Cruise Addicts sailing aboard the ultramodern MSC Divina, one of MSC Cruises' largest and most elegant ships, can now legally say "I Do," with the cruise line's enhanced wedding offerings.
MSC Cruises is offering couples the option of getting married shipboard or shoreside in several Caribbean destinations, including: Bridgetown, Barbados; Cozumel, Mexico; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Falmouth, Jamaica; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Nassau, Bahamas; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; and Philipsburg, St. Maarten. Couples can also get married on embarkation day in Miami.
Partnering with The Wedding Experience, MSC Cruises' event planners will work with couples to handle all the details of planning the wedding or vow renewal, including providing a wedding consultant leading up to the wedding and a ceremony coordinator the day of.
Ceremonies and receptions on MSC Divina are completely customizable with options for everything from photography and videography packages, music, fresh flowers, food and beverage packages, specialty items such as favors and aisle runners, transportation for shoreside events, and personalized stationary for announcements and invitations.
As an extra benefit, couples booking groups of at least 13 staterooms will receive a complimentary balcony stateroom. Those booking larger groups will receive a complimentary suite (30+ rooms in group) or Yacht Club (50+ rooms in group) stateroom.
The ship also offers a wide-variety of locations for romantic photo opportunities with the most popular locations including a traditional photo along one of the Swarovski crystal staircases and a trendy photo by The Garden infinity pool overlooking the ship's wake.
MSC Divina is the first ship in MSC Cruises' fleet to offer legal weddings. Ceremonies onboard can accommodate up to 150 non-sailing guests. Basic packages — which include items such as a pre-sailing Event Manager, local non-denominational Wedding Officiate, Wedding Day Ceremony Coordinator, bridal bouquet and boutonniere, cake for two, bottle of sparkling champagne or wine, and 1-hour of photography coverage — start at $1,600 for a shipboard event and $2,200 for a shoreside event, depending on the location of the wedding. For more information of MSC Weddings and Vow Renewal program visit MSCWeddings.com.


I have been on a health food kick lately and I am hoping that it sticks. Mostly it has to do with feeling better and keeping our health care costs low. So far, so good. I'm not giving up baking but I am trying to keep 90% of the food I ingest healthy choices. I have been making a lot of dishes in advance and then taking them out when I need a convenient meal. Today I made one of my favorites, a dish I learned while working at a restaurant in Montgomery, Alabama. I was a waitress and a bartender and I did make good money in tips but the real reward in having that job was being exposed to a way of cooking I was totally unfamiliar with, exposure to new ingredients, and a basic understanding of how to cook well. I asked the chef a lot of questions and am so grateful that I did!
For this dish, you need to first grill some chicken or cook it in a little olive oil on the stovetop. Make sure you generously salt and pepper the chicken beforehand- it makes a big difference. I then soak it in a little bit of balsamic vinegar as seen above. Next add quartered grape tomatoes, chopped garlic, halved kalamata olives, artichokes (not the oiled ones, just water-packed) and some pasta if you would like. Pictured below is the mix without pasta.
You could also add some grated Parmasean on top. I promise, this is one of the most delicious, flavorful dishes you will make. I chill it and eat it as a pasta salad or, like a lot of people I know will, have it as antipasto. Enjoy!
I admit I was both intrigued and skeptical when I saw the recipe for these. But I had to try them for myself and see. They looked easier than lemon bars (they are) and I wanted to try them to see if they would be a hit for the themed birthday party "lemonpalooza" I am planning for my brother who loves lemons.
They are easy to make. I thought I would try a bite and see how they tasted. I proceeded to then eat an entire row out of the 8×8 pan. They are super yummy and addictive!
I tried them out on my kids- again they were a hit.
I attempted to try them out on my husband but he had a bad attitude, insisting brownies were for chocolate only! Oh well, more for us. . .
Thanks BeckyCharms for posting the recipe.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with butter and set aside.
Pour into baking dish and bake for 23-25 minutes, or until just starting to turn golden around the edges and a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before glazing. Do not overbake, or the bars will be dry.
When brownies are cooled completely, make the glaze. Sift the powdered sugar, add lemon zest and juice, and whisk together all three ingredients. Spread the glaze over the brownies. Let glaze set. Cut into bars, and serve!


Expand your practice with Jnana (knowledge) Yoga. The Asana Yoga Book Club will delve into spiritual principals that apply to your life, on and off your mat. Join us monthly as we discuss and deepen our understanding of concepts presented in selected books.
The book selection for April is Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darrin Main. Have a look at the class handout!


