So do you remember how I was searching for self-soothing mechanisms? I now found one that really works*: translating fiction. I have been given a novel to translate from Russian, and it has been the most relaxing endeavor ever. The novel is a very pulpy thriller where FBI agents chase after zombies sent by a religious sect. I wouldn’t read something like this but translating it is fun. I open the novel, turn on Law & Order as background noise, and work on the translation. A couple of hours later, I feel as refreshed and rested as ever.

The problem is that this novel will end soon. And what will I do then? There aren’t that many texts that need to be translated between Russian and English. And I can’t just choose a text and translate it without an actual client who needs the translation because I will be tortured by guilt if I spend so much time doing something like this for fun and not for remuneration.

* In addition to the great suggestion to paint my nails for which I will be eternally grateful.

I wanted to comment on the following story because every piece I have read on it, in my opinion, really misses the point:

 This story about an elderly widow who was hit with a major tax burden because she was married to a woman and not a man is a sad read. The women were together for decades and made a series of great real estate buys, amassing quite a bit of wealth. Ms. Windsor (the surviving wife) cared for her partner for years through an illness, to which her wife eventually succumbed. Then, because of the Defense of Marriage Act, she was forced to pay enormous sums on her wife’s share of their assets — sums she would not have had to pay if she had been married to a man.

Let me begin by saying that I consider DOMA to be a disgrace and a vile piece of barbarity. I believe that equal rights need to be granted to gay people and that discriminating against anybody based on their sexual orientation is horrible and shameful.

However, I think that there is something else going on in this story that needs to be acknowledged. How come a couple who lives together in a loving, profound relationship and who didn’t go to the courthouse to put a signature on a piece of paper enjoys less rights than a couple who did? Why are there rights that are granted by putting signatures to a piece of paper rather than by entering into a certain kind of relationship?

There are countries that have chosen to acknowledge all couples equally. My sister and her partner live in Quebec. They have been together for over ten years and are raising a daughter. They haven’t had time to organize a wedding ceremony or even walk over to the courthouse just yet. But they have every single right enjoyed by the couples who did. They will organize a marriage ceremony when they feel like it. Or not. This will be a choice not based on any paperwork-related convenience but exclusively on when they choose to have a celebration.

I think it would be great if we all started moving towards this model. All couples within it would enjoy equal rights. Marriage, in the meanwhile, would have absolutely no legal or formalistic meaning. It will be nothing but a ceremony that some couples would choose to undergo because it entertains them. Of course, people in really shitty relationships who need to exclude large groups of people from having access to the same rights in order to feel like their bad marriages mean anything at all will be against this.

A very personal post from a member of the Sandwich Generation.

“The doctor concluded that I am one of those rare cases where a person’s blood pressure rises for no apparent reason. I don’t totally buy that—there is no effect without a cause—but we have ruled out every potential cause known to the medical community at this particular moment.” As I said before, unless you address the real cause of high blood pressure, which is repressed aggression, everything else you do to bring it down will just be cosmetic. Thank God, the very first doctor I consulted on my high BP was not a quack. He immediately suggested I start blogging to release some of my pent-up anger.

“And I personally don’t find Obama’s domestic policies very enlightened, even if he could get more of them implemented. For example, why doesn’t he champion public education? Could it be because he never went to public school?  I think it matters that he was educated to be a member of the elite. He shares the views of people who attended private schools and the Ivy League universities.” I agree with this blogger’s opinion on Obama but I want to point out that I also went to and Ivy and then taught at another Ivy. These experiences made me realize that public education is a lot more important than I could have ever imagined. We all choose what we do with our experiences, so I’m not ready to let Obama slide on this one just because “he was educated to be a member of the elite.” It was his decision what to do with his education.

Children should not be used as billboards for political ideas.

“What I was taught growing up in the anti-abortion movement, that every woman instantly bonds with her fetus as a mother to a child, is incorrect. The idea that every woman can’t help but mourn a lost child after an abortion or a miscarriage is simply wrong. Some may, but not all do. For some women, in contrast, the fetus remains a potential child all the way up until birth. Indeed, even now, as I approach that point, I still see my fetus that way.”

An interesting insight into the Canadian healthcare system.

If you are a fan of Paul Fussell, read this. I remember how eye-opening his work was to me many years ago. What a great scholar!

Canada, sometimes you suck something fierce: “Lyndon Dorval, a high school physics teacher in Edmonton who has been suspended for giving students zeroes on missed assignments/tests. (He actually does give them a chance to make up the work, but he enters a grade of zero until the assignment or test is completed.) This contravenes his school’s “no zero” policy, where teachers are expected to give students interim grades based on averages of any work students have turned in (i.e., not include any assignments the students have failed to do), and then pursue the students to turn in incomplete work by the end of the semester OR “find alternate ways…to show they know the material.” I don’t know what I would do to anybody who’d suggest I can’t give zeros for assignments that were never even handed in. Idiots.

