?”
“I’d really like to go with you.”
“Then it’s a date. I’ll see you school at tomorrow.”
“Rafael what brings you by?” Stella asked after she came out of the kitchen.
“I…uh…I just asked your daughter if she’d like to escort me to the winter formal.”
“Is that right? And what did you say, Elizabeth Machelle?”
“Well, of course, she said ‘yes’, Mrs. Rossetti.”
“Jeez, Rafael,” Izzy said as she rolled her eyes.
“Well, I am finishing up manicotti that my son asked for but he can’t keep himself at home so you’re more than welcome to stay for dinner.”
“I should probably get home.”
“Nonsense. I’ll call your mom.”
“Oh, okay. Sure, thanks.”
Stella called Lucia who said it was fine if Rafael stayed for dinner and Anthony said he would make sure he got home instead of taking the subway back to the Bronx.
********************
Izzy had found a simple, strapless black mid-length dress with sequins but not too flashy at all.
Rafael showed up in a black 3-piece suit with a red tie. Izzy was impressed to say the least. She had only seen him in his school uniform, other than the few times he had come over on the weekends in jeans and t-shirts.
“You look beautiful,” he smiled at his date when she came down stairs. Her blond hair was done in ringlets which had given her a headache as they were being done but a couple of Advil later, she was fine and ready to go.
“Thanks, Raf. You look…pretty good, too.”
“And we all know, I look great,” Tony laughed.
“Okay, Tony. Where’s your date?”
“We’re picking her up on the way, Dad. Thanks again for getting us the car.”
“Well, I thought it was better than you guys taking a cab or the subway.”
“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Rossetti.”
“Not a problem, Rafael. I want my daughter home by 11.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If there’s one hair on her head out of place…”
“Dad!!!”
“I’m just kidding, princess. You guys have fun.”
They let Stella take a few pictures before they left. They sat in the town car, Rafael’s legs bouncing as he nervously ran his hands on his knees.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, Izz,” he smiled to which Tony just sort of laughed, earning a nudge in his ribs from his sister.
***************
They finally arrived at the “Winter Wonderland” formal dance. It was basically a prom for the Freshman and Sophomores.
“There you are!!” Erin exclaimed when she saw Izzy walk in with Rafael.
“I told you I’d be here,” Izzy laughed at her now best friend.
“You look amazing. Doesn’t she, Rafael?”
“Yes, Erin. I already told her she looked great.”
“Come on, let’s dance.”
“Erin…”
“It’s okay, cariño. Go have fun. I’ll get us something to drink,” Rafael told her. She didn’t know what “cariño” meant but it didn’t sound bad.
Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” blasted over the speakers as Izzy and Erin danced while they laughed and sang along.
She noticed Rafael sitting at a table with Eddie and Alex as he watched her.
Erin had actually went to the dance with Eddie so they went to sit with their dates.
Soon Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Enough” started playing.
“Dance with me, Raf?”
“I don’t really like to dance.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun,” Izzy told him.
“What the hell?” He shrugged as he took her hand and led her to the dance floor. She didn’t understand why he didn’t like to dance because the boy sure knew how to move. Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” came on next so the two of them continued to dance.
“How about a break? Some food maybe?”
“Uh, sure, Raf,” Izzy agreed as she was working up an appetite after dancing.
After a few snacks and a couple more glasses of punch, Erin grabbed Izzy as The Romantics “Talking in Your Sleep” started playing.
“So, uh, what’s up with you and Rossetti?” Alex asked.
“We’re friends,” Rafael told them. “She didn’t have a date and neither did I so I asked her…”
“Rafi?”
“Uh…hey, Yelina.”
“Your date seems to be more into her best friend than you.”
“She’s just having fun,” he shrugged. “We’re just friends. It’s not like she has to be by my side the whole time.”
“Hey, Yelina, you want to dance?” Alex asked.
“No thanks, Alex. My date is getting us something to drink,” she said as she motioned to the Senior that she had been dating, Riley Watkins.
Izzy noticed Yelina and immediately grabbed Erin and headed back to the table. She promptly took her seat next to Rafael, pushing Yelina out of the way with her butt.
“Izzy. I wondered why you were leaving this poor guy all alone,” Yelina snarked.
“Hey, Raf, you want to join me for another dance?” She asked as Billy Idol’s “Hot in the City” started playing.