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HomeTagsPosts tagged with "coachella"
28-year-old man arrested for supplying Mac Miller lethal drugs
by Kate Brayden
A 28-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of supplying the deadly drugs which led to the death of rapper Mac Miller.
The performer died at the age of 26 in his home last September, after ingesting counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl.
Federal charges were made yesterday against Cameron James Pettit for supposedly supplying the Self Care singer the drugs.
NBC News obtained a 42-page criminal complaint, which says that Pettit was approached by Mac Miller in order to request 'percs' (slang term for oxycodone painkiller Percocet) and other drugs.
A post shared by Mac Miller (@macmillerdivine) on Aug 22, 2019 at 10:22am PDT
He was given forgeries containing fentanyl, xanax and cocaine instead, which led to his death. His passing was considered as an accidental overdose, as he also had alcohol and cocaine in his system.
The document claims that Pettit, a sex worker and a madam directly connected to Pettit, delivered to the rapper twice in the days prior to his death
Daniel C. Comeaux, DEA Los Angeles Deputy Special Agent in Charge told the website following the arrest:
"While the death of any victim of the opioid epidemic is tragic, today's arrest is another success for the DEA's HIDTA Fusion Task Force."
A post shared by Mac Miller (@macmillerdivine) on Jul 28, 2019 at 5:43pm PDT
"Let our message be clear, if you peddle illegal drugs and kill someone, the DEA will be the voice of the victim. We will not rest until you face the justice system."
The rapper, born Malcolm James McCormack, has been honoured numerous times in the year since his death at events, vigils, and ceremonies.
Ariana Grande dated the rapper for two years, and led a Coachella tribute this year in hs name. His parents also attended the Grammy Awards in his honour.
Feature image: Instagram/@macmillerdivine
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'My body was not mine': Beyoncé shares post-baby nutrition journey
Beyoncé laments her weight gain after giving birth to twins Rumi and Sir in a new video titled 22 Days, proving she's just like us in so many ways.
The clip shows Queen Bey following a strict organic, vegan, non-GMO diet and working out endlessly to get back into shape in time for her ground-breaking Coachella tour last year.
The 37-year-old had just given birth to her baby twins at the beginning of the video, and it begins with the superstar singer stepping onto the weighing scales and saying;
"Good morning, it's 5am, and this is day one of rehearsals for Coachella."
The weighing scales show that her weight is 175lbs (roughly 79kg) and she proclaims; "Every woman's nightmare. Long way to go."
Her 22 Days nutrition programme was set up by her friend and personal trainer, Marco Borges.
"I'm back on the stage after giving birth to twins. I was a woman that felt like my body was not mine," the Spirit singer admits in the candid clip.
"Me getting the weight off was so much easier than getting my body back in shape and feeling comfortable."
A post shared by (@beyonce) on Apr 22, 2018 at 12:20am PDT
The video also gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at Beyoncé in intense Coachell rehearsals, food-repping and working out ahead of her headline set, which became a Netflix film in a multi-million deal.
Queen Bey claims she has a "special bond" with daughter Blue Ivy, and has been honest with her followers about her post-pregnancy weight loss journey in the past.
In her Netflix documentary Homecoming, she shares:
"I'm limiting myself to no bread, no carbs, no sugar, no dairy, no meat, no fish, no alcohol – and I'm hungry." The star has just released her Lion King album, The Gift.
A post shared by (@beyonce) on Feb 1, 2017 at 10:39am PST
The former Destiny's Child band-member admitted that she worried her body following Rumi and Sir's birth would affect her performance;
"There were days when I thought I would never be the same I'd never be the same physically, my strength and endurance would never be the same.
"And you know, a lot of the choreography is about feeling so it's not as technical, it's your own personality that brings it to life."
She continues: "And that's hard when you don't feel like yourself. I had to rebuild my body. It took me a while to feel confident to give my own personality."
Feature image: Instagram/@beyonce
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The internet is DIVIDED over Taylor Swift's possible 'Beyoncé rip-off'
by SHEmazing Team
The Beyhive is buzzing, to say the least.
Taylor Swift opened the Billboard Music Awards last night with her new single, ME!. It was a colourful occasion, with Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco by her side.
There were rainbows, umbrella dancing, butterflies, hearts and general good vibes all round, but once aspect of her performance was noticed in particular: the marching band.
A post shared by Taylor Swift (@georgialovestaylor) on May 2, 2019 at 1:33am PDT
Taylor began the performance with a drumline, which SOME fans online are comparing to Beyoncé's iconic Homecoming show at Coachella.
Part of the Beyhive are throwing some major shade online right now;
TAYLOR SWIFT JUST BIT TF OUTTA BEYONCE ON THE BILLBOARD AWARDS … I'm where is the beyhive???? pic.twitter.com/hWvRcKK4an
— Jamilah Michelle (@jamilahmichelle) May 2, 2019
"TAYLOR SWIFT JUST BIT TF OUTTA BEYONCÉ" is a fairly extreme example, but others are saying that Taylor may have added the drumline on purpose to …drum…up some tasty drama and get everyone talking about her new song.
She is a marketing genius after all, let's not forget the entire Reputation build-up. Girl's got game.
Taylor Swift need to consult with Beyoncé regarding the marching band performance #BBMAs pic.twitter.com/jyVrCilkFb
— 3Y3SWIDE0P3N (@Neosoul1189) May 2, 2019
One fan even called it 'gentrification':
I don't know if y'all are seeing this but Taylor Swift is gentrifying Beyonce's Coachella performance right now
— Guide Lee (@Chuck_Des) May 2, 2019
Others are defending Swift's choice to include a marching band, pointing out that Beyoncé was not the first and won't be the last performer to include one;
Anyone who compare Taylor Swift to Beyonće, lacks brains. We take as a complement but there is litterlly NO correlation. MADONNA did the marching band first. #BBMAs #Homecoming pic.twitter.com/qwbky9dx8d
— Maria (@TS7Track09) May 2, 2019
"Madonna did the marching band first." The marching band on stage was actually first seen back in 1907, so, you know…not at Coachella last year…
Though, timing is everything. Taylor may have known that this would cause some smoke to breathe into the industry's air if she added the band TWO WEEKS after Homecoming hit Netflix. *strokes beard*
Beyoncé looking at Taylor Swift performance pic.twitter.com/g9PA1VtV7m
— Marley (@irondyketyson) May 2, 2019
We have to wonder: WWBS? (What would Beyoncé say?)
Girl, it's drums… Beyoncé wasn't the first to use drums in a performance and Taylor definitely isn't either. Beyoncé had a whole as band and Taylor had just drums. Y'all need to stop comparing the most general things just because you don't like Taylor. https://t.co/ORySBD7tQf
— tyler(@reputytion) May 2, 2019
Others are pointing out that TayTay gets served a LOT of sh*t in the media, and that nothing good ever comes from comparing two powerful, successful women with VERY different musical styles.
Try telling the Beyhive that….we're still reading the Tweets though aren't we? They're gas.
twitter's wild because there are ppl on here saying Beyoncé didn't invent marching bands and we all saw when she did
— (@desusnice) May 2, 2019
*Sighs*
Beyoncé's Homecoming changed pop culture forever and ever Amen, so it's no wonder people can't seem to stop talking about it.
We're sure Taylor is doing her best to ignore the internet furore, or maybe she's delighted that her performance is now trending on Twitter?
Like we said; She's a genius.
Feature image; Usa online journal
Brendon Urie
Netflix releases the trailer for Beyoncé's doc Homecoming
Beyoncé fans, brace yourselves… the trailer for Homecoming has landed and it looks beyond incredible.
Homecoming presents an intimate look at Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performance that paid homage to America's historically black colleges and universities.
Interspersed with candid footage and interviews detailing the preparation and powerful intent behind her vision, Homecoming traces the emotional road from creative concept to a cultural movement.
You can watch the trailer below. Prepare to be covered in goosebumps.
HOMECOMING: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ launches globally on Netflix April 17, 2019
beyonce documentary
No smoke without Fyre: A GAS mock experience has been made
The Fyre Festival has gone down as one of the greatest fails of the modern era; the celebrity endorsed festival was branded as the elite, luxurious partying experience. Think Coachella but on a tropical island.
The intention of the festival was to promote the Fyre music booking app, scheduled to go ahead on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma in April and May of 2017.
Social media influencers and socialites like Kendall Jenner, Hailey Baldwin, Emily Ratajkowski and Bella Hadid were all promoters of the festival, many of whom failed to mention that they were being paid to promote it.
As everyone figured out pretty damn quick, the event was a complete SHAMBLES.
Problems relating to food, security, and accommodation arose, and they also had no artists to play as they couldn't even travel to the island.
Instead of the luxury they branded and were promised, influencers paid thousands of dollars to be housed in FEMA tents, and eat prepackaged sandwiches. All hell broke loose, as you can imagine. Rich folks like to be treated as such…
The organisers are now the subject of at least eight lawsuits, such as defrauding ticket buyers and millions of dollars of damages. CEO of Fyre Media Inc, Billy McFarland, has been charged with wire fraud and in 2018 was sentenced to six years in prison.
Just watched #FyreFestival on Netflix last night and it was mind blowing. A must-watch. The power of social media and influencer marketing can turn anyone into a consumer of a dream. Also I want #BillyMcFarland to stay in jail after ruining so many lives in the Bahamas! pic.twitter.com/NkH6hILh76
— January 31, 2019
Hulu and Netflix have each released documentaries on the failure, Fyre Fraud and Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened. The festival and it's employers had a hugely negative impact on people who live on the island itself.
A GoFundMe was set up for one amazing woman living on the island who helped to cater for the festival, but was never given any form of payment.
I have no compassion for the nimrods who paid hundreds of thousands to attend Fyre Festival, but can we please recognize this amazing woman who just wanted to help, do her job, and improve her country's economy? #hero #maryannrolle pic.twitter.com/D4sE5GshOK
— Hannah Elise (@hannohyo) January 19, 2019
The GoFundMe has now SURPASSED it's $123,000 goal, miraculously. Maryann Rolle, who owns the venue, gave $50,000 of her own money into the event to attempt to cover costs and pay the additional staff who were flown in to meet demands.
In the description, she wrote; "As I make this plea it's hard to believe and embarrassing to admit that I was not paid…I was left in a big hole! My life was changed forever, and my credit was ruined by Fyre Fest."
Luckily, the account raised $128,000 in just one week, so Maryann can get her life back on track. Oh, the follies of rich people, typically tramping on those less fortunate than them. Fulfilling the stereotype never looked so trashy.
Now, some absolute GENIUS has created a mock Fyre Festival to take the absolute PISS out of influencers who paid thousands of cash for trash, and marketed it without mentioning their affiliation to their followers.
A post shared by (@bigmood) on Jan 30, 2019 at 12:20pm PST
An artist has created an INSTALLATION which allows members of the public to pretend they're at the real life Fyre Festival, and it's hilarious.
Infamous creative The Most Famous Artist (Real name Matty Mo) and his company SelfieCircus have created The Fyre Experience, and we are living for this classy humour.
They've got a Bahamas backdrop, cardboard cut-outs of pretentious influencers, pathetic sandwiches to create a realistic portrayal of the shambolic festival.
Remember Andy King and the NSFW experience he was told to perform in order to get Evian water through customs? We wonder have they somehow inserted him into their joke..
It's all about the experience #thefyreexperience pic.twitter.com/6Px9ciymWb
— jeffrona (@jeffrona) January 27, 2019
Bravo, this is pure gold. Visitors to Mo's installation are promised an ''ultra luxurious" experience and VIP packages, only to meet disappointment.
The recreation of the 'beach front' hot tub full of Evian bottles and a sandy beach background honestly has us cackling, these lads went ALL OUT.
There's an Orange Square selfie spot and fake piggies for all those who want in on the joke. Our personal favourite addition is Billy McFarland in a prison outfit in the background. Gas.
A post shared by (@demiglogod) on Jan 29, 2019 at 1:20pm PST
'Ex-influencers' looking for work wielding cardboard signs are also present, naturally. The influencers who were paid to endorse an absolute sham have deservedly been given a slagging.
They're already annoying as hell, but when you market something as elitist as a private island festival for thousands of dollars which almost ruins the lives of those who actually LIVE on the island, be prepared to face some serious consequences.
Yes Bella Hadid, we're looking at you over our cat-eye sunglasses.
A post shared by Unreality (@unreality.is) on Jan 26, 2019 at 2:17pm PST
The fake private jet also makes a guest reappearance. This was one of Mo's previous installations, and allows people to take those all important selfies and create a glamorous, false illusion for Instagram.
The things we do for the 'gram, honestly. It's slightly depressing. Mo spoke to Insider about the mock festival, saying;
"This is a satire and experience meant to drive offline to online engagement. We call this participatory art. I created the project to ride a cultural wave created by Netflix and Hulu. I hope to show that participatory art is the future of retail."
Located in Los Angeles, the pop-up 'experience laboratory' is free to attend and celebrities have schedules appearances. We can't wait to see the pics from this, we stan a good slagging.
Feature image credit; @kevinlosani/Instagram
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Rising Irish star Dermot Kennedy set to play COACHELLA in 2019
2019 is set to be an absolute smash for rising Irish star Dermot Kennedy, if this latest announcement is anything to go by.
News has just hit that the singer-songwriter from Dublin is set to hit the Coachella stage this April, joining the ranks of headliners such as Ariana Grande, Childish Gambino and Tame Impala.
The world famous California music festival attracts attention from all over the world for the big names it procures, and now Irish talent will be joining them.
I'M PLAYING @COACHELLA! This is surreal. A dream come true. See you soon, California! pic.twitter.com/DGb7cj9TFt
— Dermot Kennedy (@DermotKennedy) January 3, 2019
The singer made the big announcement over Twitter, writing that the opportunity is "a dream come true" for the artist,
Despite the fact that Kennedy has yet to release an album, he has sold a whopping 75,000 tickets worldwide in the last year alone following the release of his EP, Doves and Ravens.
His latest track, Power Over Me, has generated over 300 million streams globally and the Dubliner has over 2.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify..
