In 1902, the great historian Theodor Mommsen was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. At that time, everybody knew that the writing of history is just as creative and fictional as the production of novels or poetry.

OK, why is my Walter Scott post trending all of a sudden?  It has all of six words or so in it. Has there been a new development in the story?

Among all of the garbage written about Caitlyn Jenner, there is a piece that is not worthless. Strangely, it has been published in the NYTimes. Fell free to read the article in question here but I just want to comment on the closing paragraph:

Bruce Jenner told Ms. Sawyer that what he looked forward to most in his transition was the chance to wear nail polish, not for a furtive, fugitive instant, but until it chips off. I want that for Bruce, now Caitlyn, too. But I also want her to remember: Nail polish does not a woman make.

That’s precisely the thing: there is no there there. There is no uniform experience that all women share and that all men don’t. Searching for such an experience leads people in the crazy direction of equating womanhood with nail polish. 

In reality, there is no gender experience that cannot be turned around completely by age, social class, financial status, culture, religion, profession, intellect, and a million other factors. Jenner’s vision of womanhood is that of a very rich, pampered, and frankly stupid person. And that’s precisely the perfect test of how far one is ready to go in defending the right to self-determination. It’s easy to defend the rights of the smart, profound, interesting, or truly victimized. But the rich, brain-dead airheads are human, too, and as onerous as it is to stand up for them, we should remember that the hard work of respecting the basic humanity of others has to be done even when the others do everything to avoid evoking respect.

So we have migrated to outlook.office365.com and it’s an absolute freeping disaster. The interface is absolutely ridiculous. Everything bleeds into everything else in the streams of white color. I chose the most clearly defined interface, and this is what it looks like:

If I want to delete an email, it’s a whole process because there is no visible box next to the email to click. And the Delete button is located in a faraway and counterintuitive place. All of my folders have been destroyed, of course. And I have a filing system that is very much based on folders. 

Plus, the website takes forever to open. There is literally no upside to this switch. We keep futzing with our university email every couple of years, and every change has been massively worse than whatever preceded it.

Putin has been freaked out by the unanimous rejection of his actions by the G7 and is now trying to suck up to Italy in hopes of splintering it away from the countries that condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Being kicked out of the G8 has been an enormous blow to Putin. The little weasel hoped to rule the group by now, and the invasion of Ukraine was going to help him do that. Obviously, that’s not how things work but it’s not like he’s known for great insight or a sophisticated understanding of international politics.