“You bet,” he smiled.
They continued to dance. They were even warned by one of the teachers that was chaperoning that they were a little too close. Izzy wanted to make a move on him so bad.
“You know, I really like the red and green rubber bands you have on your braces,” he told her as they danced to Journey’s “Open Arms”.
“Uh, thanks,” she said as she felt her face get hot. She was so glad it was dark enough that he couldn’t see her blush.
“Would it be okay if I…” he asked as he moved in closer to her, making her heart skip a beat.
“Can I cut in?” Yelina had the audacity to ask.
Izzy knew Rafael was in love with her and actually let her.
She went to the bathroom with Erin following close behind.
“What the hell was that?”
“What?”
“You let Yelina dance with him? Are you crazy?!”
“What was I gonna say?”
“How about, ‘fuck no! He’s here with me,’?”
“We’re just friends.”
“He was about to kiss you.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Are you that fucking oblivious?!”
“Erin…”
“Her date left. She’s here alone now. She’s trying to swoop in on your guy.”
“He’s not my guy.”
“I’m just trying to help you, here.”
“I’m fine, Erin. Really.”
Rafael had went looking for Izzy after sharing half a dance with Yelina and found her coming from the bathroom of their school’s gym.
“Hey, you want another dance?”
“Actually, I think I’d like to go home.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m getting tired. Erin has been wearing me out,” she lied.
“Oh. Okay. Do you want me to find Tony and Heather?”
“They still have an hour before curfew. I can catch a cab.”
“No, you can’t. You came with me and I’m going to make sure you get home safely.”
“I’ve got her,” Erin said with a glare.
“Erin I can get her home. It’s fine.”
“I’m going with you then.”
“Whatever.”
************
Erin told Eddie she was ready to leave so he decided he’d go, too, even though she told him he didn’t have to.
Tony told his twin that he had enough money to get a cab for him and Heather and for her to take the car their dad had gotten for them.
The ride to Bensonhurst was a quiet one. Once the driver pulled up to Izzy’s house, she and Erin got out but Rafael insisted on walking Izzy to the door.
“I had a good time tonight with you.”
“Yeah, me too,” she smiled.
Erin leaned against the porch wall with her arms crossed, her eyes shooting daggers into Rafael.
“Erin can you give us a minute?”
“Uh no,” Erin replied to Rafael.
“Here’s my key, Erin. Just go up to my room.”
“If you say so, Izz,” she scoffed as she took the key chain from her best friend and unlocked the door.
“So, I guess I’ll see you Monday?”
“Yeah, Rafael,” Izzy nodded.
“Thanks for coming with me tonight.”
“I had a good time.”
“I’m glad. Well, I guess I should be going.”
“Okay.”
He started to move closer to her but the kiss landed on her cheek instead of her lips like she had hoped.
They said one last good-bye before she went inside.
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Have a shitty cell phone pic for aprildrawing day 2! The prompt was calligraphy. I came up with this alphabet in high school and was surprised I remembered any of it lol.
I got the quote from innuendo studio’s video here, where it’s attributed to “Kurt Vonnegut Sr.” It’s my new favorite series of words.
#aprildrawing#drawpril#april drawing challenge#mine#posting this from school hence the cell phone pic and not my scanner#did it during class which is my excuse for doing this and not my comics today#tho who knows the day is young
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yall should i be concerned abt the fact that i get sick at least once a year (sometimes 2-3 times) w a nasty cold that usually takes a long time to get better
esp cuz ive had some other srs inflammatory-type stuff happen that apparently could’ve been autoimmune related
hmmmm
oh well back to reading kurt vonnegut whilst coughing my damn lungs out 👍
#germs#disease#i mean honestly its probably just having a crappy immune system and not getting enough regular sleep#or that im fat thats probably somehow a factor
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Have you ever wondered what the museum looked like when it first opened way back in 1925? If you visit Mini Masterpieces on Level 3, you can see a miniature room replica of the museum’s first home! The museum was first housed in the Propylaeum’s Carriage House located at 1410 N. Delaware Street. Though the museum never formally operated in the Carriage House, it allowed neighborhood children to stop by and look at its growing collection, which was formed from donations by area residents. The carriage house was also the first place to display the museum’s first logo—a sea horse created by board trustee Kurt Vonnegut Sr.