He is also part of YouTube's first ever Ones To Watch list, and his 2019 tour which kicks off in May has sold out four nights in the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Brixton's O2 Academy and Manchester's Albert Hall.
Irish singer-songwriter Gavin James was the only Irish artist to make the Coachella 2018 list, which attracted 99,000 concert-goers to the festival.
Congratulations to Dermot, he'll do us proud.
an evening I will not forget
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Ariana Grande is headlining Coachella and we CAN'T COPE
by Sorcha McManigan
If you didn't get tickets to Ariana Grande's Sweetener tour, you may be in luck.
The Thank U, Next artist will be headlining Coachella 2019.
In the jammy chance you did secure tickets for Sunday, April 14 and 21, you could be boppin' along to Ari's tunes.
A post shared by Ariana Grande (@arianagrande) on Jan 2, 2019 at 12:54pm PST
The music festival has released the entire weekend line-ups and it's UNREAL.
If you have tickets for Friday 12 & 19, you'll be treated to Childish Gambino.
Headlining April 13 and 20 is Australian rockers Tame Impala.
pic.twitter.com/v7RmGri9O0
— Coachella (@coachella) 3 January 2019
Ariana is clearly buzzing to take the stage later this year.
In a tweet she thanked Coachella, saying that she was "humbled and excited as all hell."
Fans were absolutely delighted to hear the singer would be owning the Sunday nights.
humbled and excited as all hell @coachella thank u
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) 3 January 2019
If you've managed to cover the cost of the pricey weekend – we are JEALOUS.
As you soak in the sun and the music, think of us in rainy Ireland, too poor to fork out for the festival.
Coachella 2019
Comment: Why the truth about Coachella might cure your FOMO
By Colleen Brady
It's that time of the year again – bloggers and celebs hit Palm Springs for the second stint of the Coachella Weekend this weekend, and the jealousy inducing Snapchat stories and smug pics are now clogging up our Instagram feeds.
However, Coachella doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be, and by looking over the surface, it seems it is more about celebs keeping up appearances.
For upcoming bloggers and celebs it seems as if Coachella is not just a music festival but an opportunity for them to build their following and also make key contacts.
Coachella is nothing like your standard Irish or UK festival.
Yes, the line-up is fantastic, with this year's Coachella giving the stage to names like Beyonce, Eminem, The Weeknd and SZA. However, the whole vibe of Coachella seems to be more about blogger branding than the actual music itself.
Every year our favourite celebs and bloggers attend the star-studded festival, where their followers seem to multiply as a result of those pictures in front of the famous ferris wheel.
In fact, Irish blogger Louise Cooney hit the 100K mark this weekend while at the festival.
The whole festival seems to be selfie central and more about the fashion and posing than enjoying the music on offer.
Many celebs and bloggers including German blogger Masha Sedgwick have commented that Coachella is just an overcrowded, huge platform to see and to be seen, simply because everyone is there.
At Coachella you can't drink alcohol freely while swaying over and back to your favourite songs.
If you want to drink alcohol you have to go to specially designated areas away from the festival grounds where you can only get one drink at a time. Sneaking in drink is not an option either as there is security everywhere and you are searched multiple times while entering the festival.
It seems the music is second priority for not all but many who attend Coachella, and it is more about posting on social media platforms showing "look at how much fun we are having" than actually having any fun.
Celebrities are there to be photographed by paparazzi and bloggers are there to be noticed or photographed by fashion magazines and style blogs.
The hope to pop up in a magazine under "Coachella style" certainly comes at a price – over $500 dollars to be exact – and that's just for the ticket.
Coachella seems to not be a music festival in the real sense of the word, where care free people come together in the mud to celebrate music, but only acts like one. Coachella provides a festival- like experience but without the reality.
Many bloggers make the money back on the ticket by wearing sponsored clothes, and working with co-operations which may make some a profit.
Festivals are usually a fun experience, however Coachella seems to be more about endless hashtags and pictures being uploaded onto Instagram – almost like an assignment.
If you are going to Coachella to catch a glimpse of some famous celebs, forget about it.
Most of the time celebrities don't even go to the actual festival but chill out at Lacoste and Mulberry pool parties instead in secret locations nearby.
While everyone is moaning about how jealous they are about not getting to attend Coachella, it seems that it is a festival to show off and build a following as opposed to what the reality of a festival is.
why coachella isn't so great
So, Destiny's Child reunited on stage at Coachella and we're DEAD
Stop everything!
Queen Bey has been know to pull off some pretty fierce stunts in her time. From surprise album drops to larger than life pregnancy announcements, the women just loves to keep us guessing.
Don't get us wrong, we love the suspense, we really do, and honestly we're just devastated that we weren't there to witness her latest stunt in person.
A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on Apr 15, 2018 at 12:47am PDT
Last night, Beyoncé took to the stage at Coachella festival to preform in front of thousands of screaming fans.
However, she wasn't alone.
During her set, Beyoncé welcomed Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams to the stage, where the trio preformed a number of Destiny's Child hits such as Lose My Breath, Say My Name, and Solider.
While on stage, the ladies didn't refer to themselves as Destiny's Child, so we;re guessing a reunion album may not be on the cards at this moment in time – but hey, we;ll take what we can get!
Needless to say, the crowd, and fans at home, went absolutely crazy for the trio – and who could blame them?
So, that yodelling Walmart kid just dominated the stage at Coachella
If you cant get the remix song of the yodelling Walmart kid out of your head, you're not alone.
Mason Ramsey – aka the yodelling kid – has been all over the internet this week, thanks to his now iconic viral video.
However, a viral video is nothing compared to headlining at one of the world's most widely visible and famous festivals.
A post shared by Whethan (@whethanmusic) on Apr 13, 2018 at 4:25pm PDT
On day one of Coachella, the yodelling kid had the opportunity to perform in front the the hundreds of thousands who frequent the festival – and you best believe he took the opportunity.
He was invited to perform at this year's event alongside the artist Whethan.
Whethan posted a snap of the two on stage at the festival, and highlighted that he himself had asked the yodelling kid to perform with him.
I just saw Walmart Yodel Boy perform at Coachella, my life is never going to be the same pic.twitter.com/JMnt5bjn3J
— Matt @ Coachella 2018 (@CMBYNmafia) April 13, 2018
'Supposed to be playing his school talent show but took him to Coachella instead' Whethan captioned the post.
Mason has over one million followers on Instagram, so it's safe to say his fame he's cemented in the internet hall of fame.
What a time to be alive.
Yodel boy
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We're living for these amazing outfit snaps straight from Coachella
Coachella is the time to go all out with the festival attire, so were taking some major style inspiration for Irish festival season from some of our favourite celebs and influencers who are hanging in the Coachella Valley today.
From floor-length kimonos to sassy co-ords, we're obsessed.
Have a little look at some of our favourite outfits so far:
A post shared by Retro Flame // Erika Fox (@retroflame) on Apr 14, 2018 at 2:01am PDT
A post shared by Louise Cooney (@louisecooney_) on Apr 14, 2018 at 12:23am PDT
A post shared by Niamh Cullen (@niamhcullenx) on Apr 13, 2018 at 3:16pm PDT
A post shared by B E L L E A Z Z U R E (@belle_azzure) on Apr 13, 2018 at 8:25am PDT
A post shared by Aideen Murphy (@aideenkate) on Apr 13, 2018 at 4:00pm PDT
A post shared by Nichole Ciotti (@nicholeciotti) on Apr 14, 2018 at 1:27am PDT
A post shared by SAMMI MARIA (@samanthamariaofficial) on Apr 14, 2018 at 2:26am PDT
A post shared by Moda Tendenze (@modatendenze) on Apr 14, 2018 at 3:07am PDT
A post shared by Hailey Sani (@haileysani) on Apr 14, 2018 at 2:28am PDT
A post shared by ELLIE. (@ellie_gonsalves) on Apr 13, 2018 at 7:04pm PDT
festival style
Coachella on the bucket list? WOW Air gets you there for next to nada
If Coachella has been on the bucket list for years now or you simply need an injection of Vitamin D (and frankly, who doesn't?), let us direct your attention towards an airline which will get you Stateside for next to nothing this April.
The good folk at WOW Air have announced fares from Dublin to LA for as little as €155.99 in April, and this offer is available from today, people!
Coachella is continuing to grow in popularity among Irish festival goers and Wow Air are keen to cater to the masses, with Svanhvít Fridriksdóttir, Director of Communications at WOW air, confirming the motivation behind the incredible offer.
"With more and more Irish travelling to LA in April for the famous Coachella festival, we are delighted to be able to make travel to the city more affordable and accessible than ever by offering passengers low-cost fares," she said.
With Beyoncé, Eminem and The Weekend all set to take to the stage at the now iconic music festival, something tells us our current account is about to take a slight hit.
Ladies, it's go-time.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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"The EU is a first step": an interview with Federico Campagna
Jamie Mackay talks to the writer and philosopher about the UK election result, the forthcoming referendum on EU membership and historic ideas of Europe that are at stake today.
Federico Campagna Jamie Mackay
Still from Pasolini's 'Salo' (1976)
Jamie Mackay: After five years of brutal austerity the Conservatives are back in power in Britain, this time with a majority government. What is last month's UK election result symptomatic of?
Federico Campagna: The UK vote was quite surprising to me at first, at least from the approach of political rationality. You can ask yourself: what could the Tories have done to fuck people off more than they actually did? They took away everything they could, and not only the present: they remortgaged the future of a lot of people as well. Nonetheless, lots of those same people still voted for them.
Personally, the only way in which I could understand this absurdity was through Pasolini's idea of 'anthropological mutation'. In the 1970s Pasolini started talking about a 'mutation' affecting the younger generations. He identified consumerism as the force behind it, but with hindsight we could better identify the mutagenic agent as contemporary Technic. This mutation meant, on the one hand, the liberation of youth from the bigotry of old social customs but, on the other hand, the annihilation of that profound and unconditional humanist culture that, through various adventures, had somehow managed to survive since antiquity.
According to Technic's rationality, any 'thing' that exists – a rock, a plant, a person, an idea – is only valuable as a resource, as a means for the production of something else. Nothing retains any value, or indeed any reality, as a thing in itself. Everything constantly has to justify its own existence by proving its enthusiastic commitment to being turned into a tool: a cog (or terminal) in the global economy, or one of the myriad tiny flags composing the grand parade of social conformism. As is clear today, the first victims of this mutation have been the basic 'joy of living', together with the very idea of a human right to a 'good life'. Immediately after that, empathy also capitulated. Nothing has value in itself, not even human life, not even our own happiness – so why bother fighting the deportation of our neighbour or our own exploitation?
Of course, it would be impossible to sustain this nihilistic assault in its purest form. So the next, inevitable step has been the rush to erect all sorts of makeshift, yet impenetrable barricades. After all, if empathy is only a naive relic, and life and joy are mere resources, what stops my neighbour from killing me? Clearly, it can only be our shared identity. Our shared nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation and so on seem to have become the last guarantors of that truce to a 'war of all against all' of Hobbesian memory. This is why it has suddenly become so pathologically crucial to defend, to police and ultimately to take so very seriously all these cruel and absurd fictions.
Pasolini was talking about the mutation of the twenty-somethings in the 1970s, that is, of today's sixty-year olds. But since then the mutation has affected every new generation, to the point that today virtually all ages partake in it. This election was somehow symptomatic of this double movement of the mutation: both the annihilation of reality in itself, and the militarisation of identities. Or, to say with David Cameron: how we learned to stop worrying about the misery of our lives (and of that of our neighbour) and love our 'British values'.
JM: The anthropological mutation is visible across Europe, but Britain is going through its own idiosyncratic form of institutional and constitutional crisis. With a referendum on the UK's membership in the EU due in the next two years what kind of narrative is needed to challenge that offered by the nationalists?
FC: We are living through a complete atrophy of the range of the possible. Even on the left the refrain is "we shouldn't leave the EU because if we did we would lose x, y and z". Which of course is true. Without the EU (and Scotland), forever-Tory England would lose most environmental regulations, workers rights, human rights and so on. But we have already lost another approach: that we shouldn't leave the EU because the EU can be a first step towards other possibilities.
It sounds like a small difference, between focusing on what you can lose and what you can gain, but it is actually quite an enormous shift. The generalised feeling today is that the ground is opening beneath our feet: one after the other, all things are swallowed by the void – welfare, public healthcare, human rights, etc – and all that we can do is to recite a litany of obituaries. Fear has entirely captured peoples' minds, to the point that emancipatory struggles have turned into forms of reactionary resistance: we are rarely capable of looking at things from the perspective of what else could be possible through them.
Such a drive towards 'the possible' was at the heart, for example, of Giuseppe Mazzini's radical Young Europe movement, and a nuanced understanding of the possibilities lying within a EU-like setup can also be found in an article written in 1918 by the young Gramsci. There, Gramsci predicted that Europe would be unified, first as a commercial union, and then, through the 'subversive action' of the revolutionaries, as a political union.
