Even more proof that human beings value nothing as highly as stability and familiarity. Unfortunately, this is true even when the familiar is horrifying and tragic.
“Key democrats, led by Hillary Clinton, leave no doubt that endless war is official U.S. doctrine,” wrote some very stupid journalist, sounding very proud of having said something so profoundly unintelligent. This strange person probably hasn’t noticed that “endless war” is the condition of every state since it came into existence.
“In a very real sense, there is no teacher shortage in this country at all. What there is is an unwillingness to make teaching an appealing profession that people will actively pursue and stay with for a lifetime.” I agree completely that there is no “labor shortage” of teachers. The idea is preposterous.
I always buy these mushrooms at the store but the idea of picking them myself sounds dangerous. This is weird because I was an avid mushroom-picker back in Ukraine where mushrooms are, for obvious reasons, more dangerous than anywhere else.
Yet another obnoxious and preachy post from Professor Is In.
Sometimes, one can find little gems of brilliance even in the eminently stupid Inside Higher Ed: “But the most interesting and controversial case for the liberal arts came from Rob Goodman, a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at Columbia University. “At this cultural moment the idea of ‘uselessness’ is inspiring a lot of anger in a lot of people, and it’s important to explore why,” he said.” This is very interesting to me.
The wonder and the beauty of selective breeding.
And another hilarious quote from a very weird person who keeps dispensing strange advice on sexuality: “And loving what’s true might be even harder for many people, since what’s true about your body is almost certainly NOT what you’ve been taught is “supposed” to be true. You’re SUPPOSED to have spontaneous desire and genitals that respond to the slightest touch and interest in sex that isn’t damped by stress or exhaustion and a body that is a particular shape and size… in short: we’ve all been lied to, consistently and repeatedly, for decades, about how very unlovable our bodies are.” Just imagine what this sex counselor can teach her poor, deluded clients. They will leave her convinced that dysfunction is healthy and sexual health is wrong.
It’s like some people live in a completely different world. And I like my world so much better than theirs.
Good news: “A Florida judge Friday sentenced Michael Dunn to life in prison without parole for the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis. The sentence, imposed nearly two years after Dunn shot and killed Davis during an argument over loud music, also carries an additional 90 years for three convictions of attempted murder and firing a weapon into a vehicle.” Finally, Florida managed to squeeze out a verdict that would actually punish a murderer.
Tallinn through the eyes of a Kharkovite blogger. In Russian but it’s mostly just photos anyway.
In case you missed the priceless story of the green butt plug in Paris, I’m bringing you a link to the newest developments in the story.
Russians are screaming and yelling that protests in Hong Kong somehow prove that the Ukrainian Maidan was organized and paid for by the CIA.
“Leskov, Etnographer of the Jews.”
People wouldn’t need to waste so much energy and time on discussing whether the borders should or shouldn’t be closed to stop the spread of ebola if they read Clarissa’s Blog and informed themselves about the erosion of the nation-state and the meaning of this process.
“There is at least the ghost of a strategy still available to the West: make Putin pay an ongoing price so that it will be clear that he has overstepped. That strategy doesn’t require Ukraine to be transformed into a well-functioning paradise; as we’ve noted over and over in these pages, that is the worst kind of wishful thinking and is just not likely to happen any time soon. But it would involve getting Ukraine through a couple of winters while Putin twists in the wind as the sanctions slowly do their thing.” This is obviously not going to happen. I’m starting to suspect that Obama has the same secret crush on Putin as every Liberal on the planet. And please don’t annoy me by asking where I have seen such Liberals. I see them every day on my blog, defending Snowden and his passionate ass-kissing of Putin.
Really inventive wedding invites.
Why bicycling is not thriving in the US.
Everybody knows that David Brooks is an idiot but the linked article demonstrates that well-known truth beautifully and exhaustively.
“When I last visited Bombay, I explained to my then four-year-old about that we couldn’t buy too many things because of weight restrictions in the flight, etc. My relatives were genuinely wondering why I didn’t just stop at “no.”” The answer is: for the exact same reason why this person can’t just say “no” to nosy and condescending relatives.
“A group of St. Louis Cardinals fans is selling shirts with “Darren Wilson” on the back, in support of the police officer who killed Michael Brown on 9 August in Ferguson, Missouri.” I’m glad I never joined the cultish support of this local team.
