Only an absolute moron and a decided enemy of humanity communicates by any means that bypasses writing from a plane. Aside from that, it’s a surefire way of losing faith in humanity if you are forced to find out the kind of stupid things people talk about on their FaceTime calls.
The Screen Time Problem
Everywhere we go, Klara brings her notebook and a pencil and works on her memoir which at this point is somewhere in volume 15. She writes stories, draws pictures, and creates long-division exercises that she finds very entertaining.
People sometimes ask me, “How did you get her to do this?” But I didn’t. I never suggested this activity. All I did was not buy her a tablet or a phone. The words “screen time” have never been used in our house. I don’t have this problem because I never created it in the first place.
At this point, she is old enough that I had to explain why she doesn’t have a screen to stare at. So I explained. She understood my explanation and liked it. You don’t have to quit smoking if you never start. You don’t have to lose weight if you never become obese. It’s easier not to cause the problem because then you don’t have to solve it. I highly recommend this course of action to everybody.
Catching Up on Q&A
I received some questions in the anonymous Q&A:
Have you ever tried to read Kingsnorth’s The Wake?
I really detest historical fiction, so no. And I’m not likely to try. I’d read sci-fi before I read historical fiction, and I have zero interest in sci-fi.
Have you read Lineages of Modernity?
No, and I never heard of it before. Thank you for recommending, I will check it out. I’m currently on a reading spree about the Franco dictatorship, so this will have to wait until I get over that.
What is a suitable therapy for someone who is suicidal?
I assume you aren’t looking for yourself? If it’s somebody else, all I can recommend is removing yourself from that person’s company. If you can’t remove yourself, minimize engagement.
Difference Between the Parties
This is not at all wrong:
I care much more about domestic policy, so the choice is clear to me. And it’s not that the Dems are good on foreign policy. They suck on it but they suck worse on domestic issues, so it’s not that noticeable how badly they are screwing up overseas. With Republicans, at least you don’t get a total horror show at home.
The Franco Marriage
Franco got married in 1923. He didn’t want to invite his libertine father to the wedding, so his best man was the King of Spain. He participated by proxy, of course.
It took Franco years to get the bride’s father to consent to the marriage because Franco was considered an obscure nobody for a long time. And then all of a sudden the King is his best man. The father-in-law must have felt like a moron.
Rapey Talent
I’m getting nervous hives when I hear the word talent these days.
Rapey welfare guzzlers are now “talent.” The cynicism is overwhelming.
Learned Something New
I was today years old when I discovered that in 1944 the Franco regime issued a decree that made it mandatory for university departments of Romance Philology to teach a course on Catalan philology and literature for at least 3 hours a week.
Euskera, the Basque language, was promoted even more dramatically by the dictatorship.
Not a Problem
An acquaintance has a little daughter who recently turned eight. For her birthday, the parents gave the girl a little budgie parrot because it was her dream pet.
Sadly, nine days later the budgie died. The child was grief-stricken.
“Oh, how terrible!” I said to the mother. “I’m so sorry!”
“No, it’s fine,” the mother reassured me. “They had a 14-day return policy, so we got our money back.”
Recommended Reading on US History
I was asked in the comments if I have any recommendations on books on American history, and yes, I do. I ploughed through a lot of stuff and finally found a really good volume. It is the perfect nation-state history book. I strongly believe it should be the school textbook everywhere instead of the horrible drivel by Howard Zinn.
The book I’m talking about is Land of Hope by Wilfred McClay. Here’s a quote I really like:
One of the worst sins of the present – not just ours but any present – is its tendency to condescend toward the past, which is much easier to do when one doesn’t trouble to know the full context of that past or try to grasp the nature of its challenges as they presented themselves at the time. This small book is an effort to counteract that condescension and remind us of how remarkable were the achievements of those who came before us, how much we are indebted to them.
Indentured servitude was recently mentioned here on the blog, and here’s a quote regarding it:
Indentured servitude was so common that some historians have estimated more than half of the white immigrants to the American colonies up to the time of the Revolution had come to the New World under indentures, and even the first black Africans to appear in North America, dropped off at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 by a Dutch ship, may well have been indentured servants rather than slaves.
Indentured servitude is often written out of history because because it’s inconvenient to the reigninig narrative of race relations.
In short, a wonderful book that I highly recommend. There’s also a version for middle schoolers which I’m planning to buy for my own kid.
Crud
Children’s author Mac Barnett issued a formal apology after sparking intense backlash for claiming that 94.7% of children’s literature is “crud”.
Critics noted that this belief is often used as a dog whistle against books by BIPOC, queer, and trans authors who are sharing necessary lived experiences. A letter signed by hundreds of authors demanded that the Library of Congress and Every Child a Reader address the harm caused by his official.
I don’t know what will finally teach people to stop apologizing to the mobs of ego-driven fools but this guy is right. Most children’s books published today are garbage. And that’s not surprising, given that they are often written by people who use expressions like “necessary lived experiences” and say that somebody’s opinion “causes harm” to them. These are illiterate, stupid people who sell their bouts of pouting because they have nothing else to offer.
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