I wonder how we can fail to see that the abolition of national borders – however limited within Fortress Europe – is already, in itself, an important step towards greater emancipatory gains. Europe has always been 'one nation' for the rich and the elites, who have always enjoyed freedom of movement within it. It is only the poor, the eternal cannon-fodder, who had to man the trenches along national borders. It is tragicomic to see how the destined sacrificial victims of nationalism, are exactly those who currently shout the loudest in groups like UKIP, FN, Lega Nord, etc. If the national borders are shut again, as will probably soon happen, those who will be sent back into the trenches might finally notice that goods, capital and CEOs are flowing freely above their heads.
JM: In the 1970s and 80s the project of Eurocommunism attempted to build a Europe around a very different set of principles than those articulated by neoliberalism. It was, perhaps, the most recent example of European, and global, internationalism. In large part the supporters of SYRIZA, Podemos, Die Linke and others calling for a new 'new left' have little to say about this history. How do you understand its legacy and how does it relate to efforts of these new parties?
FC: I think that we have to understand the project of Eurocommunism in context. It was a situation in which the Cold War was still ongoing, the USSR was on the verge of collapsing but nobody understood quite how quickly that was going to happen. So although the Eurocommunist experiment was delinked from the USSR and often in confrontation with it, they were paradoxically protected by its presence. And of course, it is no coincidence that as soon as the USSR dissolved, neoliberalism swept the whole continent. Yet, at a time when the world was divided between two main poles, Eurocommunism's destiny was perhaps that of never succeeding. There was just no room for a third, fragmented pole, between two massive, monolithic ones.
Today things have changed. The current situation is a lot more fluid and, perhaps paradoxically, a new form of peculiarly European 'communism' (which, of course, is not Eurocommunism) is more plausible than it was back then. Most importantly, there is a lot more need for it. At the time of Eurocommunism, history was basically frozen: the only things that could have happened were the Apocalypse or nothing. And so nothing happened. Today history is running fast, and it brings back memories of 1914, with a number of regional powers fighting each other, directly or indirectly, while toying with the possibility of mass-scale horrors that are all the more likely as they fall short of planetary annihilation.
In all this, Europe is stuck in the tightening noose of multiple imperialisms competing with each other all around it, while also being subjected to the constant assault of global financial capital. Moving towards further political composition (a better word than 'integration') at least on a European level while also looking to include North Africa and the Middle East is imperative if we wish to retain even that basic level of freedom that is capable of enabling 'the possible'. In this situation, the end of a project of creation of the United States of Europe – more than the end of the European Union as such – would also make it impossible for each individual European country to survive in any meaningful way.
Nuzhat al-musht?q fi'khtir?q al-?f?q (Tabula Rogeriana), by Muhammad al-Idrisi, circa 1154
JM:The idea of Europe you are talking about is seemingly far removed from that one hears from those working within and even against the strictures of the EU. To me this gulf between the current institutions and other possible philosophies of Europe is vital to emphasise, and particularly now. What are the dominant ideas of Europe today? And what alternatives do you consider particularly important?
FC: The most infamous, of course, is that of Financial Europe. This idea of Europe, I have to say, is not an idea of Europe. It has never been an idea of Europe. By definition, finance does not need to have a territorial, political union. On the contrary, it thrives on spaces of speculation (for example, currencies) that are produced by political divisions. Financial Europe is merely a disguise for global financial capital to present itself as 'European' – despite the obstacles posed by the Euro and the EU, unlike what many think.
Then there is the idea of Christian Europe, which is also highly questionable. Clearly, Christianity has nothing to do with what is commonly called Europe today. Christianity is the product of a much-expanded version of Europe, stretching from the North Sea to Damascus, from Armenia to Algeria. Incidentally, that would be a version of Europe with a common religious identity, that is monotheism in all its three major declinations, as well as a common philosophy, platonism. But what people really mean, when they say 'Christian Europe', is in fact 'rigidly identitarian Europe', that is, 'paranoid Europe'. The Christian label here is just as arbitrary as it would be the choice of founding Europe, say, around beer-brewing.
Then there is the Europe of Technic, that which Oswald Spengler describes as the "Faustian civilisation", projected towards infinity even at the cost of losing its own soul. Technic's infinity is not only that of industrial production, of the scientific apparatus or of financial capital. It is also the explosion of the finite – things, life-forms, people – into a boundless nebula. Technic 'liberates' things from their finitude by separating them from their own singular forms: but of course, that which doesn't have a form cannot have freedom, or be the subject of rights, or indeed be anything at all. This is the Europe that we know so well today, Faustian Europe as 'the West': that which cut down its last surviving forests, invented nerve agents and annihilated tens of millions of people in a handful of years.
As you say there are countless other ways of understanding Europe. But there is one that I dare to say I feel very close to. Going back to Spengler, he talks at length about the opposition between the Western-Faustian spirit, and the Apollonian spirit of Greek-Roman antiquity. Differently from the Faustian one, the Apollonian civilisation is centred around the idea of the limit, and of the living singularity as the measure of that limit. It is on this basis, says Spengler, that the Greeks built their philosophy, their mathematics, their art – and most importantly, their idea of happiness and of the 'good life'. This is the idea that resurfaced in the Italian Renaissance, and then again in the 'second humanism' of Goethe and in the 'third humanism' of Werner Jaeger. It is on this basis, I believe, and not on the Faustian spirit, that we should imagine a radical, emancipatory project for Europe.
Of course, an Apollonian Europe could never be restricted to the hostile environment of the North of the continent. Apollonian Europe requires an expanded idea of Europe, coherently with its origin: a region of the world centred around the Mediterranean and stretching south to the Sahara and east towards the border with Afghanistan. It was this macro-region that historically produced and preserved over the centuries that humanist culture that has protected us so far from the Faustian horrors that live in the northern darkness of our culture. In a recent article, I proposed to reimagine Europe along these lines, as an expanded cultural area with two capitals: Athens and Alexandria of Egypt. These have been, since antiquity, the true capitals of a humanist Europe.
Statue of Apollo (5th century BC) found in the sea off Gaza in 2015
JM: There's another idea of Europe which strikes me here, and that's the version imagined by many of the migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean into Greece, Italy and Spain. Very often those arriving imagine a place effectively without borders, which guarantees certain safeties, a roof over one's head, a dignified job, safety. It is a dream that I think scholars in the university, journalists, writers, should take seriously as a template for what we might want from a future Europe. It does, in many ways, seem to overlap with the Apollonian vision that interests you…
FC: I completely agree. Right now, migrants are possibly the only force left to fight for a humanist Europe. I've always thought that migrants, both 'internal' and 'external', should reclaim the European project for themselves as its rightful heirs. Who else has such an unshakable notion, today, of the primacy of the living human singularity above all political conventions? A migrant's conviction of deserving a happy and dignified life anywhere in the world – simply on the basis that they are people, regardless of their passport, income or employability – is incomparably more evolved and civilised than the feral mindset of the Oxbridge-educated upper classes and of their rabidly xenophobic foot-soldiers.
According to people like Theresa May, a migrant should be allowed to enter the UK regardless of their 'qualifications' only as long as s/he is fleeing from officially certified atrocities in the country of origin. As May recently remarked, the desire for a 'better life' does not constitute enough reason to 'allow them in' (or even to rescue them from a shipwreck). Essentially, this means that a person is entitled to exist just on the basis of their being a person, only as long as they are a certified victim. This sums up not only Tory policies, but the dark heart of the 'mutation': all that is left of the human is the suffering victim, nothing else. Either a Christ on the cross or a diligent servant of Technic: everybody else is a scrounger.
It was exactly after the mass martyrdom of two world conflicts and of the holocaust that the European process was set in motion. Not as a means to fatten the mythological 'fat-cats in Brussels', but as practical way to make sure that ideologies such as Theresa May's would never again be able to produce their horrors. This is the spirit of Europe, or at least what is left of its Apollonian soul. This, I believe, is what is still worth fighting for – inside and beyond the EU.
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text:
From the Fair City...to the Big Apple
COURTESY PHOTOS Left, Jamee Kattner and another member of the SDSU "Pride of the Dakotas" marching band before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade last month in New York. Right, McKenzie Hofer and a fellow flute player embrace an early morning call for the parade.
By: Benjamin Chase of the Plainsman - Updated: 1 month ago
HURON — As South Dakotans tuned into the Macy's Day parade on Thanksgiving Day, many were intently looking for the South Dakota State University marching band, affectionately known as the "Pride of the Dakotas," as they marched by the television cameras.
Among the 344 members marching in Pride uniforms on that day were two young women from the Heartland area.
McKenzie Hofer was deciding on her future college destination in summer of 2021 before her senior year at James Valley Christian High School when she first heard about the Pride from director Dr. Kevin Kessler.
"My first thought was that it sounded amazing, especially since I had eight years of playing flute in the band under my belt, but they would probably never accept someone with zero marching experience like myself," Hofer shared.
She continued, "Happily, that fear was proven wrong. Dr. Kesser shared that a huge fraction of the Pride never marched in high school, and that they would teach me everything I needed to know."
The history of the South Dakota State marching band traveling to perform dates back to the St. Louis World's Fair, also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, in 1904. The school's band has traveled nationally and internationally ever since, performing for the inauguration of two United States Presidents and twice at the Rose Bowl Parade.
Jamee Kattner, a May 2021 Huron High School graduate who plays trumpet in the Pride, recalls that extra practices were immediate for Pride members that showed up for summer band camp.
"As soon as we came for summer band camp, the directors were already talking about the Macy's Day Parade and the extra rehearsals and prep we would have to do in order to not only be ready for the parade, but also to get our football game routines ready too," Kattner recalled.
Jamee Kattner poses with a backdrop of New York's Central Park and skyline.
Hofer recalls that her introduction to campus as a first-year student this fall included an intense integration into the Pride.
"I was your typical first-day freshman, extremely nervous walking into the concert hall and immediately finding myself among hundreds of band kids, none of whom I knew," Hofer remembered.
"Right off the bat, Dr. Kessler and our section leaders welcomed the newest Pride members with such vigorous energy."
Both Hofer and Kattner noted the specific practices throughout the fall to prepare for the Pride's performance on the "star" during the parade.
The intention was to get the band in formation to squeeze the entire band into one camera shot before then continuing on in marching formation.
The trip to New York City began in a very fitting way.
"The day of our departure began at 4:30 a.m., which was an apt way to kick off a week of very little sleep," recalled Hofer.
Band members had multiple days to visit sites around New York.
The band performed on the deck of the Intrepid Air, Sea, and Space Museum. The group also spent time at the Rockefeller Center, the 9/11 Memorial, and many other sites.
"The sightseeing highlight of my trip came at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island," Hofer said. "My grandmother, Alie Hofer, is a Dutch immigrant who crossed the Atlantic with her family in 1948. To stand on a ferry boat and watch the waves break on Liberty Island as my grandma had done seventy-four years ago was an indescribable feeling."
Hofer continues, "Ellis Island had a hall with computers where, for a small fee, you could search the records of those who had passed through on their immigration journey. I wish I could describe the feeling when my grandmother's name appeared on the screen. The staff showed me the halls and staircases that she would have been sorted through. All I can say is that there were definitely happy tears."
McKenzie Hofer poses in front of the renowned Radio City Music Hall, where several SDSU band member saw The Rockettes perform.
"This was my first time being in the 'Big Apple,'" Kattner explained. "Although I loved everything we did there, my favorite by far was seeing the Rockettes. I hadn't realized how much production goes into the Rockettes. They have a full pit orchestra, a 3-D opening video, singers, drones and much more! And I can't forget about Jimmy Fallon giving me a high-five while we were waiting to take our parade spots!"
Everyone went to bed early Wednesday evening to be ready for a wakeup call at 2:30 a.m. and to load buses to head to the morning rehearsal with NBC producers at 4 a.m. Between the rehearsal and marching, a buffet breakfast was served, and some even snuck in a nap!
The Pride began the parade route at 10:30 a.m., marching through a crowd estimated at three million people along the parade route.
Thousands of South Dakotans (and plenty from other states and other nations) have shared the Pride's Thanksgiving Day performance videos since that day. As the SDSU Jackrabbit football team completed the march toward the Football Championship Series title game in Frisco, Texas, on January 8, the Pride has been at each game. And the band will be at the Jan. 8 game, getting fans excited and cheering on the Jacks.
Reflecting on her big first semester with the Pride, Hofer sums up the experience best.
"Music brings people together, and the Pride has reinforced that for me in so many ways - from the sheer impact that a wall of pep music has on a football game atmosphere to the close bonds formed with my fellow bandmates!"
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Heartland pair march in Macy's Day Parade with Pride of the Dakotas band


