Finally, there appeared on Mad Men a character I like – the gay artist from Europe, Kurt Smith. It’s a good show but it really lacked at least one non-pathetic character with at least some self-respect.

I also like the comedian (the one of the Utz chips) but he is still pathetic. Not as much as other characters, but still.

Do you have a favorite character on that show?

So Colorado legalized marijuana.

It looks like endless credit, free iPhones, mountains of medication, and cheap plasma TV sets are not enough to keep everybody meek and compliant any longer.

“So,” N said in the morning. “Let‘s go practice driving in the university parking lot, then to the gym, and after that to the store to buy demineralized water.”

“Right on!” I said.

We opened the door and saw this:

“Or we can stay in bed eating cherries and watching Mad Men all day long,” I said.

If the snowfall continues, there is a chance work will be cancelled.

I can’t tell you how comforting I find all this snow. I always keep a big store of grains, frozen meats, sugar, matches, flour, and candles in case we get snowed in. And we never get snowed in! Maybe now we finally will.

I totally need to move to Alaska. I would be so happy if it could be like this 9 months out of a year.

An inventive way to diet: “Utah man goes on hunger strike until his state stops allowing gay marriage.” He lost 25 lbs, too, and all thanks to gay people. I’m sensing a big opportunity for a best-selling book titled A Homophobic Diet: Hate Your Way to Weight Loss.

This post is a couple of months old but it is very very VERY important as it describes the most disturbing trend in higher education that I have heard of in a long while. I literally had nightmares after reading this post.

How to respond to reviewers’ comments. A brilliant humorous post.

I can’t decide if this endless guest post about nothing on Professor is In is a joke or if there are really people in existence with zero self-editing skills. Seriously, it’s just bizarre.

 

The scandals brewing around ASA’s boycott of Israel awaken the latent anti-Semitism. My position is that if the majority of the members of ASA voted for the boycott, then that’s their right and it should be respected. The discussion of the boycott, however, is moving into an unhealthy area.

Yes, it’s too easy to make fun of eco-feminism. But how can one resist?

So it’s not true that crime rates in Chicago are exceptionally high? That’s very good news given that Chicago is my favorite city in the US.

“My personal feeling is if your religion is so worthy of acceptance then people should be introduced to it after they are in their late teens or early twenties and have some maturity and frame of reference. If they can be convinced at that stage of their life, then the church really has something valuable to offer. If not then it deserves to die out.” I agree completely.

And if the above were put in practice, tragedies like this one could be avoided.

After all of the hype about DeBlasio, some of his activities as a Mayor seem kind of pathetic. Often it seems like Liberals are trying to aggravate the absolute majority of population. Like New York has no grater issues than inoffensive horse-rides?

It is really funny to see people who are so insecure in their gender identity that they feel emasculated by a cute ad.

“Americans named President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the world’s most admired living man and woman in 2013, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday.” So how does this work? Americans decide whom the world admires? Wouldn’t it make sense to ask, you know, the rest of the world?

I always thought that my love of rap and opera plus mystery fiction and real literature was a result of my peasant background. But it turns out that I’m a typical rich Westerner:

Scores of studies show that individuals from educated and professional strata are more likely than low-status individuals to make diverse, or “omnivorous,” aesthetic
choices that cross boundaries, such as the divide between opera and rap music, to take but one example (Katz-Gerro 2004; Peterson 2005). This phenomenon, first
detected in the United States in a classic series of studies (e.g., Peterson and Kern 1996), appears to be characteristic of every rich Western country.

Fishman, Robert M. and Omar Lizardo. “How Macro-Historical Change Shapes Cultural Taste: Legacies of Democratization in Spain and Portugal.” American Sociological Review 78.2 (2013): 213-39.

Hmm.

Yesterday, an unusual hockey game took place in Russia. Two teams played: a red team (dressed in red) and a white team (dressed in white). The white team consisted of some of the best Russian hockey players. The red team consisted of some of the best Russian hockey players + Russia’s President Putin and Byelorussia’s President Lukashenko.

Now the question: which team won the game with the score of 12 : 3?

And the most stupid article title of the winter is. . .

 

 

by Bloomberg. The article is stupid and not worth reading. All it says is that grad schools should admit fewer students.

It’s mind-blowing that somebody was paid to churn out this string of inanities and publish them under such an idiotic title. Can’t that sorry excuse for a journalist just get a real job already?

American Dialect Society has announced its words of the year 2013:

WORD OF THE YEAR

* because: introducing a noun, adjective, or other part of speech (e.g., “because reasons,” “because awesome”). 127
slash: used as a coordinating conjunction to mean “and/or” (e.g., “come and visit slash stay”) or “so” (“I love that place, slash can we go there?”). 21
twerk: A mode of dance that involves vigorous booty-shaking and booty-thrusting, usually with the feet planted. 7
Obamacare: term for the Affordable Care Act that has moved from pejorative to matter-of-fact shorthand. 39
selfie: a photo taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone and shared on social media. 20

“Slash” is old and “because reasons” is precious. “Twerk” brings to mind the ridiculous performance of a talentless person that we all need to forget as soon as possible. “Obamacare” is old. I’d vote for “selfie” because I like both the word and the activity that produces it. Do share your thoughts about the list. Do you have any other words you want to nominate?

And here is a new category in this contest:

MOST PRODUCTIVE (new category)

* -shaming: (from slut-shaming) type of public humiliation (fat-shaming, pet-shaming). 98/132
-splaining: (from mansplaining) type of condescending explanation (whitesplaining, journosplaining). 49/68
–coin: (from bitcoin) type of cryptocurrency (peercoin, namecoin, dogecoin). 0
-(el)fie: (from selfie) type of self-portrait (drelfie ‘drunk selfie,’ twofie ‘selfie with two people’). 39
-hack: (from lifehack) type of shortcut to increase productivity. 13
-spo: (from thinspo) type of photo or video montage intended to inspire viewers to lose weight or stay fit (fitspo, sportspo). 1

-shaming and -splaining have existed forever but the ADS is only waking up to this phenomenon now.

There are more categories at the link!

I used to like Angela Merkel, but then I just read the following:

For example, when the Greek crisis erupted, German chancellor Angela Merkel criticized the inclusion of Greece in the eurozone. “We can’t have a common currency when some people get a lot of vacation time and others very little,” she said (Economist 2011), in a clear reference to the countries of southern Europe.

Guillén, Arturo. “Europe: A Crisis Within a Crisis.” International Journal of Political Economy 41.3 (Fall 2012): 41–68.

She is either a complete idiot or a rank hypocrite. What’s your guess?

OK, folks, I’m very sorry but I had to go back to the previous blog template. I hate to be one of those people who keep fussing with blog templates but the most recent one was constantly causing me trouble and I don’t have time right now to keep straightening it out. I’ll see if I decide to do something about the template later on. It isn’t like people come here for an inventive template, right?

By way of compensation, I wanted to acquaint you with a new trend in nail-painting. See how every nail has its own polish? If you have many almost empty nail polish bottles, this fashion trend that I picked up from my students will allow you to utilize them.