“They are probably on a beach somewhere, sipping vodka,” the narrator  of the TV show Greed: The Fugitives enunciated, and N and I doubled over with laughter. The idea that somebody might sip vodka is too bizarre.

The only correct way to drink vodka is to inhale deeply, then exhale and throw the entire shot inside on the inhale. Vodka is not savored. It is drunk for the effect, not for the taste. If you want to savor, get a cognac or something of the kind.

“And how about all those flavored vodkas?” you might ask.

Those are weird inventions of weird people that have nothing to do with the art of drinking vodka.

If there ever was a disappointing book of literary criticism, it’s this one. It has a really great introduction that promises a lot, builds up your expectations, offers tons of interesting questions, and all this only to deliver the earth – shattering idea that. . . the characters of the late 18th – early 19th century Spanish literature don’t examine their privilege. The bastards.

I’d think it would be much were worthy of attention if the early Romantics did examine privilege (because anything so out of character and so misplaced should definitely be analyzed) but this scholar chooses to reduce his analysis of the most prominent Romantics of Spain to the ridiculously obvious conclusion that they didn’t. The conclusion to Properties of Modernity just repeats the word “privilege” as many times as possible without even trying to venture into any other subject of inquiry.

I’m wondering if we are to expect a book of literary criticism that chides Renaissance artists for not placing trigger warnings on their art.

And hey, I know this scholar. I’ve met him, we belong to the same intellectual tradition within Hispanic Studies that places the beginning of the Spanish Romanticism in the 1780s. He was a very promising scholar but then he went to Berkeley and that was the end of him. It all became about privilege – scratching and real literary analysis died.

Author: Michael Iarocci
Title: Properties of Modernity
Language: English
My rating: 2 out of 10 because the intro is very good

There are different and inventive forms of prostitution. For instance, here is a woman who is selling her abortion.

Russians discovered that an American is working as an administrator of one of Russia’s provincial universities. And he has even had the gall to put up portraits of a couple of American scientists on the university’s hallowed walls. And of course now the American has to be fired.

The poor fellow has been there for 20 years, loves Russia, has done a lot for the university, hasn’t had a single complaint filed against him, but now he’s being vilified in the Russian media and kicked out of his job.

All of the companies that hire a significant number of part-time workers should be heavily fined. They push a huge number of their business costs on taxpayers who end up feeding the workers, paying for their medical care and pensions. And that’s just ridiculous.

Are you middle class in your area of the US?

Find out here.

I’m not, it seems.