text:
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How has former refugee turned activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali managed to make so many people angry?
November 13, 2019 at 04:30 pm | Culture, Opinions & Features, Women
Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Photo Credit: Saratosa Magazine
It is not particularly difficult to explain what Ayaan Hirsi Ali stands against. She dislikes Islam and is suspicious and critical of people who insist on the possibility of multiculturalism in Europe and America.
What does she stand for? Ali is an evangelist of the modern school of thought that invokes an inherent supremacy of Western civilisation, as defined by them.
This school of thought draws acolytes from different spaces. They include the neuroscientist Sam Harris, psychologist Jordan Peterson, the physicist Richard Dawkins, the late journalist Christopher Hitchens as well as comedian Bill Maher.
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Primed by no less a vision than Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, Western civilisation supremacists (for lack of an umbrella term) are bound together, despite differences about faith and science, by the idea that Euro-American way of life is not just different but better than others.
Among such things this group describes as uniquely Western are democracy, modern economics, scientific rationality and the philosophy of individualism.
That being said, Ali's ideological positions seem like what you would make of any Western libertarian, classical liberal or conservative. But she does not have the story of your everyday Westerner.
Born in Mogadishu on November 13, 1969, Ali suffered the fate of many who were raised up in the arguably failed state of Somalia. Her father was a political prisoner of the Siad Barre government.
The family escaped Somalia as refugees to Kenya via Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.
In 1992, Ali alone settled in the Netherlands after having run from an arranged marriage. In the Netherlands, she worked and saw herself through school until she attained an MSc in political science in 2000.
In Europe, Ali says she was forced to juxtapose the life she has always known in Africa and with her family as a Muslim.
Apart from the botched arranged marriage, Ali was a victim of genital mutilation and what she describes as an overall subjugation of women. While Europe was freer for a woman, Ali says she noticed Muslim in Europe could not participate in this constitutional guarantee.
After renouncing Islam in 2002, Ali set about critiquing the faith she has always known and identified with.
She says of Islam and the September 11 attacks in New York: "I picked up the Qur'an and the hadith and started looking through them, to check. I hated to do it, because I knew that I would find Bin Laden's quotations in there."
Ali explains that after realising Islam was not the eponymous religion of peace, she dismissed the holy scripture as just any other book. However, in her career as a critic of the religion, she claims that Christianity and other faiths are not as violent as Islam.
In 2003, she was elected to the Dutch parliament on the ticket of a center-right party but had to resign a year into her role after accusations that she falsified her immigration documents.
However, everything has been looking up for Ali since settling in the United States in 2006. She has become a bestselling author, a lecturer, public intellectual and one of the fiercest voices against what she describes as "political Islam".
Ali is not open to a generous immigration policy that would allow refugees from Muslim-majority countries to settle in Europe and America. She is also a supporter of Euro-American political philosophies that appeal to nativist conceptions of identity.
As a result of her identity and views, Ali is a prized ally of Western civilisation supremacists who are more than grateful that a former Muslim is willing to repudiate a culture they are not enthused about.
For the advocates of multiculturalism, Ali is a rather unfortunate adversary. She is almost untouchable for those who centre identity in arguments of power relations.
Conclusively, she has made a lot of Muslims unhappy too. Her critiques of the faith are sharp and pointed as Ali refuses to accept any explanation of the story of Muslims in the West as the result of Western imperialism.
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Google Lens was first teased at Google's I/O conference in 2017 and later debuted exclusively on the Pixel 2 smartphones at the time of their launch. To the delight of Android users, at MWC 2018 Google announced that it will unveil the Lens app to other smartphones via Google Photos and Google Assistant. While the feature was added to Photos app last week itself, we now have the first bunch of smartphones which have received the update to enable camera-based Google Lens.
Google Lens is now available, as per Droid Life, on Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, Galaxy S9, and Note 8. This means that you can head over to Google Assistant and tap on the Google Lens icon in the bottom right. This will fire up a camera-like viewfinder allowing you to tap on objects which you want to know more about. Google Lens uses machine learning to recognize objects within images and to search information. It provides relevant suggestions related to the identified objects and prompts actions like translating something or saving a search.
Notably, the included devices already have a similar program called Bixby Vision which was introduced last year but hasn't been picked up really well. The Google Lens integration in the Google Photos app is different in the way it performs. Instead of recognizing objects in real-time, the Photos version identifies objects from the already captured images which are saved in the app.
So, if you have any of these devices, you can try engaging with the objects around you. It really comes in handy when you're out exploring an uncharted part of the city, identifying plants and birds, or while visiting sites of interests such as monuments or museums. It can also be used to read barcodes and saving contacts by scanning business cards.
In case you haven't received the update yet and are eager to try the new feature out, you can enroll yourself in beta testing for the Google and Assistant apps.


