It is incredible that in year 2013 one can still write in a book aimed at bringing the knowledge about Spain’s recent history to a general audience that, in comparison with the rest of Europe, “Spain still feels different.” Then the book makes a clumsy attempt to blame the difference on Muslims.

The book is called Franco’s Crypt and is getting rave reviews in the press. I have no idea if it’s good because I’m still stuck on page 3 with the “Spain is different” argument

The endless Cuban embargo has achieved absolutely nothing positive for the US. To the contrary, it has been extremely useful for the defenders of the Communist model. Instead of letting the Cuban economy collapse under the weight of Marxist idiocy, the Americans have diverted the blame for the starvation of Cubans onto themselves. Now it’s impossible to convince anybody that the Cuban economic model is untenable because Cuban poverty is blamed on the embargo.

Within Cuba, the embargo is used as a very effective tool of dispelling the internal resentment with the regime. This strategy is partly responsible for the regime’s longevity.

This is yet another example of economic sanctions being completely counter-productive.

A reader wrote in to request a post on hikers. “Who are the true hikers and how do you know them?” this reader asks.

I find this question hard to answer because I’m not a hiker and I don’t think I’m destined to be one. I’m a walker.

So how do you know if what you do is walking on hiking? Here is a simple test:

a) If in order to engage in this activity you select a cute outfit, apply make-up, do your hair, choose a pretty handbag, and make sure your shoes compliment the outfit, you are a walker.

b) If the preceding statement sounds completely ridiculous, you are a hiker.

Netanyahu’s reaction to the astounding success of US-Iran negotiations demonstrates that his need to bomb Iran is not in any way linked to what Iran says or does. It isn’t really about Iran at all. If Iran didn’t exist, there would be somebody else.

Isn’t it cool, though, that in his second term Obama is finally fulfilling the promise of a more reasonable foreign policy? I feel a lot more hopeful for the region (and the world) now that Iranians have a chance to recover from the devastation of the sanctions.

After the creators of MOOCs have agreed that their invention has failed miserably to teach anything to anybody, I consider any discussion of “MOOCs are coming to eat our jobs” in my presence to be an act of direct sabotage and aggression against me.

In my first year as a college professor, I was constantly warned about those nasty people who’d try to steal my time for their useless service obligations and boring committees. Nothing even remotely similar has happened to me since, so I’m concluding that this is a non-existing danger. The real threat are people who can’t survive without a high degree of stress and generate it everywhere they go. Of course, such people all have a legacy of being victims of abuse but they turn into abusers themselves when they involve others in their efforts to create high-stress environments.

Learning to drive is exactly like learning a language. Right now I’m at the “I-hate-this-I-will-never-learn-why-can-I-never-do-anything-right-I-must-be-very-stupid-it’s-unbelievable-how-difficult-this-turned-out-to-be-here-I-go-missing-a-step-again-or-was-that-two-steps-am-I-doing-this-wrong-again-my-brain-is-boiling-I’m-too-old-to-begin-learning-this-somebody-make-this-stop” stage.

I have a new-found compassion for my students’ battle with the subjunctive. Maybe I should re-do the final exams to make them easier.

I walked into a small Russian store in St. Louis and saw the owner moving packages of buckwheat and jars of gooseberry preserve from one shelf to another.

“Whenever I have stuff that isn’t moving, I just put it on this shelf that says Featured This Week and people sweep it off the shelf like a hurricane,” he explained. “Even when both shelves have identical items, the Featured shelf empties in 1/10th of the time.”

You know what I hate? When people change everything around in a store where I frequently shop. I have the store’s layout arranged clearly and neatly in my head, and it’s very disorienting to find that it has been rearranged.

Today I discovered that, for some unfathomable reason, the Russian corner of the Global Foods store has been changed. What used to be on the left was now on the right and vice versa. When this happens, I get very confused and forget where I am and for what purpose. So I started flailing around, trying to remember what I needed. Of course, as bad luck would have it, there were several Russian people there giving me nasty looks. And this confused me even further making me feel like I had thick fog in my head.

I have no idea which enemy of humanity decided to disorient and annoy customers in this way.

I’m subscribed to several progressive Canadian websites and the more I read them the clearer it becomes that Canada’s progressives are so deep in denial that it is destroying all hope for the country’s more liberal future.

I dislike Harper as much as the next person but one can’t discuss Canadian politics and forget to mention that the country was almost untouched by the global economic crisis. Compared to what’s been happening in the US and Europe, Canada has been doing incredibly well.

Many people associate this success with Harper and his Conservatives. And they will continue to do so for as long as Harper’s political opponents studiously avoid mentioning the crisis.

It seems to me that Canada’s progressives live in a bubble that always prevents them from abandoning a narrowly parochial point of view.

In class, we were talking about the students’ goals (in preparation for the oral exam.)

“My dream is to find a job  in Spain after I graduate,” one student said.

“That’s a great goal,” I responded. “But you do know that there is a 30% unemployment rate in Spain, right?”

“Oh,” the student was very taken aback. “So what  do those unemployed people do?”

“Well, they have to make do on social security.”

“I had no idea,” the student said.

I hope this persuades at least some of them to start following the news. Students often tell me that they want to look for work in Spain, and their number hasn’t diminished since 2008-9. It actually has grown.