A new book by Francis Fukuyama: “In some ways Political Order and Political Decay may be Fukuyama’s most impressive work to date. The upshot of his argument is that functioning democracy is impossible wherever an effective modern state is lacking. Since fractured and failed states are embedded in many parts of the world, the unavoidable implication is that hundreds of millions or billions of people will live without democracy for the foreseeable future. It’s a conclusion that anyone who thinks realistically is bound to accept. It’s also a view that runs counter to nearly all currents of prevailing opinion.” Of course, I will be reading it.
Clarissa's Blog 
“When I last visited Bombay, I explained to my then four-year-old about that we couldn’t buy too many things because of weight restrictions in the flight, etc. My relatives were genuinely wondering why I didn’t just stop at “no.”” The answer is: for the exact same reason why this person can’t just say “no” to nosy and condescending relatives.
Oh, lol. I knew from a very early age we couldn’t “buy too many things” because we’d carry home gifts [mostly foodstuff that’s not available at any price in the US] for ourselves and any of our extended family, and gifts from our friends’ families for our friends. We’d carry this in our luggage, and the things that were supposed to go to extended family either got picked up or mailed through the U.S. Postal service. Nobody trusted international mail for valuable things because they’d get broken or “lost.” It was always a struggle to pack everything even before they started charging an arm and a leg for luggage. I also knew that I couldn’t go on some asking spree for toys. I don’t actually remember getting an explanation like this, but if the kid can understand it and it stops any residual whinging, I’d do it.
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Isn’t it fascinating how everybody sees something entirely different in even the shortest and most mundane story?
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The link left out this:
I was surprised that American children as young as one year old learn to say please, thank you, sorry and excuse me. Those things are not actively taught in India. Another difference is how parents here tend to stay away from “because I said so” and actually explain things to their children. It’s admirable the way parents will go into basic reasoning to let the child know why some things are the way they are and the information that parent was an Indian who had immigrated to the U.S.
So yes, I read something else into the story, even with the nosy, condescending relatives. 🙂
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You know me, I see nosy relatives, and that’s it, I’ve stopped reading. 🙂
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Yes. My reaction was that it would help the child learn to think. I remember when I was that age every time my parents would explain something like that to me it would open up a new and exiting part of the world.
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Right, that sex article is strange. To me it reads like this:
I often go on and on about banana pips and pickled ham and some people think I overdo it but these really are the core elements to the joy in sex, which we all have access to, so long as there are banana pips in the world, and who would dispute that? And then of course there is and always will be pickled ham. People have lied to us about these day and night, but I am sure that all will be revealed if we can ascertain the deeper meaning of our own banana pips. This isn’t possible without truth. That makes three things we need to embrace, which are banana pips and pickled ham and truth.
And to be fair, we won’t always react to things like a machine, like boom, boom, boom, because that is not the truth. Therefore you can see why the third element, of the truth, is very important. I am here to tell you about that. Just be your own bad self, and if you aren’t really into anything risque, well aint’t that the truth? Once again, I return to banana pips and how we need to embrace them. One person’s pickled ham is not the same as any other persons pickled ham.
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Brilliant! I’ve been following this person’s blog for years and it’s always like this or worse.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMHvs6lldo8
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“Parisians erect ‘Green’ defence system in anticipation of Holgar Dansk”
🙂
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Russian website launches ‘Miss Hitler’ beauty pageant
A Russian social network invites young women from Eastern Europe to participate in a Nazi themed beauty pageant: ‘I adore Hitler because he was willing to conduct experiments on humans,’ says contestant from Belarus.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4581508,00.html
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May be, there is something here:
” according to the crude sentimentality of our modern moral sensibility, only victims are worthy of a full measure, indeed an infinite measure, of sympathy. Everyone else can—and should—go to the devil. But since it would be harsh to send so many people thither, we must pretend that almost everyone is a victim. ”
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_07_15_04td.html
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This is almost word for word a quote from one of the novels I’m working on for my next book. 🙂
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Игорь Иртеньев: Разговор с товарищем Путиным
День отошел,
как предчувствие смутен,
Солнца луч
догорел в окне.
Двое в комнате –
я
и Путин.
И кто из нас кто –
непонятно мне.
