A bill is being brought before the Russian parliament that will force restaurants to make at least 50% of the food they serve traditional Russian cuisine in order to promote patriotism. Freedom Fries have finally been defeated as the favorite food of crazed patriots.

This is especially hilarious since traditional Russian cuisine was destroyed back in 1917. Based on the way pre-revolutionary authors made it sound, it was great. But nobody knows it any longer or has access to the ingredients. The Russians might just as well mandate the use of the cuisine that was popular in the Roman Empire. But when did little things like practicality ever stop passionate patriots?

And as a P.S. to the previous post, one reason to respect Hillary is that she hasn’t been selling any easy, attractive, simplistic recipes. At least for now she’s taking the hard road of abstaining from facile, cheery populism. And she’s losing ground as a result. I’ve got to admire this costly refusal to engage in cheap sloganeering to soothe the voters’ anxieties.

I think Obama just said that the biggest threat that we have on the planet today is climate change, and a lot of people are saying, did he really say that? We have people chopping off heads and he’s talking about climate change. I call it weather. I call it weather. You know, the weather changes.

This is coming from Donald Trump, of course. And it’s a profoundly dumb statement. But can’t you see why it’s seductive? A complex, confusing, scary reality is reduced to the simplicity of the eminently comprehensible slogan “The weather changes!” People like Trump because he makes the world sound less confusing.

And come to think of it, isn’t this why Bernie Sanders is so attractive? The complex, scary reality is reduced to the extraordinarily simple trope of evil Wall Street banksters who don’t let good people have good things. Trying to understand the workings of the economy will defeat most of us, but reduce the economy to the cowboy movie struggle between good and evil and people will support you out of sheer gratitude for making their world more comprehensible.

Back at the Oxford conference, an academic from Finland listened to 3 American scholars discuss their universities and exclaimed, “This is unbelievable! If I tell people back home that Americans also have problems with funding, nobody will believe me. Aren’t American universities supposed to be rolling in money?”

And this is why I never go to my office and refuse all offers of socialization in the summer.

Yes, one does become all weird and hermit – like as a result but I already submitted two articles and have made enormous progress on the book this summer. Coming anywhere near campus or colleagues would suck me in and mess with my work routine in crazy ways.

So imagine a situation where people who support Trump constitute 86% of Americans.

And they manage to get him elected president because such a majority can easily elect a cat if it so chooses.

And now Trump is president and works hard to enrich himself and other billionaires.

And the proles who are getting poorer every day remain ecstatic because he entertains them with making nasty jokes about his opponents.

And the second the voters begin to wonder whether it makes sense to keep him in the White House, he starts a war with Mexico and annexes Tamaulipas. And again, the public rejoices and adores him.

All of this is already happening in Russia.  Putin is Russia’s Trump and Ukrainians are Russians’ Mexicans.

You know what’s great? The DVR. Now that I have it, I can watch nothing but Law & Order reruns for the rest of my life.

You’ll say it gets old only to watch Law & Order. But there are people reading this blog right now who know that I can watch the show for decades and never get bored.

Of course, I don’t really watch it. I have it in the background while I work.