I’m in the bedroom, quietly reading a book before falling asleep. Only a small bedside lamp is on.
Suddenly, the TV turns on and lights up with a picture of Russian flags. Somebody is screeching loudly about Putin. I almost start having a heart attack when N comes in and explains that he was watching a report on “elections” in Russia on his phone when it somehow connected to my TV.
My friends, I want to access your collective store of cultural competence as Americans. As you know, my daughter goes to a private school. This means we pay for her schooling. Today I received the following email from the school. I perceive it as outrageous and insulting, but I’m open to accepting that I’m wrong if people tell me that this is culturally appropriate. Here is the relevant portion of the email:
For the ’26-’27 school year we are requiring 10 hours of volunteering/service hours for each family.
a) Engage with staff, administration and PTL to learn about potential volunteering/service opportunities.
b) Hours will be entered and tracked in FACTS
c) Outstanding hours remaining at year end are subject to a fee of $25 per hour.
d) Log into FACTS, go to ‘Family Home’ and you’ll see in the middle ‘Service Hours’. Click ‘Add’ and you’ll be able to enter your hours. Be sure to mention what activity you served/volunteered for in the ‘Description’ section and who at [our school] can vouch for your service/volunteering in the verified by section. Then click Save.
Am I the asshole for thinking this is nuts and probably illegal?
Also, is it okay for people to whom I pay money for a completely optional service to address me in this tone? All of this has deeply Soviet vibes to me.
Writing is very difficult. Every day I have to drag myself to the desk, almost by the hair. Once I start, I almost always enjoy it. But starting to write, twisting the brain in the direction of writing is torture.
I’m saying this to reassure people who struggle with writing. Nothing is wrong with you. You’re not lazy or procrastinating. Writing is genuinely very painful. Chirbes was mega talented, and still he climbed the walls every time he had to write because it was so painful. If it was hard for him, why should it be any easier for me or you?
Jeremy Boreing published an excellent video about how everything in the third world is a struggle for power. The smallest daily interaction is a way to assert or lose dominance. One example is haggling, which is something I deeply despise. People in such countries become greatly upset if you refuse to haggle. Getting money in exchange for a product to them is secondary to experiencing a sense of dominance over the customer.
Every time human beings come into contact in such countries, it all becomes about which one is the winner and which one is the loser. In the West, this dimension of life was completely removed. Everything in our lives is set up in such a way as to make these power struggles impossible. Our status is not decided in every interaction. As a result, our energy is liberated for creative pursuits. The material wealth of the West is a direct consequence of people’s energy not being frittered away in minute-by-minute status warfare with others. Status in our societies is confirmed by systems, structures, and institutions. When that fails, as in the case of Jason Arday (RIP), we’re outraged.
As a result, we live in societies where people go out of their way to be kind and sweet to each other, while in third-world countries, which can be Christian (so it’s not a religious difference), they are constantly at each other’s throats.
Comments:
JD Vance wants to end the US dollar’s position as a global reserve currency, because he thinks it allows Americans to consume too much and do so too cheaply.
This means he openly supports turning the United States into a third-world country, destroying the current standard of living, eviscerating the middle class, and removing America’s global power.
On a positive side, this will solve the immigration problem because nobody will want to come here. On the negative side is everything else.
The guy is a pinko commie anti-Americanist. Not because he sincerely believes any of the pinko commie stuff, but because he’s being manipulated by malignant forces that want America to join the third world. Of course, he’s still a million times better than any Democrat candidate because they’re all this and much, much worse, but he’s not the best that the Republicans have to offer.
“It is better if the Ukrainians lose the war quickly,” — former UK PM Johnson revealed the details of a conversation with a senior official of German Chancellor’s office before the full-scale invasion.
According to Johnson, this episode is a symptom of the general erroneous strategy of Berlin and Paris after Crimea and before the full-scale invasion.
Of course, these people are eagerly destroying their own nation-states. Why would it even occur to them that anybody else would be willing to suffer and die to defend theirs?
A national sentiment is something that the highest income categories do not need. To the contrary, it frustrates them. It gets in the way of their making even more money by dragging people here and there at will and eviscerating the national welfare apparatus in this way.
What’s harder to understand are middle-income people in educated classes who painfully need the nation state in order to remain in their income category and not slide down precipitously. They assist in dismantling the nation-state because it makes them feel more refined and worldly than they are. They trade comfort, stability, and security for an illusion of this imaginary worldliness.
I have a colleague who’s extremely left-wing. She has dedicated much of her career to teaching that national borders are arbitrary and should be abolished. Her son graduated in 2024 from a very respectable college with a degree in computer sciences. He hasn’t been able to find a job. His mother is shocked and devastated, yet has drawn no conclusions from this regarding her position on the need to erase national borders.
When a child goes to a sleepover, the parents have a chance to find out if they still have anything in common or even like each other. It’s like meeting an old lover and finding out that you still like him.
I had eggs and sausage patties at a breakfast place in St. Louis today. $33 with a tip. It included pancakes, but I refused. Of course, I could have raised my own chickens and milked them or whatever. But this same breakfast in the same place cost $16 eight years ago. No amount of successful life management can change this fact of objective reality.
Screw everybody who claims that the cost of living did not increase dramatically.