This miniature room was purchased for the museum by The Children’s Museum Guild in honor of the retirement of former museum director President Mildred S. Compton. Eugene Kupjack, one of the best known miniaturists of the 20th century, created the miniature room, and it includes 90 artifacts from the Museum’s collection. A frequent question we receive is “where are the objects?” Well, most of them are in storage! Sadly, none of them are currently on display, but we will share some highlights with you:
Porcupinefish—this little fish was the very first item in the Museum’s collection! It was donated to the museum back in in 1925 by the Indianapolis Public Schools and it is housed in our Natural Science storage area. Read more on the story behind the Porcupinefish.
Settle—this is a walnut bench with arms, a high back and long enough to accommodate three or four people. It was created in 1797 and donated to the museum by Mrs. Carey, the founder of the museum. It is located in our Arts & Humanities storage area.
Native American beaded bag—this Plains Indian bag was also donated by Mrs. Carey and is currently on display at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Toasting rack—This Early American fireplace toaster was as unfamiliar to children in 1925 as their toasters are to kids today. It was donated by the children of A.R.D. Mayo.
Tiles—These tiles were found in a still warm lava stream 3 months after Mount Vesuvius erupted in Italy in 1906. They were donated by Miss Florence Fitch in 1925.
Learn even more in this blast-from-the-past This Week's WOW episode on our Mini Masterpieces!
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#PURPLEHEATRECIPIENTS Bryan Anderson, James Arness, Peter Badcoe, Victoria Cross, John Basilone,Bryan B. Battaglia,Roy Benavidez, Joe Beyrle, Rocky Bleier, Dan Blocker, Pappy Boyington, Charles Bronson, J. Herbert Burke, Mel Casas, John A. Chapman, Llewellyn Chilson, David Christian, Wesley Clark, Cordelia E. Cook, Dan Crenshaw, Steponas Darius, Ray Davis, Sammy L. Davis, Danny Dietz Bob Dole, Desmond Doss, Tammy Duckworth, Donnie Dunagan, Charles Durning, Dale Dye, W. D. Ehrhart, Joe Ellis, Thomas Fitzpatrick, John Ford, Samuel Fuller, James Garner, James M. Gavin, Salvatore Giunta, Calvin L. Graham, Harold J. Greene, Eric Greitens, MJ Hegar, Oren W. Haglund, Joe Haldeman, Carlos Hathcock, Daniel Inouye, Raymond Jacobs, Russell Johnson, James Jones, John F. Kennedy, John Kerry, Ron Kovic, Melvin Laird, Megan Leavey, Robert Leckie, Marcus Luttrell, Aleda E. Lutz, Jessica Lynch, Victor Maghakian, Karl Marlantes, Lee Marvin, Al Matthews, John McCain, Doris Miller, Parren Mitchell, Robert Mueller, Audie Murphy, Michael P. Murphy, Tim O'Brien, Scott O'Grady, Vincent Okamoto, Robert M. Polich, Sr., Colin Powell, AHarry Pregerson, Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller, Lewis Burwell Puller, Jr., Ernie Pyle, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., Telly Savalas, Al Schmid, Norman, Ben Schwartzwalder, Don W. Sears, Sergeant Reckless, Rod Serling, Robert B. Sherman, Eric Shinseki, Warren Spahn, Jan Scruggs, Oliver Stone, Spencer Stone, William Stuart-Houston, Sergeant Stubby, Bruce Sundlun, Pat Tillman, Lauri Törni, Matt Urban, Jay R. Vargas, Alexander Vindman, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Lewis William Walt, Jim Webb, Joshua WheelerRichard Winters, Chuck Yeager, Gordon Yntema, Tyler Ziegel #PURPLEHEARTDAY We Support Our Military 💜 *Information provided by Google (at Valley West Mortgage) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDl36rWlT0D/?igshid=1r9w69vco9tg6
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Projeto “Resenhas em 500 Palavras”
Pequenas resenhas escritas após a leitura (em nenhuma ordem em particular) das seguintes obras - de diversos autores e em diversos gêneros - na minha lista pessoal, identificadas pela hashtag #em500palavras.
