Opinions, art, debate
Here is what a blogger says about America’s conservatives:
If you’re right-wing, everything is for all the marbles. Everything is a fight to the death. And thinking everything is a fight to death is why right-wingers — and Fox — rack up so many wins.
I wish you that in the New Year you will be able to say:
If you’re me, everything is for all the marbles. Everything is a fight to the death. And thinking everything is a fight to death is why I rack up so many wins.
This year’s tree and table are the best. See for yourself:
The idea of a Jewish table was somewhat foiled. I initially wanted to add this really great Sephardic dish to the Ashkenazi and Soviet Jewish dishes. I realized, however, that this would be too much food.
I will still do the Sephardic dish and show you but it will have to wait.
The colorful thing in a glass is a verrine. And if you are planning to say that there is no place for shell-fish on a Jewish table, you need to read up on Soviet Jews of whom I am one.
The cake is the Sachertorte. Everything is made from scratch, of course. The red salad is the famous “Mistress Salad.” The idea behind the name is this: the salad is so delicious that a husband will eat it and realize that he can’t risk losing all this amazing home cooking for the sake of some useless mistress. So he exchanges the mistress for the salad. I researched this online today and was kind of horrified, but it was too late to undo the salad.
I forgot to place some oats and water on the table because we are ringing in the Year of the Horse, and the horse has to be mollified. (Once again, Soviet Jews, Soviet. If we feel like worshipping the Chinese calendar, so we will.)
Happy New Year!
The last part of this contest took place on August 30. We all know what happened a week later, so obviously it took me a while to go back to the contest that accompanied this entire pregnancy. Now, however, I’m ready to announce the results of the contest.
The very last question was what annoyed me in the following paragraph:
Today, fast food workers across the United States are striking for higher pay. Paltry minimum wages mean that workers are paid as little as $7.25 an hour — not nearly enough to live off of, let alone raise a family. More than 13 percent of fast food workers rely on food stamps to make ends meet, and a disproportionate number of fast food employees are women of color.
Of course, I detest the “off of.” At the time I asked the question, I had just spent the entire summer semester grading mountains of essays where each line contained “off ofs.” Sometimes, they even came at the end of a sentence.
Sadly, this simple question made some people strangely aggressive.
The absolute winner of the series is reader Z with 12 points. Wow, Z, you somehow managed to figure me out completely. 🙂 You will be getting a gift for this win soon.
The second place goes to reader Ol. with 9 points. This isn’t a completely clean win, though, because Ol. is a close personal friend. Ol., I owe you a meal at any place of your choosing in Montreal.
The third place goes to reader Paranoid with 6.5 points. Paranoid made me paranoid with how well she (?) knows me. Paranoid, if you see me at a conference somewhere, please approach me, and I will buy you drinks.
See the scores of other participants under the fold.
Continue reading “The Winners of How Well Do You Know Clarissa Contest”
Of course, the last reading of the article before submission revealed to me that it is stupid, badly written, clumsy, and meaningless.
I sent it anyway.
New Year’s is such an important holiday in the Russian-speaking culture that Putin refused to declare national mourning over the terror acts in Volgograd. It isn’t that he is being especially insensitive on this issue. (At least, not more insensitive than he normally is). Putin simply understands even if he declares national mourning, people will still go all out celebrating. You can deprive Russian-speakers of many things, but you cannot take away their New Year’s.
Everything one does on this day is highly symbolic. This is why I timed the writing of my most recent article to submit it today. I’m also starting to write a new article today. You’ll say that this is superstitious. Yes, it probably is. But a lot of research gets done, which is always good.
And now for some great books published in 2013.
1. Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia was absolutely delightful. See my review of the book.
2. Andrés Trapiello’s Ayer no más. Another Franco apologist but, this time, a very talented one. I just wrote an article about this novel.
3. Benjamín Prado’s Ajuste de cuentas. A very passionate novel about Spain’s economic crisis. I will be reading it with my students next semester.
4. Sophie Hanna’s Kind of Cruel. Hannah is yet to disappoint me.
5. Žižek released tow great books: The Year of Dreaming Dangerously and Demanding the Impossible. Both are aimed at general audience and are absolutely delightful.
6. Katherine Webb’s A Half-Forgotten Song. What a talented author, people.
7. Bill Ayers released his autobiographical Public Enemy. It is a very good book.
8. Emma Chapman’s How To Be a Good Wife is a very curious book. Depending on your politics and worldview, this book allows for two radically different readings. Do read and tell me what it says to you. What or who victimized Marta? Is she really Marta?
Overall, there have been more good books than bad ones. A good year in reading. Do share your favorite books of 2013.
This New Year’s celebration is Jewish-themed, which means Gefilte fish couldn’t be avoided. It takes forever to make, but look how beautiful it is:
See how to make it under the fold.