text:
Q: How to modify outgoing URLs that are opening in new tabs I am trying to add parameters to clicks on outgoing links. So for example something like this:
document.querySelectorAll('a[href*="/outgoing/"]').forEach(i => i.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
  e.target.href += "?param=this";
}, false));

And this works fine for clicks on links that don't have target="_blank". Links that open in a new tab, the new tab opens before the href is edited. Is there a way to modify the outgoing URL in links that open in a new tab? How is that even handled? Where can I learn about how that works?

A: Sure you just need to call preventDefault on the event object, then call the window.open method passing in the correct target attribute if it exists.
e.g. (commented for clarity)

document.querySelectorAll('a[href*="/outgoing/"]')
  .forEach(i => i.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
    // stop the event navigation
    e.preventDefault();
    // get the anchor element
    const ele = e.currentTarget;
    // find the target attribute if it exists
    const target = ele.hasAttribute('target') ?
        ele.getAttribute('target') :
        null;
    // open the modified link using the target
    window.open(ele.href + "?param=this", target);
  }, false));
my link

For preventDefault see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Event/preventDefault
For window.open see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/open

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Big Idea: The love of God overflows in creation and redemption.
I. The love between Father and Son overflows in Creation.
II. The Son gives life as an overflow of love.
III. The Son triumphs over darkness through love.


With a good bit more than five thousand years of practice in India under its proverbial belt, Ayurveda, or Ayurvedic Medicine (meaning "science of life"), is a long-established comprehensive system of medicine combining natural therapies with a highly personalized approach to the treatment of disease. Ayurvedic Medicine places equal emphasis on body, mind, and spirit, and strives to restore the innate harmony of the individual.
Ayurvedic Medicine is founded on the concept of metabolic body types, or doshas. The three metabolic body types are known as vata, pitta, and kapha. They include distinctions of physique similar to the Western view of body types as then, muscular, and fat, but Ayurvedic Medicine considers them to have far greater influence on a person's health and well-being than do physical attributes alone.
Dr. Chopra describes the ayurvedic body type as a sort of map, or blueprint which outlines all of the innate tendencies built into a person's system. The dosha of a particular individual, and the characteristics which reveal it, make it much easier to understand why one person, for example, will have no reaction to inordinately high or low humidity or chili, or, for that matter, loud noise or milk, while another will be not able to tolerate them.
Most people are a mixture of dosha characteristics (such as vata-pitta), with one usually more predominant than another. Each of the body types flourishes under a specific diet, exercise plan, and lifestyle.
Dr. Chopra also asserts that the primary characteristic of the vata metabolic type is changeability. Unpredictability and variability - not only in size, but as well, in shape, mood, and action - is the vata trademark. Vatas tend to be slender with prominent features, joints, and veins, with cool, dry skin. Moody, enthusiastic, imaginative, and impulsive, the vata type is quick to grasp ideas and is good at initiating things but poor at finishing them. Vatas eat and sleep in irregular sleep cycles, and are prone to anxiety, insomnia, premenstrual syndrome, and constipation. Vata energy fluctuates, with jagged peaks and valleys.
The pitta metabolic body type is relatively predictable. A man, woman, or child of the pitta dosha usually of medium build, strength, and endurance. He or she is well-proportioned and easily maintains a stable weight. Often fair, the pitta type will commonly have red or blond hair, freckles, and a ruddy complexion. Pittas have a quick, articulate, biting intelligence, and can be critical or passionate with short, explosive tempers. Efficient and moderate in daily habits, the pitta type eats and sleeps regularly, eating three meals a day and sleeping eight hours at night. Pitta types tend to perspire heavily and are warm and often thirsty. They suffer from acne, ulcers, hemorrhoids, and stomach ailments.
"The basic theme of the kapha metabolic type is relaxed," says Dr. Chopra. The kapha body type is solid, heavy, and strong. With a tendency to be overweight, kaphas have slow digestion and somewhat oily hair, and cool, damp, pale skin. Everything kapha is slow - kapha types are slow to anger, slow to eat, slow to act. Their sleep preferences tend to run to the type of sleep wherein they sleep very seriously: long and heavily. Kaphas tend to procrastinate and be obstinate. A kapha body type will be prone to high cholesterol, obesity, allergies, and sinus problems.
According to Vasant Lad, M.A.Sc., an ayurvedic physician and Director of the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the doshas are located in specific areas of the body (NOTE: an assertion not fully proven to the level of Route of Natural Health, so is submitted herein as "theory with some fair evidence"
Vata is motion that activates the physical system and empowers the body to breathe and circulate blood. The seats of the vata are the large intestine, pelvic cavity, bones, skin, ears, and thighs.
When the doshas are balanced in accordance with an individual's constitution, the result is vibrant health and energy. But when the delicate balance is disturbed, the body becomes susceptible to outside stressors, which can cover a whole gamut of health issues, including viruses and bacteria, or poor nutrition and overwork. Imbalance in the doshas is the first sign that mind and body are not perfectly coordinated, notes Dr. Chopra. He points out that once people understand the characteristics and qualities ascribed to their body types, they can take appropriate measures, through changes in diet, lifestyle, and environment, to restore dosha balance, which will prevent disease and ensure continued good health.
Ayurvedic Medicine, as the Highway of All Longevity understands it, defines health as a soundness and balance between body, mind, and soul, and an equilibrium between the doshas.
According to Ayurvedic Medicine, there are seven major factors that can disrupt physiological harmony - genetic, congenital, internal, external trauma; seasonal, natural tendencies or habits; and magnetic and electrical influences. Virender Sodhi, M.D. (Ayurveda), N.D., Director of the American School of ayurvedic Science in Bellevue, Washington, says that "disease is the result of a disruption of the spontaneous flow of nature's intelligence within our physiology. When we violate nature's law and cannot adequately rid ourselves of the results of this disruption, then we have disease."
ayurvedic physicians routinely perform urine examinations to help them diagnose doshic imbalance in a patient. An early morning midstream sample of urine is collected, and its color observed. Blackish-brown indicates a vata disorder; dark yellow, an imbalance with pitta. If the urine is cloudy, there is a kapha disorder. When a person is constipated or is not drinking adequate amounts of water, his or her urine will be dark yellow. Red urine is indicative of a blood disorder.
Normal urine has a typical uremic, or musty, smell. A foul odor, however, indicates toxins in the system. Acidic urine, which creates a burning sensation, indicates excel pitta. A sweet smell to the urine indicates a diabetic condition. An individual with this condition may experience goose bumps on the skin surface while passing urine. Gravel in the urine reveals stones in the urinary tract.
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text:
/*================================================================================
  code generated by: java2cpp
  author: Zoran Angelov, mailto://baldzar@gmail.com
  class: java.lang.reflect.AnnotatedElement
================================================================================*/

#ifndef J2CPP_INCLUDE_IMPLEMENTATION

#ifndef J2CPP_JAVA_LANG_REFLECT_ANNOTATEDELEMENT_HPP_DECL
#define J2CPP_JAVA_LANG_REFLECT_ANNOTATEDELEMENT_HPP_DECL

namespace j2cpp { namespace java { namespace lang { class Object; } } }
namespace j2cpp { namespace java { namespace lang { class Class; } } }
namespace j2cpp { namespace java { namespace lang { namespace annotation { class Annotation; } } } }

