Read the fascinating story of this Soviet military badge here.

The saddest thing about the article linked in the previous post is that it is obsessively fixated on Putin’s personality. The author seems to believe that understanding Putin’s personal characteristics will allow to see the current political situation clearer.

The realization that politics is not a Hollywood movie eludes today’s political analysts completely. It is extremely rare to find commentary that doesn’t adopt all of the conventions of a tabloid gossip column.

I don’t want to believe the following can be true:

Mr. Bush came to office skeptical of Mr. Putin, privately calling him “one cold dude,” but bonded with him during their first meeting in Slovenia in June 2001, after which he made his now-famous comment about looking into the Russian’s soul. Mr. Putin had made a connection with the religious Mr. Bush by telling him a story about a cross that his mother had given him and how it was the only thing that survived a fire at his country house.

I’d so much rather have a House of Cards type President than somebody this facile. The story is simply embarrassing to read. If Bush were a woman, Putin would have probably told him about a copy of Simone de Beauvoir his mother gave him and that was the only thing that survived a fire, etc. And the latter story would have been at least marginally probable compared to the load of crock Putin actually sold to Bush.

The article gets even better later on:

He was even more frustrated by Mr. Putin a year later. “He’s not well-informed,” Bush told the visiting prime minister of Denmark in 2006. “It’s like arguing with an eighth-grader with his facts wrong.”

I have no doubt that Putin laughed for days after hearing these projections.

And the last story:

Mr. Bush in his memoir recalled confronting Mr. Putin, scolding him for being provoked by Mikheil Saakashvili, then Georgia’s anti-Moscow president.

“I’ve been warning you Saakashvili is hot-blooded,” Mr. Bush told Mr. Putin.

“I’m hot-blooded too,” Mr. Putin said.

“No, Vladimir,” Mr. Bush responded. “You’re coldblooded.”

I’m quoting all this so that you see the intellectual caliber of people who control the world’s largest stock of nuclear weapons.

First, I had to waste time on the intricacies of Morales’s anti-US paranoia, and now I have to waste more time on the following inane questionnaire:

 

It’s unbelievable that there are people who actually get paid for creating these inane surveys.

I suggest we put this whole thing to some use and discuss what we think about these “education goals.” I think my answers demonstrate that I’m a maximalist.

I’m preparing an observed class on Evo Morales. I was going to present Morales in a mostly positive light but then I read that Morales is saying that what is happening in Ukraine is a result of the aggression on the part of the US.

And now I’m disappointed with Morales and don’t even want to mention this fool in my class.

Silly, uneducated pundits keep chirping that sanctions will antagonize and humiliate Russians. This betrays a complete lack of understanding of Russia. In every survey, about 95% of respondents in Russia say they are happy about the sanctions imposed by the US on criminals like Timchenko, the Rotenbergs, Yakunin, and others.

The tragedy of the Russian people is that they can’t give up on the fantasy of “a good tsar.” The Good Tsar myth is one of the most pernicious fictions to haunt Russian history. For centuries, Russians keep convincing themselves that the Supreme Leader (be it a tsar, Lenin, Stalin or Putin) is not aware of everything that is malfunctioning in the country. The well-meaning Supreme Leader is prevented from finding out about the suffering of his people by evil courtiers. Misery, corruption, hunger – nothing will convince the Russian people that their Supreme Leader is not a wide-eyed innocent, kept ignorant of reality by an evil conspiracy of dirty aides.

This myth goes back to Ivan the Terrible and works to Putin’s benefit today. Everybody in Russia hates the bandits and wants them to suffer. All that is missing for a real change to start taking place in the country is for people to see that Timchenko and Yakunin are directly and intimately linked to Putin.

Any measures that make it at least a tiny bit more difficult for the bandits to keep robbing the people of Russia will be welcomed by the Russians.

What’s the point of cooking fat-free vegan recipes if you are planning to kill them with shit out of a can?

A funny story about some smart kids who found a way around a silly school ban on social media.

A school textbook in math is banned in Russia for failing to promote patriotic values. (The link is in Russian.)

Liberal bloggers seem to be competing in who writes the most stupid piece on Putin. I’m getting massively disappointed in my favorite bloggers. Here is a strong contender for the prize of the idiotic outpouring of the week from Mahablog.

Now that I drive (and, by the way, I drove on the Interstate that goes to St. Louis this weekends, at 70 mph), I think these are a phenomenal idea.

Three people forwarded me this unintelligent exchange about Harold Bloom’s idea of the Western canon. I dislike Bloom, but I’m convinced that the idea of the canon is getting more and more relevant every day. It’s so obvious that I considered writing a post about this but then thought better of it because it was too boring to write something so self-evident.

And here, by the way, is a very good post about the canon: “What universities give syllabus space to is implicitly what is best and most worth learning in our culture. There is no avoiding that implication except by demoting universities to the level of technical or vocational schools, where no one can complain that their education in air conditioning repair was only a partial representation of our culture, because it was never intended to be more than that.”

I was laughing and saying “oh yes” to every word of this post.

“The food industry is so worried about the prospect of GMO labeling that companies have banded together to try an end run.”

“I suspect the GOP will take the Senate in 2014 and hold it for a while. I also suspect that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency in 2016.” It seems, for now, that both of these predictions are going to come true. Then everybody can continue blaming the other side for nothing working or getting done.

A writer residency on a train.

A very bizarre story about youngsters freaking out because they had to walk for a tiny little bit.

I love it when the unintelligent get preachy because they come up with things like this, “If you haven’t seen or experienced something for yourself, you should really hold your judgement.” I guess if I haven’t been a victim of genocide experienced murder, or seen pedophilia, I should never ever dare to judge.

How to get in the writing zone.

And another very helpful strategy for writers.

I couldn’t agree more: “iPads only do more for those who are incompetent with general purpose computers.”

This is an absolutely brilliant post about the way people are trained into obedience since childhood and can’t overcome this training as adults. Trust me, the post is much better than my clumsy attempt to summarize it.

“When you purchase a physical object, you don’t actually buy the software in it — that code belongs to someone else. If you do something the manufacturer doesn’t like — repair it, hack it, unlock it — you could lose the right to use “their” software in “your” thing. And as these lines between physical and digital blur, it pits copyright and physical ownership rights against each other.”

Fascinating observations: “In the liberal sites, the source of the danger is usually corporations, and sometimes policing agencies.  The danger’s there, but hard to defend oneself against as an individual, and the danger isn’t as overtly violent, but more systemic.  In the conservative sites, the source of the danger is a bad person who’s aiming to violently attack, and especially to violently attack women.  The danger can be avoided or prevented, if just the woman (almost always) is careful and alert.”

“It’s bad enough that teachers are put in a position where they have to buy school supplies for their students anyway, but now a bank wants to loan them money and charge them interest for it.”

What’s a Communist? Stories from a teacher.

FEEL FREE TO SELF-PROMOTE AND PROMOTE OTHERS.