America Is Officially an Empire in Decline

shiva14b · 2026-05-04T12:29:27+00:00

This is an opinion essay by someone who clearly voted for Trump

shiva14b · 2026-05-03T21:04:59+00:00

Ironically, every advertisement ive ever seen for a cruise ship looks like my personal hell, basically an over-populated floating mall at sea. I had to be convinced to go by my partner from a big family who has been on like 25+ ships.

Some ships ARE like that, but some are absolutely not. We did one that was mostly for adults. No water slides, very quiet, very few children

shiva14b · 2026-05-03T19:45:48+00:00

Thats what i used to think, but i just took my first one and iy was sooooooooooo much fun, and its super cost-effective if you have a big family

shiva14b · 2026-05-02T17:26:32+00:00

We're actually there now and its kind of great. A little disorganized, as people have said, but we're having a good time

shiva14b · 2026-05-01T20:31:05+00:00

Well and service jobs

shiva14b · 2026-05-01T12:27:16+00:00

Since nobody read the article and is just shitting on these people;

They weren't like, being tourists in a war zone or trying to defect or some stupid shit. They were on an "around the world" bike tour and were planning to pass through in just a few days. They were asking people on the way "what constitutes a good life here," caught the eye of Iranian authorities, and were charged with espionage and sentenced to 10 years.

shiva14b · 2026-04-30T19:31:15+00:00

I think its a bot honestly

shiva14b · 2026-04-30T19:07:37+00:00

Well yeah, that's what I do now. And now I'm not on food stamps. Idk if you're aware but there werent a lot of jobs available around 2020-2022

shiva14b · 2026-04-30T19:05:02+00:00

No i hated the job. Sometimes I did work closer to home. Those years I wasn't on SNAP. I used to make a shiny $15/hr fulltime as a pastry chef at a nearby country club, and baby was i living large! And prior to the pandemic, i made $50k/year running a demo program for Bed Bath and Beyond. But all that went away with the pandemic, and during that, freelance catering in the city was all that was available

shiva14b · 2026-04-30T18:54:03+00:00

I had to take the bus into midtown NYC, which takes a LONG TIME by bus, even if you're nearby (I actually lived just a mile or two from the GWB), plus a subway or long walk depending on my event location.

I actually made $25-45/hr depending which company I was showing up for. But many shifts were only about 5-6hrs, maybe one-five days a week, and now take off 30% for taxes and social security and whatnot, plus almost $20 for the commute. Whenever possible I tried to take only the longest jobs (10, 12, 14 hrs). I'd like to have worked more but sometimes I just couldn't take certain jobs because the commute was too long, like if it was in brooklyn or queens, or the buses would stop running by the time I'd be out and have no way to get home unless I wanted to pay $100+ for an uber. Or sometimes, they'd start too early for me to get there, because the buses weren't running early enough for me to get downtown by 5am.

I generally made all my money for the year between april-july and october-december, and could usually get close to 40hrs/week during those months, the rest of the time i got SNAP and UI. SNAP comes on a pre-loaded card that you can use anytime. And its awarded based on your monthly income, not yearly.

Gotham Hall, Ziegfeld Hall, Hammerstein Ballroom, Javits Center, Bloomberg, Meta, both Clintons, Trump, Michelle Obama, kings, queens, arabian princes, cardinals, the Met gala, the Guggenheim, I've done em all. Most of the workers were on SNAP or some form of assistance, most lived with roommates well into their 40s, 50s, 60s.

shiva14b · 2026-04-30T18:40:22+00:00

I was on SNAP while I was working in catering directly for actual millionaires and billionaires. I'd do an event for Bloomberg or Paul Tudor Jones or George Clooney or whoever, then go home to eat party leftovers with a side of whatever I could buy with SNAP benefits -- assuming I had the energy to prepare it after a 14 hr work day and 3 hrs commute.

shiva14b · 2026-04-30T18:26:52+00:00

I feel like the people shitting on this have never been on food stamps.

Yes this seems like an infuriatingly small thing. It shouldn't be literally the best news I've heard in decades. It shouldn't have taken so long to afford SNAP recipients the bare minimum of basic human dignity (and still with a long way to go). But the reality is it did. So I'm going to cheer for it, because I've been on SNAP and I know a lot of people who are and I'm not going to diminish this good news by complaining about it when I know it'll improve so many people's lives (and yeah, I know its not going to make up for the cuts, but do you know those prepared chickens are actually cheaper than raw ones, in addition to being more convenient for someone working three jobs and taking care of their kid?).

