I would ask him the name of his gay boyfriend, especially if he used the expression “pixie cut.”
On a serious note, a marriage that experiences a crisis over hair has much more serious problems than hairstyles. Within a marriage, hair will undergo all sorts of transformations as a result of pregnancy, childbirth, aging, genes, illness, treatments of illness, etc. Married love is way, way beyond all of that, or what is even the point?
My mother has taken a turn for the worse. The doctors are saying she’s in the final stretch, and I’m trying to get from Madrid to Montreal to see her while she’s still with us.
I got up at 5:30 am to take a bus from Salamanca to Madrid. Boarded the flight to Dallas. After an hour and a half on the runway, we were told that the airplane is broken and we have to get out. We got out, got booked for another flight, and started boarding. It got canceled too. After a 3-hour line for customer support, the passenger is underfed the entire time, but we’re told that the airline can’t do anything for us and we’re on our own.
I had to buy a new airplane ticket from a different airline for tomorrow. After that, my executive function abandoned me. I knew I had to find a hotel, but I was exhausted and in a tenuous emotional state and started blanking completely. This is when the AI agent came to the rescue. It booked a hotel in the vicinity of the airport, told me what to say to the cab driver, and booked me a shuttle to the airport for tomorrow morning.
You guys should have seen the adventure of trying to find my hotel room after check-in. I had the room key and the room number, but I was blanking completely. Nothing with my mother is ever easy, and I hate to say this about a dying person, but it’s a fact.
If I finally do manage to get to New York tomorrow, I will have to stay at another hotel and then go to Montreal the day after. Lord have mercy, this is turning out to be a nasty itchy scratchy buttock of a trip. But at least my AI agent came through.
Comments:
Pedro MartĆ is 38. This Spanish author built his career slowly but steadily. He started by self-publishing, managed to get a small publisher interested, and finally attracted the attention of the gigantic Destino. His police procedural La mala hija came out in April of 2025 andĀ has already undergone 15 printings.
It’s a very solid mystery novel. It is also openly and insistently pro-life. I don’t want to offer any spoilers but the novel describes in a very powerful way the strength and the dignity of two young women, pressured by others to abort in the most desperate circumstances but staying strong and defending their motherhood.
La mala hija makes the case that every child deserves to be born. A disabled child, a child rejected by his father before birth, a child of a teenage mother, a child of incest, a child of rape. It’s very intelligently done because you don’t figure out what the author is doing until you are deep into the novel and eager to find out the solution to the mystery.
I am fascinated by the success of La mala hija because it demonstrates an important change in mood among the readership. Yes, the author is male. But who do you think bought those 15 printings? It’s the kind of books that are read almost exclusively by women. Spain has exceptionally low fertility rates, and anything that moves the needle towards more babies being born is great.
La mala hija will probably be translated into English. I’ll let everybody know when that happens. There are already translations into Italian, Polish, and French. If you like the police procedural genre, it’s an excellent read.
Excellent news! Spain’s Pedro SĆ”nchez called a snap election after the collapse of his outlandish housing initiatives.
Spaniards will get a chance to get rid of leftist losers on November 29. To achieve this, center right and regular right will have to get over themselves already and form a coalition.
Every day I ban Twitter slop accounts based in Africa and Asia. Their posts get into my feed due to their enormous popularity. I’d say about 90% of these slop account posts are of the gender-wars variety. Their goal is to get Western men and women to hate each other.
The strategy is working as evidenced by comments to each such post.
I have no idea who’s behind this. Somebody is clearly paying this army of bots. It’s not like hundreds of random Africans and South Asians simultaneously started pretending to be Western gender warriors as a coincidence.
Salamanca has not yet been culturally enriched by migration policy. I had a dramatically different experience than in Madrid days earlier. I walked around after dark, on empty streets, completely comfortable. Nobody threatened me. I didn’t see any public nudity or any primal scenes. I did not have to witness the sadness of people dragged halfway across the world to be lonely, displaced and lost.
It slaughters me that lefties think they are doing Africans a kindness by dragging them over to the economy of mass unemployment in a culturally alien world. They never cared to look these people in the face. They are incapable of noticing their sadness.
Men always help women lift suitcases into the bus undercarriage or an airplane overhead compartment. Never in my life have I seen men in the countries where I travel remain indifferent to women struggling with suitcases.
Unfortunately, there are always women who act like an offer of help is an insult. They prefer to struggle with the suitcase instead of accepting assistance from a man. On a recent flight, I observed a young woman drop a suitcase on her own head and that of an innocent passenger twice because she didn’t have the upper body strength to hoist it into the overhead. Two very nice men were trying to offer help but she kept defending the suitcase from them like a somewhat feeble lioness.
This morning I was boarding a bus in Salamanca. I didn’t even try to lift my suitcase. I stood there and expected my due in the form of male assistance. A very polite gentleman immediately offered it. I gave him my sweetest smile in return. Everybody rested easily in the knowledge that the world was functioning as it should.
Right next to me, though, a younger woman of a sparrow-type physique kept trying and failing to get her suitcase into the undercarriage, detaining the whole queue but reacting aggressively to offers of help.
