This trip to Europe better be worth it, people, because it was an adventure of rare proportions to get into this airplane to London. The adventure included:

1. An unpleasant airline person at Lambert Airport refusing to let me board because “you will miss the connecting flight anyways.”

2. The need to phone customer assistance and the immediate autistic unraveling.

3. 5 flight delays.

4. A race across Chicago O’Hare with the grace of a wounded hippopotamus.

5. Getting to the plane right at that moment when the flight attendant starts to close the door.

In the end, however, a reward awaited me: I got one of those great seats on the long flight to London which is like Business Class without being Business Class. I was afraid I’d have to sit squeezed between strangers but, I sit in the aisle and the seat next to me is empty. So I don’t have to have strangers next to me at all. And the bathroom is very close.

I have V.S. Naipaul’s The Writer and the World with me, and what is more relaxing than Naipaul’ writing?

What makes Americans annoying. For another take on the same issue, read the discussion in my Magnitsky Bill thread. It’s good because you see both the annoying Americans and the ones who are as horrified with the annoying Messianic ones as I am. OK, I won’t promote my own blog here any more because that’s weird.

“For a writer, happiness is knowing that tomorrow you will write. Happiness does not follow automatically from writing, nor from a vague hope that you will write, which is too easily undermined by the equally vague worry that you will not. You must simply know that you will write and whatyou will write.”

In defense of uselessness.

A very insightful addition to my posts on narcissism. Highly recommended.

I never heard of positive parenting before but this is a beautiful post from a person who sounds like an amazing mother. Her little girl is very lucky to have her.

“When you feel “irritated”, “aggravated” and “disheartened” in your job and your only motivators are “economic gratification”, “potential income”, “commission obtained with placements”, or a “generous check from your client”, it sounds truly unfortunate. Who in their right mind would want to be part of a field that is reduced to something this shallow?”

“There are no pogroms, but if there were, it would be because the Jews deserved it!”

“Having Asperger’s or Autism can be hard. It can be painful. It can be downright depressing. When I was growing up, I didn’t know I was autistic. I just thought there was something wrong with me. That I wasn’t trying hard enough, and that if I just could do better and work harder, the other kids would like me and be nice to me. I thought that my parents would stop abusing me. I wished that I could be just like everybody else, and wished that things would be better. I wished that I could just be like everyone else.” I want to join this talented and passionate blogger in saying that it does get better. It really does. Ours is a uniqueness that comes at a price.

The sentence that marks the death of traditional American journalism. It’s just one sentence (it’s marked off in the middle of the post I link to). Read it and recognize that, even though I blog for free, I would never inflict something like that upon my readers.

How the modesty doctrine hurts men.

Anti-intellectualism at the Chronicle of Higher Ed. A very good post.

Why was Shylock named Shylock?

Does Simon Fraser University in Canada need a Men’s Center? An interesting article and very enlightening comments that follow it.

“Your right to worship as you see fit does not include the right to be kowtowed to, the right to make other people live by your rules, or even the right not to be offended. Put on your big-boy pants and deal with it.” Yes.

On sympathy for Obama. I’m not sure how much I agree with the following but it offers great food for thought: “I’m not saying that Obama didn’t make mistakes or that he shouldn’t have tried for more. In fact, there are areas where he basically has a free hand that he’s done terribly at — I’m appalled at the drone warfare and the “war on terror” claims of executive power, and they seem to have actively undermined the effort to bring relief to underwater mortgages. But it seems to me that the kind of counterfactuals that people are gaming out basically would’ve required either a constitutional convention or a radical reworking of what an American political party is — or a coup.” This is great blogger, people. I recommend.

A very funny short post about student writing.

And the post of the week: I’m leaving for Europe, so I can’t report in detail on the situation with student protests in Quebec. This blogger, however, is giving detailed updates on the situation. It seems like the student protests have achieved a limited victory. This is great news, people. I’m proud that the students of my province did not knuckle down under the pressure from the corrupt and unpopular government.