Europe’s Angry Muslims is mostly a good read but there are parts where the author falls into precisely the kind of rhetoric that caused all the problems with Europe’s Muslim immigrants to begin with:

Migration, cousin marriage, seclusion of women, the return of remains … these practices occur not in isolation but as part of a way of life, a culture.

It is really annoying when vicious, nasty abuse of women is referred to as “culture.” This is a way of granting legitimacy to an inexcusable practice which, in reality, knows no cultural boundaries. In Russia, for instance, “seclusion of women” (aka treating women as cattle) existed for centuries. In certain social classes  (like merchants, for instance), it remained in place until the revolution of 1917.

Let’s stop excusing horrifying mistreatment of women by covering it up with the empty label of “culture.” It’s 2015, for Pete’s sake. Isn’t it time to say that this is not OK? Enough already with going weak in the knees whenever barbarity is defended as cute little cultural differences. Especially when they are not really that different from anything.

I wonder what it is that Ukrainians should have done to satisfy the sick fucks at The Nation. Ukraine ‘ s former president left the country of his own free will. He’d ordered the troops to open fire on protesters. After 100 people were killed, he freaked out and ran away. To Russia.

So what should Ukrainians have done? Hunted him down Mossad-style, kidnapped him, and dragged him back to Ukraine against his will to serve out the rest of his term?

Seriously, what do the brainless losers at The Nation suggest in this situation? They’ve got to have some alternative in mind if they offer this supercilious, high-handed judgments of Ukrainians.

Once again, The Nation is being extraordinarily unprofessional in its reporting on Ukraine. The magazine actually condemns the ousting of the country’s corrupt president Yanukovitch after he ordered the troops to open fire on peaceful protesters in 2013.

The stupid rag never fails at reaching new and disgusting lows in its efforts to service Putin and his lackeys.

While waiting for my sister to try on dresses at Nordstrom, I picked up a fashion magazine and read the following blurb:

Naja is a socially – conscious, luxurious, but affordable lingerie brand that empowers women.

I’ve tried to imagine how underwear can “empower” while having a social conscience, but failed.

Last week, Putin gave one of his regular live press conferences where citizens could call in or email their most pressing concerns and have the president answer their questions live.

A woman wrote in from the region where Russian troops are amassed before being sent across the border to kill Ukrainians. She told Putin that her best friend wanted a puppy but the friend’s husband wouldn’t let her buy one. So the woman was asking Putin to tell the husband to get a puppy for his wife. So Putin did and now the woman finally has her puppy. It’s great that the country at war and in the midst of an economic crisis has managed to solve this very pressing issue.

The tradition of asking the tsar, the Secretary General, or the President to address such trivial issues is one of the most venerable in Russia. People maintain the belief that the only reason things don’t work is that the good tsar is not aware of problems. They are convinced that all they need to do is inform him of what’s happening and everything will magically improve.

Ukrainians, on the other hand, have a very different approach to their elected leaders. The good tsar mentality is one they have abandoned utterly and completely.

Our university is banning smoking on our entire huge campus, including outside and in the parking lots. All forms of tobacco – free smoking are under the same ban.

People are accepting this with vapid indifference. I find the whole thing pathetic in the extreme.

I went to the local mystery novel bookstore and was overwhelmed by the number of novels by writers from Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Norway.

I bought a novel by an Icelandic author and wondered if the current vogue for novels set in the dead of winter in Nordic countries has to do with an unspoken realization that the climate change is taking away the cold and the snow. Are people trying to get their fill of the snow before it goes away for good?

The Russian equivalent of FEMA refused to provide even a single vehicle to transport humanitarian aid to the regions in Russia that have been ravaged by forest fires.

The excuse?

“All of the vehicles are currently in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.”

Basia got a scholarship to go to Harvard for a semester to work on her book on the Ukrainian Revolution. I don’t know what makes me happier: Basia ‘ s success or the recognition that the book is needed.

But I will miss Basia while she is away.

When my sister is around, no matter what we set out to do, we end up at an outlet mall.

“I know why you are getting out your phone,” my sister said. “You are going to post on your blog saying that whenever I show up, we always end up going to an outlet mall.”