I know that it dates me enormously but I’m still shocked by the rise of the branch of feminism that pretends physical differences betweenen and women do not exist. The whole point of feminism was to make life more comfortable for the female physiology. That achievement level was unlocked. We can now enjoy. Instead, these stupid creatures are spoiling the gig for all of us. The new generation of men will be afraid to offer help because of these factory-defective garden gnomes.
How is it remotely feminist to deny one’s womanhood? If a man is the aspirational goal and you will eagerly drop suitcases onto every available body part to prove it, how is this pro-woman? If we have to compete with men in upper body strength, we are cooked. Why even try?
I came across this processional as I was walking around Salamanca today. It is bringing the Blessed Sacrament, and, for those who are unfamiliar with Catholic processions, there are people under the altar who slowly walk it where it needs to go.
The feet of the cargadores (I’m not sure what to call them in English. Carriers sounds weird) are those of very young people. This is very good.
Viktor Suvorovās book The Aquarium describes psychological tests administered to military intelligence candidates during the selection process. They were subjected to grueling physical tests, forced to sleep with the lights on for days at a time, and would be abruptly woken up to answer questions.
The candidates who’d get selected would be those who answered around 80% of the questions correctly. Those who answered 90%+ correctly were rejected. They were too intelligent and independent. Their capacity to forget their preferences and follow orders was low.
Today I woke up to sounds of intense grunting outside my window in Salamanca. I’m living smack dab in the middle of the old city center, so as sounds go, I’ve heard everything in the past few days. The grunting was accompanied by regular bursts of applause and cheer.
It took me a while to scrape myself off the bed and go look outside.
I discovered that a marathon was taking place under my window. The runners were grunting, and the spectators were clapping and cheering them on.
In the photos, you can see the views from my window here in Salamanca. I didn’t take pictures of the marathon because that would be creepy.
A conservative literary critic and college professor
FWIW, he always warns me when he is about to shave his beard (employer forces it periodically), and I also…
My husband is face-blind. I would never radically change my hair without consulting him first. He might mistake me for…
LOL, when we were young, I came home from the NWT with a beard(protection from biting flies) and smelling strongly…
African countries are mostly conservative, so I suppose they would be a good place to recruit gender warriors. https://www.mambaonline.com/2026/10/03/theyre-saying-we-are-gays-sa-influencer-claims-zanzibar-refused-him-entry/
The story is probably true. One of the big trends is that after Afrikaners lost political power they doubled down…
Yes, Western Europe slowly developed such societies, and we are truly fortunate enough to have inherited high trust areas in…
SA had nukes. De Klerk had them all destroyed before conceding power.
During apartheid you could dodge the draft if you qualified for college. For middle classes even the war in Angola…
I’ve had my hair long and I’ve had it short, and my husband has never expressed a preference for one…
One thing visitors comment about SA is how happy people are. Yes, we have a lot of problems, but that’s…
We already have a national coalition in SA. The ANC is now mostly a rural party and seems to be…
“They have something illegal in the suitcase” If you’re going to be running drug mules, by all means choose people…
It’s really all simpler than that, btw. X is paying them. https://help.x.com/en/using-x/original-content-rewards. These used to be reposting meme posts but…
open your eyes. They have something illegal in the suitcase
Thank you!! On the way here, my flight was also canceled. Iberia has really gone down. I used to love…
Thank you so much, these are travails indeed.
I will never forget how my car once stopped in the middle of the road, and six strange men stopped…
“Do you like my beard?” “Yes, dear.” “What if I cut it off?” “I think I like the beard better,…
We are lucky to live in the West where this kind of chivalry is still a thing. I occasionally travel…
I am so sorry to hear about your travails ā hope everything works out and you have a smooth trip…
Sorry to hear this, hang in there Kid.
I am sorry to hear that. I hope your new flights will work and you make it to Montreal in…
Thank you, my friend!
I hope it works out!
“…the rise of the branch of feminism that pretends physical differences between and women do not exist.” Well KId, yes…
It’s better than waiting years for an election. If Spaniards squander this historic opportunity, then they deserve whatever is coming…
I wish I could be as enthusiastic about this as you are. Unfortunately, I understand that many people vote with…
Wow, I had no idea this was part of the grift. It makes sense because these bot posts all have…
Somebody is clearly paying this army of bots. Yes. Data Republican has been digging into and publishing the NGO-Academic-goverment complex…
I have heard the same thing about police recruiting in the US. Don’t know if it’s true.
I’m so glad that you know this author. He’s wonderful. Back in the day, when I first read him, his…
Absolutely right. When I was in the Marines I had a top secret clearance so I was approached by and…
This is a fun article about kitsch statuary found on the French eBay: For Sale, France, Barely Used – by…
“Iām stuck in endless trainings on how to help them figure it out.” LOL Kid, good luck with that. Men…
You can never recapture the beauty and artistry of the ancestors of Western Civilization. The architecture, the art, and the…
At least I didn’t have to get surgery for this condition. šš
Oh, my dear friend. Have you heard about the Cornell 7? Do you know what it means for me? I’m…
Nah it’d be the same if they met at the library. The tell is that, unprompted, she’s saying that they…
“I was always a conservative on the inside” very transpolitical of you š
It froze on me Iām most impressed by her neck. -A.
