Luís Graça

Luís Graça is a Portuguese right-wing nationalist who wants to reawaken national pride, virility and patriotism in European countries. He spent years trying to locate the remnants of nationalistic pride in Europe. In 2013 he traveled to Ukraine and was shocked to discover a right-wing paradise there. The cult of strength, manliness and true Western pride he found there had a narcotic effect on this right-winger. 

Graça wrote a book about it titled Ukraine: An Identitarian Perspective. I’ll tell you about his argument in subsequent posts but for now I want to say that I’m very happy that I finally found a right-winger who has managed to figure out that Ukraine is the future of nationalism and Western rediscovery of its own greatness.

Renaming

The university has renamed academic hiring into “talent acquisition.”

Lord, grant me patience because I’m at the end of my tether.

Russian Philosophy

Dugin is the only thinker—and I cringe to apply this term to him—that Russia produced in decades. They don’t have anybody else with a recognizable name, and it’s all postcolonial wokeness of the lowest caliber. A valenki-clad Frantz Fanon.

The Russian rage isn’t about the NATO. It’s about this. It’s about wanting to be a global player and being utterly unable to live up to your own expectations. It’s about not being able to match the intellectual output of the tiny Poland, let alone the tiny Austria. It’s about not being able to hack it and seething with impotent anger over this obvious fact.

Women and Video Games

What are these people on about?

Women probably play more video games than men at this point. Who do these commenters think plays Gossip Island or any of the five trillion games where you have to help a freshly divorced single mother to handle her dates and gossipy friends? Who plays the games where you have to unravel knitting? Who plays makeover, fashion, and interior design games? Who plays the games where you plant flowers or help women who rescue infants from the trash in spite of dire poverty? Who plays the games where you run a maternity ward? What about the game where you have to put toddlers on potties? Or prove something to a cheating boyfriend? Or impress a fiance’s parents?

I could go on like this for a long time but you get my drift. People need to liberate their mentality from silly assumptions.

The Borders of the Self

It is high time to create a list of authors, publishers and content creators of whatever type you enjoy who would never do this to you:

Nobody will protect the boundaries of our inner self. We will have to protect them ourselves. We will have to close ourselves down and patrol the perimeter. We will have to do our own border policing. Nothing that hasn’t been pre-vetted gets to come in.

There is no task more important at this moment than to establish very strict and impenetrable boundaries between our inner self and the world. The biggest class difference a decade from now will be between people who boundaried up hard and those who failed to do so.

Life as a Whole

If you need to start over at 45, it can only mean that you messed up royally before then. The normal progression is that at every age you enjoy the fruits of what you lived and did before. The need to erase your previous life is not a good sign.

So no, don’t normalize treating your life like a series of discreet, unconnected episodes. Your life is a whole.

A Shocking Revelation

Somebody sent a Q&A to point out that we have a position titled “Associate Director of Empathy, Humility, and Action .”

I didn’t know that.

I googled it, and it’s true.

I want to claw my eyes out.

This is the same university that got rid of physics because physics is outdated.

In a Bubble

All day I’m writing, reading, and entertaining Klara. I have three serious research-related deadlines looming. But I’ve also soured on Klara’s current teacher, so I keep her with me a lot. And it’s great. Klara started writing daily action plans because you can’t be around me and not have a strong need to surround yourself with action plans. We went to the mall, and it’s an experience all by itself on Mondays.

The bad part is that I’m besieged by people who clamor for attention and try to break into my happy reading – writing – child bubble. The drama at work is mushrooming. It’s like people have lost all sense of proportion as to what’s reasonable. Classes are over, so why can’t everybody simply go away and leave me alone?

Reading and Longevity

Yale tracked 3,635 people over the age of 50 for 12 years. People who read books for more than 3.5 hours a week lived 23 months longer than people who didn’t read at all. A 20% drop in mortality risk. From sitting on a couch with a book. They controlled for age, sex, race, education, wealth, health status, and depression. The gap held across every single one.

What I don’t understand about these studies is how they avoid confusing correlation and causation. People who read a lot are of a different social class than those who don’t. They are more likely to take care of their health. They won’t drink gallons of soda. They won’t engage in dangerous activities. The study controlled for wealth but wealth doesn’t bring you into the intelligentsia.

Christian School Teacher

Klara’s teacher took off points for the social studies test where Klara wrote that fresh air and exercise are better for children’s health than COVID vaccines. Then the teacher punished students who mentioned Trump’s name in class on the grounds that he’s so bad that she can’t allow him even to be mentioned.

She’s retiring at the end of the month, so it’s not some flighty young thing fresh out of college. I knew that something wasn’t right because the books she kept assigning were about the Holocaust and how FDR saved America.