O Velho e o Mar, de Ernest Hemingway
O Estrangeiro, de Albert Camus
A Metamorfose, de Franz Kafka
Notas do Subsolo, de Fyodor Dostoyevski
O Apanhador nos Campos de Centeio, de J.D. Sallinger
Fahrenheit 451, de Ray Bradbury
Como Fazer Amigos e Influenciar Pessoas, de Dale Carnegie
O Último Desejo, de Andrzej Sapkowski
A Espada do Destino, de Andrzej Sapkowski
Perdido em Marte, de Andy Weir (releitura)
O Sangue dos Elfos , de Andrzej Sapkowski
As Primeiras Quinze Vidas de Harry August, de Claire North
Tempo do Desprezo, de Andrzej Sapkowski
Belas Maldições, de Neil Gaiman e Terry Pratchett
Will Grayson, Will Grayson, de John Green e David Levithan
Breve História de Quase Tudo, de Bill Bryson
Batismo de Fogo, de Andrzej Sapkowski
A Torre da Andorinha, de Andrzej Sapkowski
A Senhora do Lago (vol.1 & 2), de Andrzej Sapkowski
Tempo de Tempestade, de Andrzej Sapkowski
Cartas de um Diabo a seu Aprendiz, de C.S. Lewis
Cem Anos de Solidão, de Gabriel García Márquez
O Espadachim de Carvão, de Affonso Solano
Matadouro 5, de Kurt Vonnegut
Uma Memória Chamada Império, de Arkady Martine
O Grande Gatsby, de F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Cor da Magia, de Terry Pratchett
Um Ano Vivendo Biblicamente, de A.J. Jacobs
Os Jardins da Lua, de Steve Erikson
O Principe dos Espinhos, de Mark Lawrence
Admirável Mundo Novo, de Aldous Huxley
Meio-Rei, de Joe Abercrombie
O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo, de José Saramago
O Julgamento, de Franz Kafka
A Sombra do Vento, de Carlos Ruiz Zafón
O Último Reino, de Bernard Cornwell
Azeitona, de Bruno Miranda
Uma Coisa Absolutamente Admirável, de Hank Green
O Nome do Vento, de Patrick Rothfuss
Noites Brancas, de Fyodor Dostoyevski
Conexões, de James Burke
O Homem e seus Símbolos, de Carl Jung
E Não Sobrou Nenhum, de Agatha Christie
Recorrência, de Blake Crouch
Sr. Ardiloso Cortês, de Derek Landy
Guerra do Velho, de John Scalzi
Um Tom Mais Escuro de Magia, de V.E. Schwab
Sapiens, de Yuval Harari
Deuses Americanos, de Neil Gaiman
Grandes Expectativas, de Charles Dickens
Os Botões de Napoleão, de P. Le Couteur
Toda a Luz Que Não Podemos Ver, de Anthony Doerr
Duna, de Frank Herbert
Cordeiro, de Christopher Moore
Os Três Imperadores, de Miranda Carter
Promessa de Sangue, de Brian McClellan
As Fúrias de Calderon, de Jim Butcher
Crime e Castigo, de Fyodor Dostoyevski
As Mentiras de Locke Lamora, de Scott Lynch
Automatize as Coisa Tediosas com Python, de Al Sweigart
Fogo & Sangue, de George R.R. Martin
Leste do Éden, de John Steinbeck
Leonardo Da Vinci, de Walter Isaacson
11/22/63, de Stephen King
Os Irmãos Karamazov, de Fyodor Dostoyevski
Moby Dick, de Herman Melville
O Idiota, de Fyodor Dostoyevski
O Caminho dos Reis, de Brandon Sanderson
1Q84, de Haruki Murakami
Dom Quixote, de Miguel de Cervantes
A Sombra Daquilo que Foi Perdido, de James Islington
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Actually it'd be weird to assume people on other continents are living the same way than us, when the city next door, like 3 hours away is in another country with a different mindset and language. However, what do you think could be done to reverse this tendency to try to guilt trip everyone? Because, in my very eu pov, I think it kind of aggravates to gap between people in the same countries and they may end up with trump 2 the way they're going.