За эти годы
он стал по сути
Моим альтер эго,
меня не спросясь,
Мое подсознанье
опутал Путин,
Вступивши с ним
в преступную связь.
http://www.novayagazeta.ru/comments/50561.html
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Via Mike, I read about new Stalin’s biography by Stephen Kotkin.
“In an exceptionally ambitious biography—the first volume of a projected three takes us from Stalin’s birth, in 1878, up to 1928 in just under 1,000 pages—Stephen Kotkin, a history professor at Princeton […] The book’s signature achievement, and its main fault, is its vast scope: Kotkin has set out to write not only the definitive life of Stalin but also the definitive history of the collapse of the Russian empire and the creation of the new Soviet empire in its place. His canvas is crowded with details from the lives of Bismarck and Mussolini, as well as the czarist politicians Sergei Witte, Pyotor Stolypin, and Pyotor Durnovo; the czar and the czarina themselves; and of course Lenin, Trotsky, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Nikolai Bukharin, and Felix Dzerzhinsky, just for starters.”
Have you heard about it? Sounds interesting because of the vast scope.
I thought you would like the article’s last paragraph:
“In the contemporary West, we often assume that perpetrators of mass violence must be insane or irrational, but as Kotkin tells the story, Stalin was neither. And in its way, the idea of Stalin as a rational and extremely intelligent man, bolstered by an ideology sufficiently powerful to justify the deaths of many millions of people, is even more terrifying. It means we might want to take more seriously the pronouncements of the Russian politicians who have lately argued for the use of nuclear weapons against the Baltic states, or of the ISIS leaders who call for the deaths of all Christians and Jews. Just because their language sounds strange to us doesn’t mean that they, and those who follow them, don’t find it compelling, or that they won’t pursue their logic to its ultimate conclusion.”
http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/understanding-stalin/380786/
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Woman, why are you doing this to me? I now want to drop everything and read this book.
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Have you heard about
Canada has raised its national “terrorism” alert, officials said, after a soldier run over by a suspected jihadist died in hospital. […] The assailant in Monday’s attack was identified as 25-year-old Martin Couture-Rouleau, who was briefly detained at a Canadian airport last July when he sought to fly to Turkey, federal police said. Police did not have enough evidence to charge him with seeking to join a terrorist group abroad and released him. […] Last month, IS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani called for supporters living in coalition member countries, including Canada, to launch spontaneous attacks against their non-Muslim countrymen.
http://news.yahoo.com/canadian-soldier-run-over-suspected-islamic-radical-dies-132343525.html
Meanwhile, in Israel
Suspected terror attack in Jerusalem; 9 wounded
[…]
The driver, who reportedly had a criminal record and was the holder of an Israeli (blue) identification card, was shot dead by a SWAT officer near the old Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4583138,00.html
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Via Mike.
Riots Hit Kiev, Neofascists Hold Torch-Lit March In Ukraine
http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/10/14/riots-hit-kiev-neofascists-holds-torch-lit-march-in-ukraine/
What is going on?
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An invasion of Ukraine by Russia is what’s going on and has been going on for months.
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Read a review I liked by Michael Ignatieff, who “teaches at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.”
One Country Saved Its Jews. Were They Just Better People?
The surprising truth about Denmark in the Holocaust
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115670/denmark-holocaust-bo-lidegaards-countrymen-reviewed
The last paragraph of the review (quoted below) has some truth to it, imo. Makes one wonder how things will look like in post-nation state age.
Btw, you once talked about the made up national past which everybody studies at school. How will school education change after the decline of nation state (lets suppose for now that schools will remain)? Wouldn’t British children still study Shakespeare and, in general, concentrate on English lit? Which history will be left to study, if not a critical look at former national narratives? Another possibility is studying a mishmash of authors and histories from various times and places, but it seems unlikely.
// There is a sobering message in Lidegaard’s tale for the human rights era that came after these abominations. If a people come to rely for their protection on human rights alone, on the mutual recognition of common humanity, they are already in serious danger. The Danish story seems to tell us that it is not the universal human chain that binds peoples together in extremity, but more local and granular ties: the particular consciousness of time, place, and heritage that led a Danish villager to stand up to the Gestapo and say no, it will not happen here, not in our village. This extraordinary story of one small country has resonance beyond its Danish context. Countrymen should be read by anyone seeking to understand what precise set of shared social and political understandings can make possible, in times of terrible darkness, acts of civil courage and uncommon decency. //
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After reading this article, my respect for Woolf went down considerably:
The Rage of Virginia Woolf
http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_3_oh_to_be.html
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I haven’t known that:
2 сентября 1939 г. Брестская крепость впервые подверглась бомбёжке со стороны немцев
http://ehorussia.com/new/node/67
My grandfather’s older brother was killed either in it or near it, but in 1941.