#include <java/lang/Class.hpp>
#include <java/lang/Object.hpp>
#include <java/lang/annotation/Annotation.hpp>

namespace j2cpp {

namespace java { namespace lang { namespace reflect {

	class AnnotatedElement;
	class AnnotatedElement
		: public object<AnnotatedElement>
	{
	public:

		J2CPP_DECLARE_CLASS

		J2CPP_DECLARE_METHOD(0)
		J2CPP_DECLARE_METHOD(1)
		J2CPP_DECLARE_METHOD(2)
		J2CPP_DECLARE_METHOD(3)

		explicit AnnotatedElement(jobject jobj)
		: object<AnnotatedElement>(jobj)
		{
		}

		operator local_ref<java::lang::Object>() const;

		local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation > getAnnotation(local_ref< java::lang::Class >  const&);
		local_ref< array< local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation >, 1> > getAnnotations();
		local_ref< array< local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation >, 1> > getDeclaredAnnotations();
		jboolean isAnnotationPresent(local_ref< java::lang::Class >  const&);
	}; //class AnnotatedElement

} //namespace reflect
} //namespace lang
} //namespace java

} //namespace j2cpp

#endif //J2CPP_JAVA_LANG_REFLECT_ANNOTATEDELEMENT_HPP_DECL

#else //J2CPP_INCLUDE_IMPLEMENTATION

#ifndef J2CPP_JAVA_LANG_REFLECT_ANNOTATEDELEMENT_HPP_IMPL
#define J2CPP_JAVA_LANG_REFLECT_ANNOTATEDELEMENT_HPP_IMPL

namespace j2cpp {

java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::operator local_ref<java::lang::Object>() const
{
	return local_ref<java::lang::Object>(get_jobject());
}

local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation > java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::getAnnotation(local_ref< java::lang::Class > const &a0)
{
	return call_method<
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_CLASS_NAME,
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_METHOD_NAME(0),
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_METHOD_SIGNATURE(0),
		local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation >
	>(get_jobject(), a0);
}

local_ref< array< local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation >, 1> > java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::getAnnotations()
{
	return call_method<
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_CLASS_NAME,
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_METHOD_NAME(1),
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_METHOD_SIGNATURE(1),
		local_ref< array< local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation >, 1> >
	>(get_jobject());
}

local_ref< array< local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation >, 1> > java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::getDeclaredAnnotations()
{
	return call_method<
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_CLASS_NAME,
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_METHOD_NAME(2),
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_METHOD_SIGNATURE(2),
		local_ref< array< local_ref< java::lang::annotation::Annotation >, 1> >
	>(get_jobject());
}

jboolean java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::isAnnotationPresent(local_ref< java::lang::Class > const &a0)
{
	return call_method<
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_CLASS_NAME,
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_METHOD_NAME(3),
		java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement::J2CPP_METHOD_SIGNATURE(3),
		jboolean
	>(get_jobject(), a0);
}

J2CPP_DEFINE_CLASS(java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement,"java/lang/reflect/AnnotatedElement")
J2CPP_DEFINE_METHOD(java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement,0,"getAnnotation","(Ljava/lang/Class;)Ljava/lang/annotation/Annotation;")
J2CPP_DEFINE_METHOD(java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement,1,"getAnnotations","()[java.lang.annotation.Annotation")
J2CPP_DEFINE_METHOD(java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement,2,"getDeclaredAnnotations","()[java.lang.annotation.Annotation")
J2CPP_DEFINE_METHOD(java::lang::reflect::AnnotatedElement,3,"isAnnotationPresent","(Ljava/lang/Class;)Z")

} //namespace j2cpp

#endif //J2CPP_JAVA_LANG_REFLECT_ANNOTATEDELEMENT_HPP_IMPL

#endif //J2CPP_INCLUDE_IMPLEMENTATION

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Ann was my blind roommate. Not blind. Just set-up. You know, like a blind date. I think I might have met her once, for about a minute in some cafeteria in Upper State New York a summer before, but that story is for another time. Other than that, I'm sure we were complete strangers. Her sister Barbara was a friend of mine (still is!). I'd been to Barb's apartment before and remember thinking 'wow, how amazing to live in such a nice place'. It was a second story flat set back off the street, above a shaded grassy patch and home to a large tree or two (ok, I'm not a details person). The apartment was just across the street from the Walla Walla College campus where I attended. If you could have seen the apartment I was "wow-ing', you'd chuckle, but for a college kid who had lived in some motley places, you'd understand. One spring day while I was visiting Barb at her apartment she asked me if I'd like to live there, and room with her sister Ann the following year. Barb was leaving/graduating, and Ann needed a roommate. Barbara was one of those people super easy to be around – and I imagined her sister to be the same, so took the chance and said I'd do it. With no small amount of anxiety, I agreed, knowing sisters can be as different as night and day.
What I don't think I told Barbara was that I was holding my breath – hoping everything would work out. Not just regarding Ann, but due to my own situation. Although I wanted to live in a normal apartment with a pre-arranged roommate, and make plans for the year ahead, my actual life never looked like that. Every quarter I'd find myself sitting in the financial aid office an hour or two waiting my turn, hoping and praying that Cassie or Doug – the two persons managing the financial aid office – would pull out of a hat some random grant or loan, making it possible for me to attend college yet one more Quarter. Every nickel I made working on grounds, vacuuming the halls of the girls dorm, and all other income went to paying for college. I didn't make enough to afford it, so every Quarter they let me in felt like a giant miracle from God. Housing and roommates came last.
Over the summer, I remember looking at my things, a few ratty Norman Rockwell pictures torn out of a calendar for the walls, some black-bottomed pans, a thinned cotton bedspread but white and cheerful enough, no dresser but a mattress for the floor, … I wondered how Barbara's sister would feel about moving in with Miss Nobody.
For no particular reason Cassy or Doug, I don't remember which, decided they had the money for me to attend, and that I'd be fine in that nice apartment, and so there I was unpacking my few well worn things when Ann arrived. I don't remember our first words, or even remember when she arrived, but one of the first sweet things she said to me was exclaiming how much she loved the (thumbtacked) Norman Rockwell pictures on the wall. I couldn't believe it. She could enjoy simple unconventional ways of decorating, of being, and could find beauty all over the place in things that didn't cost a dime. The relief nearly suffocated me. To be accepted is one thing, but to be enjoyed as is, now that's another.
The blind roommate turned out to be a very good one. Not only did she not care one bit about my worn out things, she enjoyed my ability to make something out of nothing in the kitchen. I enjoyed her ability to read a recipe and bake. She was adventurous, was willing to do crazy things like camp out last minute on some country church grounds (because it sat beside a river). I think the sprinklers came on, and she was a good sport about that too.
Ann loved having friends over, and was quite the host. Because of her, our apartment was filled to overflowing with friends and friends of friends and a few others. Engineering guys from across the street would smell the chili in the crock pot and meander across the road, up the stairs to see what's cooking. Students whose parents had been missionaries – Ann had grown up in Bangladesh. Her former classmates from a college in England she'd attended. Ole friends from Blue Mountain Academy in Pennsylvania. I added my collection of grounds worker pals, class mates, a few friends from Mount Ellis (Bozeman, Montana)…. Between the two of us, our apartment was a preverbal zoo!
Ann was an unusual mix of fun and studious. I struggled with college, good grades did not come easy for me. I had to read and re-read anything I took in. I had already decided that I couldn't have fun and do well in college at the same time. This was due to that fact that the students I'd known up to this point were either fun or or did well in school, but never both. Not Ann. She knew how to shift gears from fun times to getting things done, and back to fun again – as needed. I was inspired. Ann did need less sleep then I, but she was always respectful about her sleepyhead roommate and studied late into the night without disturbing my rest. Ann was also more tidy than I, and was just gracious as I struggled to keep things up, as we had to – we had company morning to night.
The year I met my husband and fell in love, I was rooming with Ann. She listen to all my star eye'd feelings months on end. We listened to each other. She was gracious when the guy I was in love with reciprocated. Didn't matter what the challenge in life was, when things were going well for me, and not for her, she was gracious. That's a great word for Ann. Gracious. Just a gracious and dear friend.
Thirty some years have passed. Ann is more dear to me then before. She has been the best auntie to our kids, though not a blood aunt. She's been in our lives a couple times a year their entire lives. Although she eventually moved to Cambodia, she flies in to see her folks, sisters and brother and comes to see us – and often. Which means the kids have years of memories with Auntie Ann.
I would have never picked Ann out myself. We are as optimist as two persons can be. She has traveled all over the world her entire life. I've been nowhere other than the US, Canada, Hawaii and Tijuana, but mostly stay home. Book learning comes easy to her. She flies through books and tests well. I struggle to get through part of a book. I test poorly. She likes numbers. I like words. Not true. She likes words too… and reads more books in a year than I will in a lifetime. She bakes. I dump cook. She is single. I'm married with four kid. She is a saver. I'm a squanderer. She reads music. I play by ear. She's Adventist. I'm not.
How does one choose a roommate? Although Ann and I are as as different as wind and sea, the things that matter most we have in common. Ann gets how much I love God, how much I hate pretension, how much I value simple hospitality, how much I love vulnerability and authenticity. We both love to grow our spirits and shrink the ever-toxic "self". We both love family and friends, love something from nothing, both love learning and exploring new ideas, love color, love to laugh, love a spontaneous adventure. I have a memory of one of my very grown up kids being talked into a shopping cart by Auntie Ann, her pushing said child speed of light through a parking lot, both howling with laughter.
My blind roommate. I think I was the blind one. Would never have thought she'd consider a friendship with me as she was traveled, smart and capable. You know, I've never seen my face, and you haven't seen yours. Only a reflection. If the reflectant is warped, all that is seen is a twisted view of ourselves. That makes each-other that very important mirror. Ann has been one of the kindest mirrors I've ever looked into. A mirror that smiles at my burnt attempts at soup. Listens when I'm miserable and self-centered. Is able to separate her own opinions from her heart – a heart that cares for me more than cares to be right or have the last word.