a) traveling more and with that I mean at least within the US (I mean over there state A also has wildly different customs from state B so maybe same language but different mindset)
b) studying things in school with fucking context meaning that you study all of world history and not just your country’s own and you don’t gloss over the bad stuff (like I find it unacceptable that some people wouldn’t know that there wasn’t the draft in vietnam)
c) fucking forbidding homeschooling and making sure all school adhere to a certain curricula IE schools where creationism is taught shouldn’t even be a thing nor your religious parents homeschooling you without teaching things they don’t want you to know
d) instead of being overtly PC or overtly un-PC, make sure that ppl are actually up to date when it comes to what shit *white anglosaxon* pulled on native populations maybe speaking with the aforementioned minorities everywhere (same for black people obv) but also realize that privilege is not tied to BEING WHITE, it’s tied to being white anglosaxon protestant or passing for one and getting taught also that **white people** went through enough crap back in the day (again: oklahomans during the great depression if we don’t wanna touch the european immigrants topic)
e) studying other countries’ history in relative depth same as we do with theirs (I mean, UK at least. or general european. and other continents’)
f) teaching in school that talking to ppl you disagree with might get them to change their minds easier than guilt tripping them
g) travel to other countries
h) kill the notion that if your great grandparents came from country X you’re not American, you’re from that country. no. if you were born in the US you’re american-something at most. there’s nothing wrong with that. but good lord saying that *italians* live in new jersey when their family’s been there for generations just helps this concept that over here it works like over there
i) kill the use of the word race in any other sense than ‘general human race’ that would solve a bunch of issues in one go first of all getting people to finally understand why in the rest of the world racism is a thing that happens regardless of skin color
l) get people to learn more about their own culture without demonizing it or without making them hate it. like I detest when I hear this dumbass argument that ‘american white people have no culture’ because guess what most of my favorite novels/music/movies/art (which are in fact culture) come from... white american artists/writers/musicians. and these people made great things and I hate how people go like ‘nah doesn’t exist’ when it does in fact exist. stop guilt tripping yourself.
m) after that, just realize that y’all live in one fucking country that has one US american culture that might be divided in a lot of sub-others but this idea that black culture is a thing and white culture is another (if it exists obv) and they can’t coexist and be shared is ridiculous. like if you want to all live together just learn to share and coexist and it’s gonna go a lot better and you’ll learn that sharing cultures is a good thing and you won’t guilt trip people (obv that doesn’t count for, like, sacred things that can’t be shared outside the culture but I mean in general) and you’ll stop guilt tripping people from other countries
if that also comes with a general good dose of ‘teaching US americans that cultural imperialism and subtle imperialism are a thing’ - since I’m 90% sure that most US people have no idea of how many foreign governments the CIA tampered with in other countries bc they were too against US interests - it wouldn’t do a lick of damage because at least people would have an idea of what it really means to be against US imperialism/centrism rather than saying they are against it and then keeping on saying US centric shit anyway.
that’s mvho obviously.
and maybe get more ppl to read kurt vonnegut outside of high school and outside of slaughterhouse five like a lot of trump voters could benefit from reading god bless you mr rosewater I’m entirely srs
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Hello babies. Welcome to earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of babies, God damn it, you’ve got to be kind 🤍 #Kurt Vonnegut #welcometoearth (at Lyons, Colorado) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIWtTdoF-Sr/?igshid=fsh5qamv21r1
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A Brief History of Price Controls by Annoyed Republican Administrations
By UWE REINHARDT
Although, unlike most other nations, the U.S. has only two parties worth the name, their professed doctrines compared with their actions strikes me as more confusing than the well-known Slutsky Decomposition which, as everyone knows, can be derived simply from a straightforward application of Kramer’s rule to a matrix of second partial derivatives of a multivariable demand function.
The leaders of the drug industry, for example, probably are now breaking out the champagne in the soothing belief that their aggressive pricing policies for even old drugs are safe for at least the next eight years from the allegedly fearsome, regulation-prone, price-controlling Democrats. My advice to them is: Cool it! Follow me through a brief history of Republican health policy, to learn what Republicans will do to the health-care sector when it ticks them off.
Republicans like to tar Democrats over allegedly socialist policy instruments such as price controls, global budgets and deficit-financed government spending. Democrats usually roll over to take that abuse, almost like hanging onto their posteriors signs that says “Kick me.” I say “abuse,” because Republicans have never shied away from using the Democrats’ allegedly left-wing tactics when health care chews up their budgets or turns voters against them.
