So does anybody know anything about extreme physical stress? I’ve been studying my test results, and they are off the charts. The measurements for physical stress go from -3 (which is very low stress) and 3 (which is very high.) Mine is 8.46. It’s like I’m a soldier in a combat zone.

And the weird thing is that, physically, I don’t feel anything all that special. What is physical stress, even?

The New York Times published this 32 minutes ago:

The State Department confirmed on Friday that Russia had sent tanks and other heavy weapons to separatists in Ukraine.

A column of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 “Grad” multiple rocket launchers, and other military vehicles crossed the border near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, State Department officials said. Reports and images of the weapons circulated on Thursday, but there were conflicting claims about where they had come from.

Please remember that Clarissa’s Blog reported this news much earlier.

This is stale news, however, because the Ukrainian army has already destroyed half of these tanks.

An update to follow.

Oooh, ooh, check this out: I just stumbled upon the perfect radio station for me! It talks about “educated modern feminazis who have all the power in today’s America,” “mainstream Leftie traitors to all traditional American values,” and “Obama just said that illegal alien children are our future and our American kids are not our future because the illegal alien kids will owe him their lives and be forever obedient to his regime.”

Shit’s priceless. It’s so much better than N’s favorite preacher station with its boring “neither a lender nor a borrower be” and “premarital sex is a road to divorce.”

Talking about coincidences, just the other day my sister was telling me how she tried to buy an encyclopedia for my niece Klubnikis and discovered that book encyclopedias are becoming extinct. Everything is going digital now, but who needs a digital encyclopedia when there is Google? Besides, she wants to introduce the kid to actual books, not to computers.

I agreed with her it was a shame and said that there used to be an entire profession where people would visit houses and sell encyclopedias.

And what do you think? Today I came to The Hedgehogs to assemble some furniture and had a visit from a real encyclopedia-peddler, a kid from Latvia, here on an exchange visit. We had a nice anti-Russian chat and I bought a set of beautiful encyclopedias for Klubnikis.

It’s great to know that encyclopedia-peddlers are not a thing of the past.

So the results of my cardiovascular testing came in and everything is fine except that I need to lose weight and I’m experiencing extreme physical and emotional stress. That’s not surprising given the circumstances of the testing.

Before administering the tests, the nurse asked me about my medical history. When I started telling her my recent history, she suddenly began to hyperventilate and shake. Tears were rolling down her face and she was literally wailing, “Oh, God, oh, God!”

“What? What’s happening?” I asked.

“I’m pregnant,” the nurse gasped. “Seventeen weeks. I’m now afraid this will happen to me, too.”

For the next 15 minutes, I worked as the nurse’s psychotherapist, trying to convince her that everything will be fine and she will not experience what I had.

Then the nurse shared that she had recently suffered a perforated ulcer but wasn’t seeking any medical help for it. So, of course, I had to give her a talk on how important it was to seek help because a perforated ulcer is something very serious.

Then the nurse shared that the reason why she had the perforated ulcer was that she’d been having horrible migraines and kept taking insane amounts of painkillers. So, of course, I had to give her a talk on the importance of seeking medical help for her migraines and not just self-medicating.

Then the nurse shared that the reason she was such a mess was that her family life was horrible and nobody at home cared about her or what she was feeling. So, of course, I had to give her a talk on the importance of seeking help if one is in an abusive relationship.

Then the nurse started taking my pulse.

“Hmm, this is strange,” she said. “It looks like your heart rate is elevated. Are you experiencing any stress?”

So my adventures in the all-male (I’m yet to hear a female voice on this station) radio continue, and here’s what I’ve been wondering: what is the payoff of traditional masculinity? The whole thing seems so pointless.

Based on what I’m hearing on that radio station, traditional men reinforce their sense of masculinity by:

– being obsessed with farting;
– taking pride in their poor hygiene;
– avoiding medical checkups and being very cavalier about their ailments;
– making efforts to stink as much as possible;
– presenting themselves as stupid and goofy;
– being stoic and tolerating pain;
– never asking for help.

Obviously, people don’t engage in any activity consistently unless there is a payoff. So what is the payoff here? Other than an earlier death, I see nothing.

At least, with the traditional femininity there are obvious and valuable playoffs (which is why it’s so hard to defeat.)

Few holidays are as ridiculous as Russia’s Independence Day. One of the world’s oldest surviving colonial empires has nothing to be independent of. Everybody around Russia had been trying to liberate themselves from the oppressor, yet Russians decided it would be cool to have their own Independence Day.

Yesterday, Russia celebrated by sending tanks and armored vehicles into Ukraine to kill people. Probably, Putin didn’t get the memo where Ukrainians agree to give Russia its independence. Or, which is more likely, Russia’s idea of independence is very dependent on victimizing everybody in sight.

Raise your hand if you are surprised that Putin started a new round of invasions after Obama and Merkel groveled before him last week.