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Apparently, calling somebody an anti-Semite is worse than being one. Another sign of where France is going.
Holocaust survivor Roger Cukierman, president of France’s largest Jewish group, indicted for denouncing comedian who created ‘quenelle’ gesture and mocked Holocaust.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4583513,00.html
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France’s potential breakdown
Op-ed: ‘Quenelle’ gesture is not a popular sign of contestation; it is the indicator of a modern form of violent anti-Semitism building up in France
As football players, basketball stars and national celebrities are crowding the ranks of a growing anti-social movement, France is put in jeopardy because of its inability to acknowledge the risk posed by revolutionary wave triggered by a group of populist stage performers.
Former football world champion Nicolas Anelka caught everyone’s attention when he used a well-known and already massively used anti-establishment salute in a national sport competition.
[..]
the “quenelle affair” should be interpreted for what it really is. It has emerged as a clear mark of France’s potential breakdown, which finds its foundation in the implosion of a national political system leading to the need of new charismatic leaders and the rise of a form of modern anti-Semitism.
[…]
With President Hollande’s approval rate falling under the 15% bar, a disastrous economic situation and multiple challenges to the central government, France resembles the 1920s Weimar Republic more than the late 1930s Third Reich.
Since François Hollande took office, the once strong French government has repeatedly been abandoning ground to destructive movements, retreating on key internal and external affairs while bunkering itself on its strategically void and unpopular campaign of taxations and same-sex marriage. In such a climate of rupture between the political class and the average citizen, the latter is increasingly looking for movements able to fill the vacuum.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4472467,00.html
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I’ve had a feeling for a while that something is terribly amiss in France. I’m not equipped to provide a valuable analysis but I’ve been hoping that one of the few remaining specialists in Contemporary France would come by and share their insights. But it seems like they are nowhere to be found.
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Regarding
“French government has repeatedly been abandoning ground to destructive movements, retreating on key internal and external affairs while bunkering itself on its strategically void and unpopular campaign of taxations and same-sex marriage”
You said it was the sign of the end of the nation state period. If people react by turning to “destructive movements,” we will live in interesting times, quoting a Chinese curse.
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The worst sign would be the unpopularity of same – sex marriage. However, I do not believe that this movement of irate ED patients is that massive.
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Was impressed by the described in: Когда же вы начнете Родину любить?
http://taki-net.livejournal.com/1958397.html
Как Америка спасала Россию
http://sergey-orlov.livejournal.com/110605.html
The latter is from Сергей Орлов who is a historian and a journalist.
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I agree with the customs officers in that story. The way these passengers act is absolutely disgusting. They have no shame, nothing human in them. These creeps wills sell everything and everybody for a piece of cheaper sausage. Bleh.
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\\ The way these passengers act is absolutely disgusting.
Because they “hide” the products?
Or because they go to Ukraine during the war?
May be, they are against the war and are very poor, so even slight difference in prices makes all the difference.
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It’s time for the Russians to stop feeding off Ukraine and start feeding themselves. But they overwhelmingly support Putin whose cronies are robbing Russia from dawn till dusk and then some more.
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Людмила Улицкая: “Европа, прощай!”
Культура потерпела в России жестокое поражение, а люди культуры не в состоянии изменить самоубийственной политики государства
http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/26541088.html
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Religious (and national) tensions are mounting in Jerusalem during the last days. Somebody wrote an opinion column in Hebrew warning against Israel entering some kind of religious war and drawing attention of all rising “Arab spring” and Arab terrorism forces in the region, instead of them slaughtering each other and leaving Israel in peace, as f.e. ISIS does. Here:
Israel’s closure of the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound to all visitors following the assassination attempt of right-wing Jewish activist Yehuda Glick is tantamount to a “declaration of war,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday.