Think of the early 1970s. Like most other economies in the world, the U.S. economy then suffered very high inflation, led by health spending widely judged to be out of control. So Republican President Richard Nixon thought nothing of slapping price controls onto the entire U.S. economy, keeping them longest on the health care sector. (I cannot imagine Democrats ever having the guts to do that or, for that matter, to sojourn to China, there to pay court to Mao Tse Tung, the self-anointed Communist Emperor of the Middle Kingdom).
Think of the 1980s. Ticked off by the ever increasing grab for taxpayers’ money triggered by Medicare’s retrospective reimbursement of hospitals then in place, Republican President Ronald Reagan thought nothing of slapping onto that sector a set of centrally administered Medicare prices for the whole country. That new pricing scheme, based on the Diagnosis Related Groupings (DRGs), reminds one of nothing so much as Soviet style pricing, to cite the mournful, subsequent mea culpa of one of the former bureaucrats tasked with implementing that system between 1983 and 1986.
I recall making in the early 1990s a presentation to the Missouri Hospital Association, where I opened up with the following slide:
(I actually wore that uniform at the podium. I had been bought by my wife, in 1989, from a Russian at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The photo was taken in 1990 by our son Mark, at the tank museum of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, before a WWII Russian T-62 tank.)
Evidently enchanted by the price-controlling, cost-containment power of President Reagan’s Soviet pricing scheme for hospitals, President George Herbert Walker Bush imposed, in 1992, a similar scheme on physicians treating Medicare patients. Known as Medicare Fee Schedule (MFS), it was based on the Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS), a pseudo-scientific design that seeks to base relative Medicare fees for particular services on their relative cost of production. A problem with that approach, of course, is that relative costs do not coincide with relative values. It would set the fees for, say, a hypothetical transurethral tonsillectomy as much higher than that of the traditional transoral one, simply because the transurethral approach is more time consuming.
Anticipating that physicians would game the new Medicare Fee Schedule by responding to lowered fees with commensurate increases in the volume of services recommended and delivered to patients, the Bush Sr. Administration coupled the new fee schedule with Volume Performance Standards (VPS), a fancy euphemism for nationwide global budgets, one for surgical and the other for non-surgical physician services delivered to Medicare patients. Democrats may dream of global budgets. Republicans do them. That anyone seriously thought a global budget for as large an entity as the entire U.S. could ever work – that it was productive to punish conservatively practicing physicians in Duluth, Minnesota for huge volume increases in Dade Country, Florida — is a testimony to the far reaches of the human mind.
Predictably disenchanted with the non-performance of the Volume Performance Standards, a Republican House in 1997 morphed it into Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR). The SGR became law. It was global budgeting still for the entire nation, but so stringent that Congress dared apply it in only one year, otherwise kicking it down the road unused, for eventual resolution.
That resolution came in 2015, with the so-called “Doc Fix,” the still controversial Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). That act was sponsored and introduced to the Republican House of Representatives by a Republican Congressman from Texas who is also a physician. It was promptly signed into law by President Obama, after it was passed with a bi-partisan vote in both chambers. The MACRA quite sensibly seeks to establish a direct link between Medicare payments to a physician and the quality of the services delivered by that physician. Alas, once packaged by the bureaucracy into concrete regulations for operation in the trenches, the resulting complexity of measuring quality in practice and even the validity of these operational metrics now predictably has physicians all over the country up in arms.
And so it goes, to plagiarize Kurt Vonnegut.
So it is prudent to wonder just what health policy will come down in the years ahead from the Republican Mount Olympus ruled by President Trump. Republican Presidents, members of Congress and Governors may like playing golf with the leaders of the health-care industry and share a Bourbon or two with them; but they don’t like it when that industry’s endless, energetic search for mammon chews up their budgets, and they do not hesitate to react to that fiscal hemorrhaging with fury, often resorting to the allegedly socialist tactics they usually ascribe to the Democrats.
What can be said about health policy also applies to U.S. fiscal policy. Democrats have never been able to shake off the label that they are the party of deficit-financed government spending – that they practice the much maligned, socialist Keynesian economics — in spite of plenty of history to the contrary. Consider, for example, the graph below published by the non-partisan Congressional Budget office (CBO).
