Yesterday, I drove on this super-fast interstate highway that goes to St. Louis for the second time in my life. N entered “Barnes Jewish Hospital” into the GPS. (We are not sick, we were just practicing.)

When we arrived at our destination, we saw an enormous building with a sign saying “Christian Hospital.”

This is what it means to live in the Bible Belt: even a GPS tries to convert you.

In one of the houses we visited yesterday, there was a black and white drawing of a woman with some thick black liquid streaming down her face.

“God, what is this liquid?” the agent exclaimed. “Blood?”

“I thought this was tar,” I said.

“And to me it looks like chocolate,” N added.

 

“Before we consider these houses,” I told N, “I need to verify whether we won the battles that give the names to these streets and subdivisions. If the enemy won, I can’t live here.”

I’m not very knowledgeable on the American Civil War, so I had to Google.  It turned out that the people who named the streets are on our side, and now I’m hugely tempted by one of the houses there. Of course, it just has to be the most expensive one because this is what always happens to me for some reason.

OK, so who remembers: should the price of a house be twice the yearly income or 1,5 times the yearly income? What’s the rule?

We are looking at a house in an area that was developed to commemorate the Civil War and all streets are named accordingly.

“We’ve started having problems in this area that we never used to have before,” a local resident says. “It’s all those people who come from out of town and spoil things for us here. Crime, dirt – all kinds of problems, and all because of people from out of town.”

“What, like us?” I ask, shocked at uncharacteristic rudeness.

“No, no, of course not!” my interlocutor looks appalled. “You and N are wonderful people. I mean folks from out of town.”

“We are out of town,” I say. “Hell, we are from out of the continent.”

“No, no,” the local is getting frustrated. “I mean, you know, those people, FROM OUT OF TOWN, you know?”

Putin called Obama and hinted that he might leave Ukraine in peace and not invade any further if Obama lets him annex Transnistria. Of course, Transnistria’s only value for Putin is that holding it will make annexing a bigger part of Ukraine easier.

I really, really hope Obama doesn’t fall for this dirty trick.

It saddens me more than I can express when even good, well-intentioned people don’t stop to consider the import of what they are saying. Here is one example:

For myself, I’m not sure whether Crimea’s decision to leave Ukraine and join Russia was a good one or not.

38% of the people of the Crimea took part in the vote. Less than 1% of Crimean Tatars participated. Those 38% who actually came to the poll voted in some way  or other that cannot be ascertained by anybody since no observers were present. The elections were conducted by a government that came to power in 2012 amid massive electoral fraud and was ordered by a President who was elected in 2012 as a result of even more massive fraud and intimidation of voters. I was following Russian news very closely in 2011-12, and the sheer number of reports from independent observers and voters who filmed ballots being destroyed and substituted by the bucketful with fake ballots was overwhelming.

I do not believe that anybody can reasonably conclude from this that the people of the Crimea actually made a “decision to leave Ukraine and join Russia.”

Many people seem so mesmerized by the words “democracy,” “voting” and “election” that they lose all capacity or interest to try to see what hides behind those words. For two decades, Russia kept conducting shamelessly rigged “elections”, while the West exulted in the knowledge that, finally, there was democracy in Russia.

The quoted blogger keeps analyzing Russia in terms that have no relevance to that country:

But it has probably boosted Putin’s popularity, and hence his chances in the next election.

Putin makes his own chances at the elections by rigging them. Hundreds of thousands of people in Russia took to the streets in 2011-12 to protest against rigged elections. It’s OK not to know that but if you don’t, then why not abstain from opining on a region that is of so little interest to you?

And the blogger continues, talking about “such nationalistic considerations as have given rise to the divisions in Ukraine.” The problem is precisely that there are no nationalistic considerations and no divisions in Ukraine. Such considerations and divisions are a myth, peddled by Putin’s propaganda machine to justify the invasion of a peaceful country.

The he goes as far as to suggest that there is “mob rule” in Kiev. We talk daily to people who are currently living in the Eastern part of Ukraine. None of them have witnessed any mob rule. The country is at peace. The democratic process is at work. There are gangs of Russian neo-Nazis and provocateurs who try to provoke peaceful citizens but they have not been very successful.

It’s sad that people don’t stop to consider how hurtful such careless statements can be to others.

I also wanted to add: readers and bloggers, I really don’t have time to comment on posts any longer, I have 3 new preparations this semester, and I’m preparing my tenure dossier, and I have spinning now 6 times a week, and I’m writing an article and doing preliminary research for a new book, and I have an enormous translation order which I really need because I now want a car, and I take driving lessons, and I need to do house-hunting, and I also like to read books. I haven’t even looked at my blog email for over a month, I’m so busy.

However, I read all of your posts. All of them. If I ever made it clear I read one of your posts, that means I entered your blog into my blogroll, and I read everything you write. As of today, my blogroll has no backlog of unread posts.

Z, J. Otto Pohl, Steve Hayes, Jonathan Mayhew, Fie, voxcorvegis, musteryou, Hattie, Phytophactor, Xykademiqz, Leah Jane, Mike at Technology as Nature, Spanish Prof – I know I’m forgetting very important people but I’m tired right now – I don’t watch all of the vlogs (because I catch up on the blogroll in bed, while N is asleep and I don’t want to disturb him), but the text I read always.

You have one very dedicated reader in me, so keep writing. You are needed and appreciated and you all contribute to my personal development.

My blogroll can take in some more good people, so interesting blog recommendations are always welcome. I might complain about people who recommended Shakesville to me but I read that blog religiously, so it was a good recommendation.

One of my favorite bloggers of all times is a very talented person. Her writing is amazing, and she is a wonderful human being. I don’t know her in person but from what she writes, it is obvious that she is a strong, resilient, courageous and honest person.

She is also very sincere, and this is one of the reasons I like her blog so much. This blogger offers an unparalleled kind of honesty about her life, and that is very inspiring to me.

So when I saw a post of hers in my blogroll where she is sharing her frustration over her (very difficult) financial situation, I decided to head over to her blog and leave a comment of support. I know how hard it is to dig oneself out of financial trouble, and all one can do is offer words of support and encouragement in such a situation. I almost never comment on blogs these days because I have no time at all, but here I just wanted to say something good to this person.

When I got to the post, though, I discovered that the comments had been closed. I read the comments left there before the blogger chose to shut down the conversation and was too appalled for words. People had started chastising her in condescending and offensive ways and practically attacked somebody whose only crime was to be honest about her life. I find this completely disgusting. What’s wrong with such people? Are they so miserable in their lives that they need to pound on others to feel better about their stupid vapid  existences?

So since the comments are closed and I know she reads this blog, I want to say this to her:

Fie, you are amazing. You work extremely hard, harder than most people I know. This is a very tough situation, and it’s horribly unfair that such good, hard-working people as you and your husband should be in it. I’m sorry that some commenters were so disgusting to you. I’m sorry you have to struggle so hard. I wish you the absolute best.

Here is the post and the comments if you are interested.

I seem to suck at everything today. I just wrote “Hasidic” instead of “acidic” in my translation on diesel engine oils and couldn’t figure out why the sentence wasn’t working.

I’m also engaged in an email exchange about a cartoon on Israel/Palestine while I translate, which is how the Hasidim managed to creep in.

I will post the cartoon and the debate later.