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Reviews of actual policy holders says a lot about the company. Some states have a department of insurance website that lists the consumer complaint ratio for insurance companies. This ratio tells consumers how many complaints there are per 1,000 insurance claims. According to a Corner Brook car insurance agent, it is a good idea to avoid companies with a high consumer complaint ratio.
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You are required to have auto insurance, but you are not required to use any particular company. Use these five tips to assist in your research. Choosing the right the company can get you better rates and coverage that fits your needs.


text:
Kazi Nazrul Islam was a Bengali poet, musician, and revolutionary; he is the national poet of Bangladesh.
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Kumar Mane
on August 6, 2018 at 6:23 am
Place: Asansol, Bengal Presidency, British India
Death: 29 August 1976
Place: Dhaka, Bangladesh
Career: Writer, Musician
Father: Kazi Faqeer Ahmed
Mother: Zahida Khatun
Siblings: Kazi Saahibjaan, Kazi Ali Hussain, and Umme Kulsum
Spouse: Pramila Devi
Children: Kazi Sabyasachi, Krishna Mohammad, Kazi Aniruddha, and Arindam Khaled
Kazi Nazrul Islam was a poet, musician, and revolutionary, best known as the national poet of Bangladesh. His impressively large collection of poetry and music with themes, such as religion, spiritualism, and humanity has inspired many in the past and continues to inspire modern-day activists and revolutionists. A collection of 4,000 songs, which are extremely popular in India and Bangladesh, is known as a whole as Nazrul Sangeet or Nazrul Geeti (Music of Nazrul). Nazrul took active part in the 'Indian Independence Movement' after serving the British Indian Army during the 'First World War.' For his tremendous contribution towards the field of music, literature, and art, Kazi Nazrul Islam was honored by the Government of India with the prestigious 'Padma Bhushan Award' in 1960.
Image Credit : http://bankofinfo.com/detail-life-history-of-kazi-nazrul-islam/
Kazi Nazrul Islam was born on May 24, 1899, in Churulia, Paschim Bardhaman district, Bengal Presidency. He was born into a Muslim Taluqdar family to Zahida Khatun and her husband, Kazi Faqeer Ahmed, who worked as an 'Imam' (Head of the Masjid) and caretaker at a local mosque. Nazrul received his basic education from a Maktab, which was run by a mosque, and then attended a Madrasa run by a Dargah. His education involved subjects like theology, Islamic philosophy, Quran, and Hadith.
Nazrul lost his father when he was just 10 years old. To support his family, a young Nazrul started working as the new caretaker of the mosque, where his father used to work. He also worked as the muezzin at the mosque. Nazrul then joined his Uncle Fazle Karim's travelling theatrical group. He used the opportunity to learn acting. He also started writing songs and poetry for plays, which eventually exposed him to Sanskrit and Bengali literature, along with sacred Hindu texts. He also started composing interesting folk plays for his theatrical group.
Nazrul left the theatrical group in 1910 to attend 'Searsole Raj High School' in Raniganj, Asansol. At the school, he was influenced by one of his teachers named Nibaran Chandra Ghatak, who was a Jugantar activist. Nazrul was then enrolled at 'Mathrun High English School,' where he studied under poet Kumudranjan Mallik, who was also the headmaster. Unfortunately, Nazrul could not pay for his education so he had to quit his studies, before joining a group of folk artists called 'kaviyals.' He then took up various part-time jobs, before joining 'Darirampur School' in 1914. There he studied Sanskrit, Bengali, Persian, and Arabic literature as well as Hindustani classical music.
When he turned 18 in 1917, Nazrul joined the British Indian Army. Ironically, Nazrul's decision to join the military helped him become a poet later in his life as he started reading a number of Bengali and Persian poems during his time in the military. He read the works of prominent writers like Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Rabindranath Tagore. As far as Persian poems are concerned, Nazrul was exposed to the works of Omar Khayyam, Hafez, and Rumi. The works of these great men inspired him to publish his own works as he came up with his first prose and poetry in 1919. While his prose was titled as 'Baunduler Atmakahini,' his poem was called 'Mukti.'
Image Credit : https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/bangla/en/audiotrack/kazi-nazrul-islam-was-bengali-polymath-poet-writer-musician-revolutionary-and-philosopher
Nazrul left the military in 1920 and then joined the 'Bengali Muslim Literary Society.' He published his maiden novel titled 'Bandhan-hara' soon after joining the society and then came up with his first collection of poems as well. In 1922, Nazrul wrote a revolutionary Bengali poem titled 'Bidrohi,' which is considered as his most popular work. He continued writing many such revolutionary poems, which received commercial as well as critical success. On August 12, 1922, he started his own magazine called 'Dhumketu,' which served as the perfect platform for his revolutionary works.
Nazrul was eventually charged with sedition by the British and was arrested on January 23, 1923. The buzz around his revolutionary and eccentric poems earned him popularity and he soon became popular as a 'rebel poet.' During his time in the prison, Nazrul composed many songs and poems, which were banned by the British authorities, for they were rebellious in nature. In April 1923, he started a 40-day fast, claiming that one of the jail superintendents had abused his power. After his release from prison in December, he came up with a book titled 'Bisher Banshi' in 1924, which was once again banned by the British.
Image Credit : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazi_Nazrul_Islam
Nazrul started encouraging people to raise their voice against the British Raj. He also organized a socialist political party called 'Sramik Praja Swaraj Dal,' along with another revolutionary named Muzaffar Ahmed. After his wedding with Pramila Devi on April 25, 1924, Nazrul's image as a rebel poet attained further popularity as he married a Hindu woman, who belonged to the 'Brahmo Samaj.' In December 1925, he started publishing a weekly called 'Langal' and even worked as the publication's chief editor.
In 1926, he settled down in Krishnanagar along with his family, post which he began experimenting with his poetry and musical skills. By transforming Urdu and Persian poetry, Nazrul composed the first set of Bengali ghazals. He also introduced Islam to Bengali music, which was dominated by Bengali Hindus until then. His religious songs, which were based on both Hinduism and Islam, became extremely popular among the masses, which led to his association with the famous record label 'His Master's Voice' (HMV) in 1928. His compositions were broadcast on national radio stations, making him popular all over the country.
In 1930, he once again faced charges of sedition for publishing his book 'Pralayshikha,' which was banned by the government. Three years later, he came up with 'Modern World Literature,' a collection of essays. Due to a certain real-life events, Nazrul's works during the later stages of his career were influenced heavily by his religious beliefs. Though a born Muslim, Nazrul was an exponent of Hindu belief system, which he incorporated into his works of art.
Image Credit : http://www.virtualbangladesh.com/culture/literature/great-personalities/kazi-nazrul-islam/
Kazi Nazrul Islam was always an omnist as he often expressed his wish of experiencing religious harmony in India. He criticized religious fanaticism and blamed humans and not religions for religious violence in India. Nazrul started exploring religious themes after the death of his mother and sons. This was reflected in his works as he started composing more Islamic devotional songs. He also composed Hindu devotional songs, such as 'bhajans' and 'kirtans.' He also merged Hindu and Islamic values and often explored the philosophy of Hinduism and Islam.
Nazrul's success as a poet and music composer introduced him to the film industry in the mid-1930s. He became the first Muslim director to helm a Bengali film, when he made his directorial debut through the film Dhruva Bhakta. He was then roped in as the music director for a film, which was based on Tagore's popular novel Gora. He also worked in various plays and then started working for the Calcutta Radio in 1939. In the same year, his wife Pramila became seriously ill, which prompted him to return to journalism in to take care of his wife's medical expenses. In the early 1940s, Nazrul too became ill and went into depression as his illness couldn't be cured. In 1942, his condition worsened, and he was admitted into a mental asylum. Over the next 10 years, Nazrul was given various treatment, but to no avail.
Image Credit : https://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/04/24/nazrul-good-hindu-rss
In the early 1950s, a group of volunteers sent Nazrul and Pramila to places like London and Vienna for treatment. In Vienna, he was examined by an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist named Dr. Hans Hoff, who confirmed that he was suffering from an incurable condition called Pick's disease. He came back to Calcutta on December 15, 1953, where he remained in intensive medical unit for a long time. On May 24, 1972, Bangladesh sought India's permission to bring him to Dhaka, where he was granted the citizenship of Bangladesh in January 1976. On August 29, 1976, Nazrul succumbed to his ailments and his mortal remains were buried in the 'University of Dhaka,' in accordance to his wish.
A number of educational institutions and other centers of learning have been established in his memory. 'The Nazrul Endowment' was established to preserve his ideas as well as his large collection of works. Also, many institutions and avenues in India and Bangladesh have been named after him. A number of of streets in Kolkata and Dhaka are named after him. In 1972, Bangladesh declared Nazrul as its national poet. In 1976, the government of Bangladesh honored him with 'Ekushey Padak,' the country's second highest civilian award. He was also honored by the government of India with country's third highest civilian award, 'Padma Bhushan.'
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