When college graduates have to move back in with their parents, it’s not a cute new phenomenon. It’s a tragedy, you stupid jerkwad from the Washington Post. Believe somebody who comes from a culture where parents and adult children lived together as a norm.

This is the only kind of ice-cream that I like. Can anybody explain to me why I can’t find it anywhere in the US? I found something like it but it came in a big tub. It’s not the real thing, though, until it looks just like on the picture I linked to.

“There are certain issues where there is no middle ground: either the Biblical version of God exists or He doesn’t; either abortion is murder, or it’s not: either I am a person deserving the full range of Human Rights or I am not. You can whine all you like about my “black and white mentality,” but you know what? At least I’m not seeing the world in a single uniform, mushy shade of grey.” EXACTLY! I’ve been accused of “black and white mentality” too many times by people who are simply too stupid or to chicken to voice any opinion at all.

If you are past 40, play this fascinating game. I promise I’ll do it in 4 years.

“If psychiatrists’ inability to agree among themselves on a diagnosis threatened to make them a laughing stock in the 1970s, the relabelling of a host of ordinary life events as psychiatric pathology now seems to promise more of the same. Social anxiety disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, school phobia, narcissistic and borderline personality disorders are apparently now to be joined by such things as pathological gambling, binge eating disorder, hypersexuality disorder, temper dysregulation disorder, mixed anxiety depressive disorder, minor neurocognitive disorder, and attenuated psychotic symptoms syndrome. Yet we are almost as far removed as ever from understanding the etiological roots of major psychiatric disorders, let alone these more controversial diagnoses (which many people would argue do not belong in the medical arena in the first place).”

 I was extremely hopeful for the student protests in Quebec which makes it very hard for me to accept that the protests have degenerated to the point where they can provoke nothing but annoyance. The protesters forgot that the only kind of political activism that has any hope of being successful is the one that can maintain the same very concrete, very practical demands over a sustained period of time. Protesting “against injustice” and “for world peace” is a waste of time because these are not the goals you can reach by marching and chanting.

Now the protesters seem to have abandoned the very important issue of the proposed unfair tuition hikes. The protests in Montreal this weekend have been aimed against the Grand Prix. Yes, you heard right. Somehow we have gotten from tuition hikes to the Grand Prix.

Crowds of undressed people march in downtown Montreal harassing peaceful citizens and tourists with the unseemly sight of their ugly naked bodies because they have something against the Grand Prix race. Once again, the protesters have not chosen to disturb the governmental buildings. They are targeting regular folks instead:

The Grand Prix race usually attracts 300,000 people to Montreal. CLAC, an anti-capitalist group, has promised that over the weekend it will repeatedly target Crescent Street, which is traditionally the most active bar and restaurant strip during race week.

“Nightly protests will disrupt this crass elite at play in [the west part of] downtown every night,” the CLAC group said on its website.

Marc-André Cyr, a historian of social movements and columnist for Montreal’s Voir weekly, said CLAC’s targeting of the Grand Prix is part of its campaign to disturb society’s wealthy classes.

Anybody who lived in Montreal for any amount of time understands how stupid the plan to target “the wealthy classes” on Crescent Street is. I lived around the corner from Crescent for years and I can tell you that there aren’t any wealthy classes there. All of the buildings in that area are occupied by cheap apartments rented by the students of nearby universities (I was one of those students) and bars. The only people with at least some money who go there are tourists. Who obviously cannot be blamed for any of Quebec’s problems.

I still remember going out to Crescent on weekends when I was a student at McGill University. I only wish I knew back then that visiting the bars on Crescent with $10 in my pocket and not a dime more to my name in the entire world made me a member of a “crass elite.”

Mind you, we have some pretty wealthy areas in Montreal. For some reason, however, the protesters are not heading there. Might that be because there aren’t any streets filled with bars there? One has got to wonder.

On Sunday, the protesters are planning to disrupt the subway system in Montreal. Because, apparently, all those filthy rich people take the metro to go on their crassly elitist jaunts.

This was such a wonderful opportunity for the people of Quebec to make an actual political statement and achieve something important. This was the perfect chance to say to the government, “We pay the taxes and you will do what we say.” Instead, this has all degenerated into a series stupid tantrums by a bunch of stupid idiots who are searching for wealthy classes in the subway. What a shame.

A famous Russian poet once asked literary critic D., “Do you really like A.’s novel? Why did you write such a glowing review for such a horrible piece of writing?”

“No, I don’t really like it,” critic D. responded. “A friend asked me to do this as a favor to him.”

“Oh, thank God!” the poet exclaimed. “It’s such a relief to know that this was simply an act of dishonesty and corruption! I was afraid you actually liked the novel.”

I now think that Bloomberg’s crusade against extra-large soda receptacles is nothing but a ploy he used to get himself talked about everywhere. And the ploy succeeded.

This is actually a relief. I’d rather people did such things for self-promotional purposes. There is nothing scarier than an earnest do-gooder who thinks it is up to him to improve people even though they never asked to be improved.