The time paths of federal tax revenues and spending clearly show what former Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly explained to an amazed then Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill: “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.”
Deficit financed government spending and tax cuts are usually considered the very core of Keynesian economics, aimed at shoring up the demand side of the economy. It is based on the idea that there is not enough demand to buy the products the supply side could deliver. It is a policy much decried by Republicans and the media supporting them, e.g., The Wall Street Journal or the anchors and talking heads on Fox News TV. It stands in contrast to so-called supply side economics, which seeks to rev up the economy by changing the financial incentives (mainly taxes) and regulatory burden faced by the supply side of the economy, assuming that the barrier to faster economic growth lies on the supply side of the economy.
Although during the election campaign in 1980 President Reagan had promised to balance the federal budget by 1984 and rev up the economy just with tax cuts that, through faster economic growth, would be self-financing, in fact his administration coupled the huge cuts in the individual tax rates it got swiftly passed by Congress with huge increases in defense spending and even farm support, driving up federal deficits to levels easily three times as high as the previously much decried, relatively puny deficits registered by President Carter (see chart below). By the end of President Reagan’s eight-year term in office, the public federal debt had tripled. By the time President Bush Sr. left office, it had quadrupled.
Had President Reagan really tried his hand at supply side economics, he would have lowered substantially the corporate tax rate from the statutory level of 35% to closer to 20% or even below, to keep U.S. capital and investments at home. Instead he left the high statutory corporate tax rate in place and even increased the tax take from the corporate sector by closing some loop holes. Reagan’s tax policy – especially his second-term efforts to close loop holes and broaden the tax base — actually seemed to slouch toward policies many Democratic economists would and did support. The point here is that overall, one can fairly argue that Reagan’s fiscal policy slouched much more toward the much maligned Keynesian policy of driving economic growth, rather than to solid supply side economics.
Seemingly paradoxically, corporate executives tend to go along with cuts in individual rather than corporate tax rates. It is so because they all manage two companies: one owned by shareholders, and the other, increasingly large company owned by their families. When given a choice between tax cuts for either or the other of the two entities, they naturally lobby for the second, which is what Republican presidents – Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr. — have always faithfully delivered. We shall see what President Trump will do in that regard.
The CBO graph above also shows the eventual decline in the federal deficit and emergence of a federal budget surplus under Democratic President Clinton (although in fairness it must be said that then House Speaker Newt Gingrich gave him a helping hand). When President George W. Bush ascended to the White House, he actually inherited a federal surplus and the prospect of shrinking public debt. His fiscal policy frittered away both.
President George W. Bush, starting in 2001, basically repeated the rather reckless Reagan strategy of trying to goose the economy through increased government spending coupled with massive cuts in individual income-tax rates, all financed with large deficits and rapid increases in the federal debt. Under his reign the federal public debt rose from $5.6 trillion to close to $10 trillion. With the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, he even put a brand new future entitlement – heavily subsidized drug purchases by Medicare recipients – on the federal tab. That even after that action deficit financing of large future entitlements can so easily be hung around the neck of Democrats attests to the political power of the Republican oral tradition.
Finally, the CBO chart clearly shows that it would be unfair to impute the huge budget deficits and run-ups in the federal debt after fiscal 2009 to President Obama. In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 – not of either President Bush’s or President Obama’s making — government revenues plummeted and much of the increased spending came from the so-called automatic stabilizers – mainly entitlements such as Medicaid, unemployment compensation, food stamps etc. – long ago baked into federal law. Neither of the two presidents had any control over these trends. Indeed, according to the CBO’s Budget Projections of January 2009 – published before President Obama had moved into the White House – the projected deficit in President Bush’s last budget, submitted in October 2008 for fiscal 2009 (October 2008 to September 2009), was close to $1.2 trillion. Surely that did not conform to the President’s idea of sound fiscal policy.
With this brief historical background, one can just see what might happen to fiscal policy under the reign of President Trump.
My hunch is that, to win a second term, he will heed Vice President Cheney’s dictum and, once again, practice the good old Keynesian economics that the American public loves so much: large tax cuts combined with massive, job-creating increases in federal spending on defense and on infrastructure projects, including, perhaps, sparkling new elementary- and high schools and perhaps even new health-care facilities in inner cities, to own up visibly to the folks living there to whom he had promised help, and all debt financed as good investments to make America grow and great again. Why not?