Italy’s Supreme Court reverses a sentence to a pedophile who raped an 11-year-old child on the basis that true love on both sides motivated the rape. Seriously. The link is in Spanish.
First, we heard that the Democrats couldn’t achieve anything because they are in a minority. Now they tells us they can’t get anything done because of being in a majority. I’m getting a feeling that even if the Dems get 100% of seats in both senate and Congress, they will get even less done.
The weirdest kind of journalism I have seen in my life: a journalist combines an interview with a famous philosopher with a restaurant review. The article is seriously bizarre, people.
The sickest Christmas gift this year was the one touted by the Governor of South Carolina.
A very good article that explains why unknown little colleges pretend to charge enormous tuitions. Maybe this is old news to everybody else but I was shocked at the pretentiousness and sheer stupidity of people who swallow this kind of sad little class-bait.
“An Australian priest who supports the ordination of women has been excommunicated by Pope Francis.” Of course, this will not be noticed by anybody who feels a passionate need to believe that this Pope is somehow different from the previous one.
In car-crazy LA, there is a veritable war on pedestrians going on. Shame on you, LA!
An absolutely classic example of projection performed by David Brooks. Do read the linked post to the very last line, it’s priceless. If you have no time, just read the first and last lines.
And here is another exercise in projection from Feministe. It’s really bizarre how people invest pictures with meaning and then battle that meaning which they invented completely on their own.
It’s not my fault that people don;t seem able to string two words together without projecting their beliefs onto the universe. See this: “The world was shell-shocked when the Beytomic bomb exploded on the musical landscape.” Yeah, because “the world” begins and ends with you and your buddies.
“When it comes to the boycott of Israel, who has the real double standard?”
“The most damaging and widespread fiction in the US that both the Left, Right and Middle believes and implicitly subscribe to is that the government’s fiscal affairs in any way resemble that of a household or have any relation at all to bank accounts, loans or saving as experienced by the average person.” So true. Whenever somebody says, during a discussion of economy, “well, it’s like balancing your check-book”, I shut down the discussion and leave in order to help my interlocutor avoid embarrassing him or herself even further.
A funny headline about a Missouri professor.
And the post of the week: The top ten news photos of 2013. A really great post, check it out.
In the aftermath of the horrifying terrorist attacks in the Russian city of Volgograd, people keep asking me why so many of the perpetrators of these terror acts in the Russian Federation are women.
Consider the situation of women in places like Chechnya and Dagestan. In the USSR, It never occurred to anybody to doubt whether women were fully human or make them shroud themselves like old, useless pieces of furniture. Religious fanatics had to hide from persecution and had no power to impose their barbaric ideas.
Now that these areas of the Russian Federation have turned to religious fanaticism, there is a single path in life open to women: being sold into marriage in early adolescence and being treated worse than an animal in the husband’s house. No education, no career, no friends, no money, no control over one’s own life. Imagine being 16, 17, 18 (these are the ages of some of the most recent female terrorists) and realizing that this is all that awaits you. In a society that has never known anything else, this can be accepted with resignation. In a place where things used to be very different just a short time ago, it is much harder to conform to this form of intense barbarity.
This is why so many women in Chechnya and Dagestan choose the only kind of protagonism that is still available to them and join terrorist organizations. They get to control their own destinies, even if that control is reduced to choosing death.
Mind you, this is not specifically about Islam. The Russian Orthodox Church’s official position on women is exactly the same as that of the Muslim fundamentalists: shrouding, no control over any aspect of their lives, yearly reproduction as the only goal of female existence, etc. The good news is that this is a religion only practiced by 2% of the population or we would see veritable horrors take place in Russia on top of the horrors we are seeing already.
As you all know, I hate the Soviet Union. Still, it has to be recognized that beating down religious fanatics was an enormous and amazing achievement on its part.
Before I share my list of the books I really enjoyed in 2013, I want to acquaint you with some of the books I detested this year.
1. Zygmunt Bauman’s Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All. The great philosopher disappointed me majorly with this book. All it contains is a collection of worn-out platitudes about the idiocy of trickle-down economics that he seems to consider a huge revelation. There wasn’t a single interesting, new insight in the entire book.
2. Elizabeth George’s Just One Evil Act. An unbelievable snoozefest.
3. Jeremy Treglown’s Franco’s Crypt. An obnoxious Franco apology of a self-involved, stupid Brit.
4. Paula Treick De Board’s The Mourning Hours. Absolutely nothing whatsoever happens in this book. The author is a product of a Creative Writing program. I wish I had known that before I started reading the book. An MFA is always a sign that a person can’t write worth a damn.
5. Janice Steinberg’s Tin Horse. Immigrants, Jews, sisters – how can you spoil such a great premise? Fear not, this writer can do that, and then some.
Gosh, one has to sift through a lot of garbage to uncover something good.
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