Burqas or Butts?

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

Yes. I have the same questions.

In Venezuela, yes, there is a likelihood that better people will come to power. Not a guarantee but a likelihood. What Venezuela needs to give up for that to happen is its system of economic relations. What Iran needs to give up is its religion. People attach much more strongly to religion, so it’s a very different proposition in comparison with Venezuela.

I’ve been mostly offline since Friday, yet I’ve seen several videos of supposedly Iranian women wiggling their butts to signal joy over the impending fall of the ayatollah regime. It doesn’t matter if the videos are fake. They point to what we all know. It’s about bombing Iranians out of burqas and into butt-wiggling. Even if they are all super enthusiastic about that (which of course they aren’t), tomorrow the consequences of the butt-wiggling philosophy are going to hit, and then what? Who’s going to be responsible?

Look at how Russians feel about the implantation of capitalism, which they embraced at first and weren’t bombed into. Look at how livid they now are about it. In Iran, we are messing with something much deeper.

I’m not seeing many reasons to be happy about any of it, to be honest.

Replacing Spain

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

These olive groves have been there since before Jesus.

You all know how I feel about Spain. This is a punch in the gut.

Disappointed with the Union

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

I’m mega disappointed in our union. Not only did they fail to provide any help when the administration tried to close our department, they are now spreading rumors that we have, indeed, been closed. They even published it in their newsletter and are refusing to retract. Many people ended up believing it and stopped inviting us to events.

They also refused to help when the university messed up my paycheck. And they are refusing to help faculty members whose vacation isn’t accruing correctly.

An Empty School

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In other words, 884 families had to pay private school tuition because that’s the only way to avoid these 28 students.

These 28 kids are costing both the state and the public a lot, and there’s no result to show for it.

Stolen Laughter

~ Clarissa ~ 3 Comments

I herded the church kids into the art room so they could play together. Twenty minutes later, I discovered them staring in complete silence at their phones.

The only kid without a phone was mine. She was drawing a picture of her cat surrounded by cat toys, colorful blankets, and bowls.

This is a new thing, by the way. I vividly remember kids playing and running around in the art room. It’s like in that fairy tale where an evil magician stole the children’s laughter.

The Iran War

~ Clarissa ~ 35 Comments

OK, I’m back from the mini-vacation, so let’s look at what’s been happening in Iran.

It’s already clear that two things we were told are untrue. Iran wasn’t dangerous to the US. It couldn’t retaliate beyond Bahrain, so it clearly has nothing bigger than that.

The second untruth is that citizens of Iran wanted a regime change. When Ukrainians wanted a regime change in 2013, there were millions in the streets in bitter winter cold. Iran has twice the population but there’s no evidence that citizens are mobilizing to remove the hated ayatollahs. I have seen no evidence that Iranians don’t love the ayatollahs. Whether they do or don’t shouldn’t be a concern of ours but such emphasis has been made on the point that I want to mention it.

In short, we don’t know what is really happening and what the play actually is. Tons of propaganda are being released by both pro- and anti-war sides. In both cases, the propaganda is clumsy and shows a definite lack of trying. This happens because we are so eager to believe whatever is convenient these days that we end up with the most primitive propagandists. We simply don’t merit too much of an effort.

Book Notes: You Will Eat Flowers by Lucía Solla Sobral

~ Clarissa ~ 10 Comments

If an incel groyper woman-hater decided to write a novel on how feminist theory turns women into crapbuckets of entitlement he couldn’t have provided a more humiliating portrayal of modern womanhood than a young feminist writer from Spain Lucía Solla Sobral. Her novel Comerás flores is a big bestseller among crowds of young female readers who praise the book for its “stunning and brave” depiction of how all men deserve to be #MeTooted into infinity.

Marina, the main character of the novel, is a 25-year-old woman who shares the greatest hope of most female characters in Spanish literature since the death of Franco which is to attach herself to a man who will treat her forever like a cute, endearing toddler. Marina wants a boyfriend who will provide her with designer clothes, a chic apartment, expensive vacations, fancy restaurant outings and who will respect her as an independent career woman even though she is utterly helpless and makes no money.

Young men who can offer a luxury lifestyle are thin on the ground in Spain, and Marina attaches herself to Jaime, a successful businessman and a single father of an adult daughter. At first, Jaime seems moderately enthusiastic about babying Marina but eventually she realizes that he’s abusing her. For example, he asks her to share the gigantic closet in his luxurious apartment with his adult daughter. That’s abuse, isn’t it? Jaime doesn’t remember Marina’s food fads and is not mega happy about her getting sloppy drunk with friends at 4 am and whoring around with other guys. He buys her an expensive bag from the designer she doesn’t like instead of guessing which designer she does like. Such an abusive prick! After 3 years together during which Jaime pays for everything and somehow manages to be supportive of Marina’s pretense at being a career woman, he expects marriage and family. This is the form of abuse that really tips over the scale.

Marina is shocked that years of reading Judith Butler and doing “feminist activism” didn’t prepare her to recognize such egregiously chauvinistic behavior. She finds courage to reclaim her independence while #MeTooting poor Jaime. As I’ve been saying since back in my doctoral dissertation, the main goal of women’s liberation for female characters in contemporary Spanish fiction is to be liberated from the need to grow up. Lucía Solla Sobral and her readers have once again proven me right.

Live in a Cell

~ Clarissa ~ 1 Comment

That’s what I’m saying. You have to provide your own cell. Either move the disciplining agency inside of yourself or be eaten alive by self-indulgence.

Sind Sie sich sicher?

~ Clarissa ~ 5 Comments

Love German but the pronunciation is murdering me. Have you ever tried to pronounce this, for example?

The cat stares at me like I’m nuts when I start the “zee zee zee zee”.

Liberators of Potential

~ Clarissa ~ 5 Comments

I can experience great tolerance for all kinds of people. But these cheerful morons drive me up a wall:

I hated then when I was on the left and that feeling remains unchanged now that I’m on the right.

No matter how many deaths of despair the destruction of work brings, there’s always some bright-eyed bimbo prattling excitedly about “liberating our true potential” by way of being excised from productive life.