Yesterday a colleague and I went to a presentation on sabbaticals organized by the Provost’s office.

“And by the way,” the presenter said, “here on our website we have many useful forms. For instance, there is a form you can fill in if a colleague is behaving in a bizarre way.”

My colleague and I exchanged sarcastic stares. We work at a university. Everybody behaves in a bizarre way. What would be really bizarre is if somebody behaved normally, for a change.

I could just imagine filling out this form:

“Dear Provost, I’m am very disturbed by the behavior of my colleagues. They come to work, do their job, and go home. There is no drama, no intrigue, no scary revelations, nobody is getting fired, nobody is collecting evidence against anybody, nobody is suing, nobody is filing grievances, nobody is mortally offended, nobody feels harassed, victimized, persecuted, or bullied. . . This just can’t be right. Please investigate what is causing this highly irregular situation. I want my fellow academics back.”

I just heard that Robin Williams killed himself. What a tragedy, what sadness.

Mental health, mental health above all, people. If you liked this actor, make sure you honor his memory by doing something for your mental health today.

Bill Ayers and Dinesh D’Souza are debating racism on C-SPAN right now. After reading Ayers’s most recent book, I like him but, I have to say, the ultra-white super-rich American Ayers looks really bad lecturing the not-so-white immigrant D’Souza on racism. They should have chosen a different topic. And if that opportunity was not present, Ayers should have refused to participate. He is making a horrible impression in a debate that he had every chance of winning.

P.S. D’Souza has now chosen to veer off into the area of tenure review and has made himself look like the biggest fool on the planet. This is the hallmark of a lousy public speaker: he can’t quit while he’s ahead.

P.P.S. And Ayers has chosen to bring the discussion back to racism. Is he stupid? This is one subject where he simply can’t win over this particular opponent.

P.P.P.S Why did the question about Israel have to be asked by an overfed fella burping contentedly between meals? Of course, D’Souza wiped the floor with him in two seconds with the question of, “Do you deny the right of the Jews to have a Jewish state?” The whole thing was made even worse by Ayers’s “Israel has systematically wiped out the indigenous populations.”

I also have to say, it’s kind of obnoxious that the debate just has to be held at Dartmouth, a super-expensive place for kids who have only seen the world out of the windows of their parents’ jets. I expected better from Ayers.

See the full debate:

 

Somebody asked an interesting question in the comments and I want to put my response in a separate post:

 I’d appreciate it if you read my post instead of ordering me to a doctor…is that how you respond to any person who has view different from yours?

My readers have to prove their mettle to me by dealing with my very direct and aggressive style of communication at first. Once they do that, I become the mostly cuddly, supportive, loving blogger they will ever meet. Of course, those who can’t take the heat will find that first stage of dealing with me somewhat uncomfortable.

I do this to ensure that the style of communication on this blog never transforms into the cloyingly saccharine format I see on so many other blogs. My readers are all somewhat gruff and very honest people. My posts are often written with blood and tears but never with snot and saliva. OK, that is very tortured imagery but I’m too exhausted to come up with anything better.

In other news, I’m seriously considering adding a secret, password-protected page for this blog for reasons I can’t name here because they would have to go into the secret, password-protected page. This is the price of fame and notoriety, people. Now one can’t even say all she wants to say on one’s official blog.

The contractor has been able to identify the animal that lives in my creek. He says it’s a muskrat. At first, I was upset because a rat is a rat, no matter how many musks you put in its name. But then I researched it online and discovered that the Latin name for it is “Ondatra zibethicus.” And that’s good news because many people back in my country wear ondatra hats and coats, so it means this is a valuable animal and not just some stupid rat.

From Kristoff’s recent column:

ONE delusion common among America’s successful people is that they triumphed just because of hard work and intelligence.

In fact, their big break came when they were conceived in middle-class American families who loved them, read them stories, and nurtured them with Little League sports, library cards and music lessons. They were programmed for success by the time they were zygotes.

The part that comes after “read them stories” is complete and utter shit as well as really crappy writing (to nurture with sports, cards, and lessons, seriously? Is that even English?), but the part that comes before is valuable. It would be completely self-evident but in the US actually acknowledging that parents have an impact on their children is an unheard-of, truly shocking revelation.

After this rare flash of intelligence, Kristoff tries to twist and bend his argument to convince his readers that it is necessary to have money to love one’s children and that we should all immediately start feeling sorry for those who weren’t loved by their parents because that will magically help them to heal the damage.

Of course, we also need to remember that parental responsibility ends when one becomes an adult. No matter what kind of damage or trauma has been inflicted on a person (and it is often really, really horrible damage), it is up to every single one of us to choose whether we will allow the trauma to consume us or whether we will overcome the damage.

Look, I know this woman (let’s call her Mother) who grew up one of six daughters in a very poor family. She had to leave home at 15 because her family didn’t have the resources to keep her in school. The father drank and terrorized everybody in the family. And what do you think? Unsurprisingly, the woman’s five sisters went on to marry men who either drank or abused them or did both. Except this woman. She made a conscious decision to have a different life.

“I decided that I was going to live differently,” she told me. “I knew what I wanted and I set out to get it.”

So she married the kindest, gentlest man ever to live on this planet who couldn’t raise his voice to her to save his life and who is indifferent to alcohol. Hers is not a perfect life or a perfect journey. Still, she isn’t abused and her own daughters never had to solve the problem of abusive men in their lives. I should know since I’m one of these daughters.

There is always a moment in one’s life when one can either go with the flow or assess one’s starting point and proceed to repair the damage in search of a better existence. The bad news is that this is hard, hard work. But the good news is that it is never too late to choose to be happy. This is the nature of human existence: in every life there is hardship and tragedy, every single one. But at the same time, every single one of us can choose to overcome the trauma, the circumstances, and the legacy of pain.

Cliff Arroyo is the kind of reader that every blogger is dying to have. Every comment he leaves is brilliant, insightful, meaningful, and funny. He is literally incapable of saying anything boring or trivial.

Cliff Arroyo is also very considerate. Whenever he goes traveling and knows he won’t be able to comment for a while, he leaves a warning on the blog. This is a very kind thing to do because what do you think a blogger feels when people just disappear? Of course, one worries. It is obviously not an obligation to inform a blogger that you will be away, but it is very much appreciated when people do it.

Cliff Arroyo is a very well-read, multi-lingual, profoundly intellectual person with a rich inner life that he shares with us on this blog. Many people tell me in apologetic voices that they come to the blog for the comments more than for my posts. I don’t feel offended by that at all because the commenters are people I attracted to the blog and I dare you to find a more brilliant group of people commenting regularly on any blog anywhere.

My regular commenters are all complex, profound human beings. Intellectual light-weights soon get bored and slough off the blog because they can’t keep up with everybody else. And yes, I’m noticing that this reader-appreciation post has somehow turned into me-appreciation, but that makes sense because as a blogger I don’t exist without my readers.

My contractor really likes me. Look at these beautiful vegetables he keeps bringing me as gifts from his own garden:

Russia is working hard to convince everybody that life has stabilized in the Crimea and that everything is going great. This week, a biker show called “The Return” took place in the Crimea. Bikers congregated on the peninsula from many regions of Russia. Russian TV channels gleefully transmitted footage from the show as proof that Crimeans are having tons of fun:

“It wasn’t as bad in the USSR as you say,” N declares. “We had all kinds of things. Once I went out and bought some cheese. That was back in 1986.”

“Cheese!” I exclaim. “You colonizers! Living in the lap of luxury while exploiting the colonized nations!”

“It was just once, though,” N says.

“But still!” I conclude triumphantly.