People like the one in the above picture are my class enemies. He’s responding to a comment by a student who said that takeout burritos are expensive. A student who definitely doesn’t have a wife, let alone a wife who can dedicate time and effort to grinding her own grain for Pitt’s sake. The cluelessness is staggering. The same breakfast, at the same place, doubled in price. What, in the name of everything holy, does that have to do with anybody’s grain-grinding wife?
It should be possible to discuss things without bringing everything into the realm of individual virtue.
I’m surrounded by extremely innocent people. A faculty member was caught watching pornography on his office computer. When I tell this to people, they don’t react. So I have to explain. Nobody wattches pornography for the plot, you know? It’s not the watching that is the purpose. It’s usually accompanied by an action, you know? “Watching porn” is a way of speaking, you know?
My interlocutors look at me in confusion. “But what do you mean? What do you think he was doing?”
Yes, it’s a mystery.
The first time I worked a full-time job was in the summer when I was fifteen. My dad found me a job in the office of one of his clients. I wasn’t allowed to keep any of the money I made, but I loved it. The business owner was this big, gruff dude who was so eager to have a business of his own (and remember, this was very early post-Soviet times) that he learned to speak fluent Italian in order to be able to communicate with his customers.
It felt cool to have a job, to dress up every day and go sit there in front of a computer. I loved the experience. This is why I don’t understand parents who don’t allow their teenage children to work. I already know several such cases, all boys between ages 16 and 18. This is so strange to me. In the cases I know, this is not an issue of not having transportation. Rather, it’s an issue of mom saying that she’d rather her little treasure have a childhood instead of having to go out to work.
My 16-year-old niece worked a full-time job this summer. She loved it. It was a wonderful experience. It made her feel more grown, organized, and proud of her growing competence. She doesn’t have a car, so it was public transportation on a long journey there and back. Still, she loved it. Isn’t that the normal thing?
I sincerely don’t get it.
A conservative literary critic and college professor
” haggling, which is something I deeply despise” There are shades of these things… yeah, in very poor countries it can…
“if you gave that kid a bad grade for poor work, parents thought (rightly) that they had leverage over you”…
“I will have to re-teach everything that they are supposed to be teaching” “the school dramatically overestimates its importance” If…
” the message is delivered in an extremely rude and condescending way” What kind of phrasing would you find acceptable?
Everybody is closed on federal holidays. Why would the school be open when the university is closed? These volunteer opportunities…
Now imagine the families with 4, 5 and 8 children. These are Klara’s best friends. But it’s not even the…
\\ Engage with staff, administration and PTL to learn about potential volunteering/service opportunities. Nobody says it will be during weekend.…
\\ But what do you do with the children on weekends? Wait, if one is not a single parent, another…
\\ But what do you do with the children on weekends? Take them with you. If a parent presents it…
But what do you do with the children on weekends? They are not in school, meaning that parents are with…
Many schools do this but make it clear at registration that it is expected, they don’t spring it on families…
Not at this school. These are overwhelmingly modest families. My kid’s beat friend is one of 8 children in a…
This was sprung on us two days before the start of the school year. Nobody mentioned it before. It’s a…
This ends up punishing people with jobs. Who can hang out at the school, doing this sort of thing during…
I don’t mind asking, but that’s not what’s happening here. This is a requirement that entails offering proof and suffering…
The Christian school my eldest daughter went to required parents to put in a certain number of unpaid hours (I…
-the only problem I see here is that they have a “pay to get out of service” option: there are…
The best private school in my hometown (I know parents who’ve sent their kids there) runs this way. It’s part…
I don’t know if this requirement is illegal, since it’s a private school that nobody is compelled to send their…
it’s completely standard for private schools to ask parents for some degree of participation. But you should have been made…
It is ridiculous but this is normal for private schools. My son’s school does this too.
I agree, and similarly to academic lurker’s comment yesterday here I wish someone had commiserated with the mother and asked…
She should be grateful she was permitted air conditioning at all. In the Uk they are rolling out smart meters,…
It would be nice if Rubio supporters could find arguments for him that don’t center around foreign policy. Obviously foreign…
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2088664633171157137?s=20 Like I said, nothing but sound bites.
They also severely down play how down right painful this would be. As usual, Republicans don’t have any genuine good…
“Her son graduated in 2024 from a very respectable college with a degree in computer sciences. He hasn’t been able…
Anyway как бы was possible in early 80ies though not so common as it occured later. (I remember we were…
I mean, Berry’s a Babylon Bee guy, so yes, the whole exchange is supposed to be sarcastic. Seeing as Matt…
I think it’s very likely the Joel guy is being sarcastic. I don’t have an X account, so what I…
Or he’s tested the thing thorougly with the stupid burrito wars, and found that guilt-tripping people who notice food price…
This guy either doesn’t feed his kids enough or he’s lying for the sake of winning internet fights (hopefully the…
Going by historical examples. President Eisenhower used US military personnel to round up and expel illegals during his presidency. So…
Norway might be, but and this is not a definitive they are not, its a based off the pattern across…
Even assuming that it would work – and I am not sure it would – who would do the bayonet…
If he’s with his mother all the time I agree it’s unhealthy. (The anecdote suggests this is not the case,…
Okay, I was suggesting that Norway might be the rare example of a Western nation trying to live within their…
W tried to reply, but it was not accepted?!?
Then they need to include the cost of the donkeys, their feed and housing, fencing, and vet bills. If that’s…
They probably have a donkey or two turning it.
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