It’s very hot here this time of year, so I stay cooped up inside all day and then go for long walks around town in the evenings.

In a residential area across the road from ours, I just saw a white middle-aged cop chatting with 3 black teenagers. The cop showed them how his computer works and what the dash cam does. And then the kids asked the cop to play basketball with them. He dropped his vehicle, with the computer still on, and started shooting hoops with them.

I made a circle around the neighborhood, and they are still playing, laughing, having fun.

Ideally, of course, there’d be no reason for me to notice this scene.

John McCain has a crush on Hillary and hates Fox News. I guess he’d do my brain exercise, no sweat.

Russians are destroying enormous quantities of food. . . to spite the West.

Mike Huckabee wants to deploy troops against. . . women who seek abortions.

Yet another disturbing story of an academic being hounded for posting something on Facebook.

Rape has become so. . . (I hate to say it but the only word that can describe it is) prestigious in some circles that people are now coming up with completely insane stories of how they too were victimized by rape in spite of never being raped. I’m shocked and horrified that people can get so pampered and spoiled that they’d feel the need to attract pity to themselves in such a way.

The doctor told me to eat small, bland meals every 2,5 hours.

I managed the meals part and the “every 2,5 hours” part extremely well.

The “small, bland” part, however, is not happening.

For the first time in years, Spanish newspapers and magazines started publishing articles titled,

– “How to Spend That Extra Bit of Money You’ve Saved?”

– “Men Prefer to Spend Their Savings on Cars, While Women Choose Travel”

– “What Is the Best Place to Go on a Beach Vacation?”

– “Why Vacations Matter”

– “Buying Luxury Products: How to Make the Right Choice”

This is a very good sign. A couple of years ago, a journalist who published this kind of an article risked having his house set on fire by enraged readers. And now people actually want to read this stuff.

Spain ‘ s economy is growing at the fastest rate since 2007 right now, consumer spending is starting to boom, and the tourism industry is doing very well.

I always knew Spain would kick the crisis ‘ s ass. Which doesnt, of course, cancel the need to face a much greater crisis of the nation-state that we all are anticipating.

Yesterday we went to see Trainwreck. If the last 20 minutes were to be cut off, it would be quite a good movie.

In spite of the genre, I found the film to be quite realistic. The actors didn’t look like plastic cyborgs. To the contrary, they looked even uglier than real people. Nobody in the movie is a good actor but nobody is ever familiar with acting in Hollywood movies.

On the positive side, the way the characters comported themselves actually made sense. It’s very rare that I watch a movie and recognize the characters’ actions as those of actual people.

The jokes were funny, for the most part. The last 20 minutes were boring as hell but that’s to be expected given the genre. Altogether, I’m very surprised at how much I didn’t hate it.