The alternative, asking the private sector to finance these infrastructure projects, may seem attractive to Republicans at first blush, but one must wonder how folks in the so-called “fly-over” country will react when all of a sudden their hitherto free roads and bridges are converted to toll-charging facilities, with tolls set on Wall Street by rapacious private equity firms beholden only to their equity investors in the US and abroad. It might not be a vote getter.
Keynesian economics has worked well for Republicans, because voters love it, as they seem to get something for nothing, federal debt and future taxpayers be damned. And in a world financial market awash in capital with nothing to do, safe U.S. government bonds will find many eager buyers.
It is all quite confusing, even to a Ph. D., and perhaps especially to a Ph. D., because, as I noted in the introduction, U.S. politics are ever so much more intellectually taxing than is the good old Slutsky Decomposition.
Article source:The Health Care Blog
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Diaspora: Notable German- Americans
German Americans are the USA’s #1 heritage group and have been influential in almost every field in American society, including science, architecture, business, sports, entertainment, theology, politics, and the military. Famous German-Americans include:
MILITARY: Baron von Steuben, John Pershing, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chester W. Nimitz, Carl Andrew Spaatz, Norman Schwarzkopf
POLITICIANS: Carl Schurz, Friedrich Hecker, Frederick Muhlenberg, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and Sr., Dwight D. Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, Henry Kissinger, and John Boehner
INDUSTRY & BUSINESS: Henry J. Heinz, (Heinz ketchup), Frank Seiberling (Goodyear Tires), Walt Disney (Disney), John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil), William Boeing (The Boeing Company/United Airlines), Walter Chrysler (Chrysler Corp), Frederick & August Duesenberg (Duesenberg Automobile Corp), Studebaker brothers (Studebaker Automobile Corp), George Westinghouse (Westinghouse Electric Corporation), Levi Strauss (Levi’s jeans), Charles Guth (Pepsi cola), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Elon Musk (SolarCity/SpaceX/Tesla Motors), James L. Kraft (Kraft Foods), Henry E. Steinway (Steinway & Sons pianos), Charles Pfizer (Pfizer, Inc.), Donald Trump (The Trump Org), John Jacob Astor (Waldorf Astoria Hotels), Conrad Hilton (Hilton Hotels), Guggenheim family (Guggenheim Foundation), Marcus Goldman (Goldman Sachs), Lehman Brothers, Carl Laemmle (Universal Studios), Marcus Loew (MGM Studios), Harry Cohn (Columbia Pictures), Herman Hollerith (IBM)), Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.), Michael Dell (Dell Inc.), Eric Schmidt (Google), Peter Thiel (PayPal Inc.), Adolph Simon Ochs and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (The New York Times), Charles Bergstresser (The Wall Street Journal), Al Neuharth (USA Today), Eugene Meyer (The Washington Post) etc.
BEER BREWING: German Americans were pioneers and dominated beer brewing for much of American history, beginning with breweries founded in the 19th century by German immigrants August Schell (August Schell Brewing Company), Christian Moerlein (Christian Moerlein Brewing Co.), Eberhard Anheuser (Anheuser-Busch), Adolphus Busch (Anheuser-Busch), Adolph Coors (Coors Brewing Company), Frederick Miller (Miller Brewing Company), Frederick Pabst (Pabst Brewing Company), Bernhard Stroh (Stroh Brewery Company), and Joseph Schlitz (Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company).
ARCHITECTS, SCIENTISTS & ASTRONAUTS: Brooklyn Bridge engineer John A. Roebling and architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe left behind visible landmarks. Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Wernher von Braun, John Peter Zenger, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Weizenbaum etc. set intellectual landmarks while Neil Armstrong was the first human to land on the moon.
HOLLYWOOD PEOPLE & SPORTS ATHLETES & MUSIC: Still others, such as Bruce Willis, George Eyser, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jack Nicklaus, Doris Day, Grace Kelly, Clark Gable, Marlene Dietrich, Johnny Weissmuller, Ernst Lubitsch, Walter Damrosch, John Denver, John Kay, Meryl Streep, Kim Basinger, Sandra Bullock, David Hasselhoff, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kirsten Dunst, Kevin JameS, and Steven Spielberg became prominent athletes, actors, film directors or artists.
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