P.S. I’ll make the post sticky for a while. Scroll down for new posts.

I am gradually improving my knowledge of the American history. Still, there is a number of important events and personalities of which I have a very limited understanding. It’s hard to choose which of the subjects to research first. This is why I’m asking my readers to help in making that choice. Please vote in the poll:

Finally, one of my favorite novels has been translated into English! I love Espido Freire’s Irlanda and it has always annoyed me that it isn’t more widely known. At least, now people can read it in English. Yay!

This is a fairly short novel that reads very easily. The apparent simplicity of the writing style, however, conceals a lot of mysteries and hidden revelations. The novel is narrated in the first person by Natalia, a 15-year-old girl who is a powerful but an extremely unreliable narrator. You need to be a very careful reader to keep track of the information she is trying to conceal and to avoid letting Natalia manipulate you.

Natalia’s greatest goal in life is to remain an obedient little child for as long as possible. In order to achieve this goal, she engages in a variety of hugely transgressive acts. Natalia is one of many recent female characters who use their considerable intelligence, strength and resilience in order to defend their right never to grow up and take responsibility for their own lives.

This is a female Bildungsroman (a novel of female development.) I read dozens of Bildungsromane for my research but there are few I enjoyed as much as this one. A literary critic likes novels that offer a lot of material to analyze, and Freire’s Irlanda definitely does that.

If you have read this novel, let’s discuss it! I’ve been dying to meet somebody I could discuss it with.

Reader el says:

What should US government do about obesity crisis? F.e. in a new Feminist post Jill says: “I’m glad that NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg has banned the sale of extra-large sugary drinks from some establishments”. Others disagree.

I have to say that I find this Bloomberg measure to be quite laughable. What is to prevent a person from buying 3 or 333 smaller drinks and gulping them down happily if that’s what s/he wants? What’s the point of trying to control the buying decisions of consumers?

The causes of overeating and poor eating culture cannot be addressed by governments. Overeating is caused by emotional problems (e.g. people who eat whenever they are stressed out, bored, upset, etc.), the legacy of on-demand breastfeeding that results in poor impulse control and the incapacity to stop eating between mealtimes, the need to self-medicate with food, etc. An eating culture is what we learn at home, with our families, as we grow up. If we see our parents practice unhealthy eating habits (eating on the run or standing up, eating massive amounts of junk food, frying everything and never eating fresh produce, etc.), there is no chance any governmental measures will break than pattern.

Maybe in terms of a very broad ideology, if the government showed self-restraint and stopped borrowing money like there is no tomorrow and invading other countries every fifteen seconds, that would help to create an environment where people know how to be happy without consuming all the time. As for actual legislation to force people to eat well, I find the idea to be bizarre.

The measures like the one Bloomberg has adopted in NYC are an example of the attitude that fosters overeating. Bloomberg sees the residents of his city as wayward children in need of his constant tutelage. Such helpless creatures cannot possibly come to see themselves as responsible adults who have to manage their own diets and take care of their own bodies.

As for the feminists who support Bloomberg’s measure, I want to remind them that if they support the government’s right to control what they put inside their bodies, so they should support its right to control what they remove from their bodies. There is absolutely no way one could simultaneously approve of Bloomberg’s measures and defend abortion rights.

The Morehouse School of Medicine announced last week that it has raised $2 million to endow a chair that will focus on sexuality and religion, the Associated Press reported. The chair will focus on ways to train physicians and theologians on sexual health issues that include contraception, rape prevention, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. A spokeswoman for the Association of American Medical Colleges said she did not know of a similar endowed chair at any other medical school.

Yeah, because there is a limit on a number of ridiculous programs of pseudo study that the American academia can deal with. Physicians and theologians? Why not athletes and brick layers? Or computer programmers and janitors? If we are going to be random why not go all the way?

And how are physicians and theologians going to prevent rape? The only effective way of rape prevention I can imagine is for rapists to stop raping. Is there a reason why physicians and theologians are singled out for the task of rape prevention?

I’m not even asking why theologians should have anything to do with STDs. Are they going to cure them with prayer or theological disputes?

This Morehouse School of Medicine should have raised salaries for its adjuncts and postdocs instead of wasting money on this kind of idiocies.