[…]
Arab east Jerusalem, which was seized by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised internationally, has been wracked by violence since early July, with clashes erupting between stonethrowers and police on an almost daily basis.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4586184,00.html
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Saudi Activist Manal Al-Sharif on Why She Removed the Veil
One of Saudi Arabia’s preeminent activists, who led the right-to-drive movement, describes her decision to take off the niqab.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/30/saudi-activist-manal-al-sharif-on-why-she-removed-the-veil.html
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Uri’s latest column about US-Israel relationship and the state of US democracy:
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html
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Bad news:
” IDF confirms rocket fired from Gaza hit Israel. Rocket launched on Friday from Gaza Strip exploded in Eshkol Regional Council; unclear whether incident was deliberate or test launch. ”
” IAEA: Iran stopped answering questions about nuclear arms development
NYT report cites Amano as saying Tehran failed to stand behind commitment to provide information regarding past attempts to develop components of nuclear bomb. ”
Good news:
Israel presents maritime version of ‘Iron Dome’
‘C-Dome’ designed to help combat vessels counteract any threats from the air, including missiles, helicopters and drones.
[…]
The new system is more about protecting maritime economic interests than blocking Palestinian projectiles.
“The most strategic sites for the future right now will be gas platforms and oil platforms,” said reserve Israeli Navy Capt.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4586721,00.html
I was interested in the several facts about Europe and USA in this article:
The western media’s double-standard on Israeli ‘racism’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4586532,00.html
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Turns out Turks hate everybody:
Pew poll: Israel most hated country in Turkey
86% of responders have an unfavorable opinion of Israel, while only 2% view it positively; Turks also harbor a strong dislike to terror organizations – 80% dislike Hamas, 85% dislike Hezbollah.
[…]
Other than having a favorable opinion of their own country (78 percent, according to a 2012 poll), the Turks don’t think highly of any of the countries or entities asked about.
The Turks have a lot opinion of the European Union (66 percent unfavorable opinion, 25 percent favorable), China (68 percent negative views, 21 percent positive), the United States (73 percent negative views and 19 percent positive), Russia (73 percent negative, 16 positive), Brazil (65 percent negative, 20 percent positive) and Iran (75 percent negative, 14 percent positive).
Saudi Arabia, however, another Sunni state, is the most liked of the countries asked about, but even then, only 26 percent of Turks have a favorable opinion of it, while 53 percent have an unfavorable opinion of it).
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4587243,00.html
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Read a post about James V. Wertsch, “Voices of Collective Remembering,” Cambridge University Press, 2002
О российской универсальной исторической модели
http://scholar-vit.livejournal.com/385301.html
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It’s from 2000, but so crazy / funny that I had to share:
Multiculti Museums—Or Else
The U.K. will cut funds for museums that don’t draw minority visitors.
The British government announced in May that it plans to monitor the ethnic composition of visitors to the nation’s publicly subsidized museums. Those museums that fail to draw what the government considers a sufficient number of ethnic minorities will lose their subsidies.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_3_sndgs04.html
Interesting what is the situation now.
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Tomorrow is the official opening of our university’s multiculturalism center. It’s being opened by he same people who taught us how to conduct visual evaluations of racial minorities. So yeah, it’s funny. Until it isn’t.
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German activists remove remembrance for Berlin Wall victims
In protest against ‘inhuman’ refugee policy, activists take white crosses to North Africa, photograph them with asylum seekers.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4588053,00.html
I don’t like two aspects here:
1 – Must they disrespect their own history, their own victims (of Berlin Wall) to make a point about foreigners?
2. As somebody already commented, “North Africa isn’t under foreign occupation.
Europe can’t be expected to employ and feed all of Africa.”
Those German activists reminded me of a person you described who was for France accepting all comers, but left the country herself.
I doubt those asylum seekers are in mortal danger, as opposed to wanting to reach Europe to have better life economically. The problem is that the West can’t open all borders, if it wants to continue living well itself. Europe doesn’t have resources for millions of poor people from Africa and other places.
Those activists want “everything be good and nothing be bad” without thinking realistically, in an adult objective fashion about anything at all.
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It’s simply a PR action of a small marginalized group. They are so stupid and ignorant that they are not even aware that the Berlin Wall wasn’t erected to keep anybody out. It was erected for the exact opposite purpose: to keep people from leaving. The have made total idiots out of themselves with this activity.
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