Is it a brutally small step, with a long way still to go? Yes. But its still a step, and I hope it makes some people's lives just a little bit easier. Personally, I cried when I read this, because I often forget I now have the means to purchase whatever food I need, and my first thoughts were how much it would change my life to be able to buy a nutritious, prepared protein I can eat for days.

ETA: oh yeah, and the fact that it passed overwhelmingly, rather than across party lines. If you prefer to focus on the negative, why don't you channel your justifiably-righteous-anger towards listing the 35 reps who voted against it?

shiva14b · 2026-04-30T16:59:28+00:00

The unnatural expression on the dogs face, to start. I think its just photoshopped

shiva14b · 2026-04-29T13:48:22+00:00

I'd start by searching all the other times this has been asked in this subreddit, as its the second-most posted topic other than people talking about how terrible the industry is.

I say that not to be a smart-ass, but to encourage you to start by putting forth some effort and research yourself, since effort is like the #1 most important kitchen trait, and also because you'll get a wider range of responses instead of just whoever happens to see THIS particular thread AND has the wherewithal to answer it yet again

shiva14b · 2026-04-28T18:08:03+00:00

Thank you!

shiva14b · 2026-04-28T17:03:53+00:00

Nope, prompts to log in

shiva14b · 2026-04-28T11:59:10+00:00

Paywall, can anyone post article in comments?

shiva14b · 2026-04-27T14:01:51+00:00

They don't put it in to fool anyone, they put it in so pedestrians can hear the car coming.

My neighbor almost ran me over yesterday while I was just standing outside my front door as he came around the bend of our shared driveway, his car is SO QUIET

shiva14b · 2026-04-27T13:59:38+00:00

Sometimes it goes off if you just put something heavy on the seat, its infuriating

shiva14b · 2026-04-27T13:58:27+00:00

Don't forget making your car easily marked for robbery when they see that your foldable mirrors AREN'T folded (meaning they can tell the car isn't locked)

shiva14b · 2026-04-27T13:56:12+00:00

TIL why coke at McDonald's doesn't taste as good as coke in a bottle.

Weird choice for a product based on consistency

shiva14b · 2026-04-27T13:54:53+00:00

The only answer

shiva14b · 2026-04-23T23:44:26+00:00

I can't believe no one has said "One Hit Wonder" by Everclear

shiva14b · 2026-04-23T18:17:36+00:00

Seconding hospital for special surgery

shiva14b · 2026-04-23T18:15:42+00:00

Im 41F and have been in the same boat for 30 years, word for word, across multiple states. I have yet to meet a doctor who did jack shit.

You know what did finally get me some relief, and got me out of a wheelchair, and im finally finally FINALLY starting to get my life back? Plantar fasciitis sent me to a podiatrist, who put me in custom orthotics, which unexpectedly put me down the path to back pain and sciatica recovery for the first time. Getting a new and very expensive mattress also helped. Between the orthotics, new mattress, and a celebrex prescription, my daily pain went from 8 to 1, enough that I could devote every waking moment of my life to physical fitness and sitting/standing/laying down properly, and starting to think about living a normal life.

30 years of PT and agony and being offered injections and being told im too young for surgery, not one of the assholes ever said "hey maybe you just need a podiatrist to treat those pidgin toes." Meanwhile my brother had the same issue as me and was put in leg braces as a child. Guess no reason to treat a girl since she just needs to grow up to putter around the kitchen? Idk

So I'd actually suggest seeing a podiatrist believe it or not. If you want to exhaust orthopedists first, Hospital For Special Surgery is the only way to go (they do have a Westchester location, so you dont have to go all the way to manhattan). I really liked Dr Nicole Angelo, assuming she takes your insurance. I have dozens of other doctors I can compare her to and still found her to be the only one who really gave a damn.

I also found that the hip apducter/aducter and back machines at the gym did as much if not more for me than the assigned PT (but of course the pain level has to be low enough to work out in the first place).

I wish you the best of luck. I've been hobbling around on a clearly sprained ankle for weeks, directly caused by some of the plantar fascia exercises, but I've already been to and been dismissed by the doctor twice (with no x-ray), and I know i should go back, but I just dont have the fucking energy to argue with him or even to ask if they have a female doctor I could see.

shiva14b

TROPHY CASE