If you ever encounter this product in a store, don’t buy it. It isn’t real caviar. It’s some nasty fake thing filled with artificial coloring and all kinds of vile chemical stuff.

Go to your neighborhood Russian store for real caviar.

I’d never been to a golf club store before. The golf clubs look so pretty! If there was ever one sport that I might be interested in practicing, it’s golf. We have two huge golf courses right where we live, too.

I’m still trying to figure out how the capitalist economy works, so please excuse my ignorance. Hopefully, my readers will help me out.

As we all know, there is nowhere one could invest right now because interest rates are non-existent.

Now, the way this was explained to me yesterday is that interest rates are being kept so low on purpose in order artificially to restart the economy. The idea supposedly is that if people have nowhere to invest, they will spend all they have, consume more, and that will restart this economy.

This sounds like a very Soviet idea (central planning and all that). Is this what’s really happening or was the person who told me this misinformed?

The whole thing sounds horribly unfair and wrong.

I got it here.

How many of these cities have you been to? Bold or underline them and pass it on.

1 San Pedro Sula Honduras 1.143 719.447 158.87
2 Juárez Mexico 1.974 1,335,890 147.77
3 Maceió Brazil 1.564 1,156,278 135.26
4 Acapulco Mexico 1.029 804.412 127.92
5 Central District Honduras 1.123 1,126,534 99.69
6 Caracas Venezuela 3.164 3,205,463 98.71
7 Torreón (metropolitan) Mexico 990 1,128,152 87.75
8 Chihuahua Mexico 690 831.693 82.96
9 Durango Mexico 474 593.389 79.88
10 Belém Brazil 1.639 2,100,319 78.04
11 Cali Colombia 1.720 2,207,994 77.90
12 Guatemala Guatemala 2.248 3,014,060 74.58
13 Culiacán Mexico 649 871.620 74.46
14 Medellín Colombia 1.624 2,309,446 70.32
15 Mazatlán Mexico 307 445.343 68.94
16 Tepic (metropolitan area) Mexico 299 439.362 68.05
17 Vitória Brazil 1.143 1,685,384 67.82
18 Veracruz Mexico 418 697.414 59.94
19 Ciudad Guayana Venezuela 554 940.477 58.91
20 San Salvador El Salvador 1.343 2,290,790 58.63
21 New Orleans United States 199 343.829 57.88
22 Salvador (and RMS) Brazil 2.037 3,574,804 56.98
23 Cucuta Colombia 335 597.385 56.08
24 Barquisimeto Venezuela 621 1,120,718 55.41
25 San Juan Puerto Rico 225 427.789 52.60
26 Manaus Brazil 1.079 2,106,866 51.21
27 São Luís Brazil 516 1,014,837 50.85
28 Nuevo Laredo Mexico 191 389.674 49.02
29 João Pessoa Brazil 583 1,198,675 48.64
30 Detroit United States 346 713.777 48.47
31 Cuiabá Brazil 403 834.060 48.32
32 Recife Brazil 1.793 3,717,640 48.23
33 Kingston (metropolitan) Jamaica 550 1,169,808 47.02
34 Cape Town South Africa 1.614 3,497,097 46.15
35 Pereira Colombia 177 383.623 46.14
36 Macapá Brazil 225 499.116 45.08
37 Fortaleza Brazil 1.514 3,529,138 42.90
38 Monterrey (metropolitan area) Mexico 1.680 4,160,339 40.38
39 Curitiba Brazil 720 1,890,272 38.09
40 Goiânia Brazil 484 1,302,001 37.17
41 Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality (Port Elizabeth) South Africa 381 1,050,930 36.25
42 Barranquilla Colombia 424 1,182,493 35.86
43 St. Louis United States 113 319.294 35.39
44 Mosul Iraq 636 1,800,000 35.33
45 Belo Horizonte Brazil 1.680 4,883,721 34.40
46 Panama Panama 543 1,713,070 31.70
47 Cuernavaca (metropolitan area) Mexico 198 630.174 31.42
48 Baltimore United States 195 620.961 31.40
49 Durban South Africa 1.059 3,468,087 30.54
50 City of Johannesburg South Africa 1.186 3,888,180 30.50

The absolute majority of my students would improve their grades dramatically and benefit a lot more from their studies if only they acquired the habit of looking up the words they don’t know in a dictionary. If they at least consulted a dictionary to understand the titles of the texts we read, that already would be hugely helpful.

Parents, do your children a huge favor. Whenever you are watching the TV or a movie and hear a complicated word, tell your child, “Do you know what this word means? Let’s look it up in the dictionary!” Make consulting a  dictionary a regular practice, a part of your kid’s intellectual hygiene. You teach children to brush their teeth and change their underwear, right? So teach them that a dictionary is also a regular part of a human being’s life, just like a tooth-brush.

The world belongs to people with good vocabularies. And the sooner you start building yours up, the better.