The Russian Orthodox Church is a very funny institution. The Church, for instance, allows people to marry even if they are married to somebody else legally. Also, the Church allows people to get divorced up to 3 times (or an infinite number of times if you are willing to pay a fee.) While you are getting married and divorced in the Church, you can absolutely keep getting married and divorced with other people legally.

As a result, it is possible to have two sets of rotating spouses that change every couple of years and exist independently of each other. The system exists to accommodate the Russian nouveau riches who can’t marry their endlessly swapped mistresses legally and pacify them with the “more spiritual” Church weddings.

Obviously, the Russian Orthodox Church is horrified with how the evil Westerners degraded the sacred institution of marriage by granting gay people the right to marry. Obviously.

In case you think I can only grow tiny little sunflowers, here is one that’s almost as tall as me. This one grows next to the front porch.

And here are the ones that grow in the backyard:

This is a little patch of Ukrainian identity in Metro St Louis.

Just saw part of a very disappointing Dr. Phil Show. A woman with “the bipolar disorder” is abusing her teenage sons. She beats them, chokes them, screams at them, and forces the poor kids to live in a horrible, chaotic environment.

“What if she acts this way because of a chemical imbalance in her brain? What if she can’t help it?” says Dr. Phil to the sons to shame them for feeling fed up with the abuse.

This is a very convenient, comfortable imbalance, of course. It never forces the poor sufferer to try to choke or cuss out a police officer or anybody who could make her suffer the consequences. It never makes her hurt herself in any way. She is very rational, polite and quiet with Dr. Phil himself. The “chemical imbalance” only awakens when she needs to abuse the children who have no way of defending themselves.

People are so brain-washed by pharmaceutical ads that whenever they hear about “chemical imbalances” they feel guilty and unable to resist. This is why I need to tell them here, at least: whenever you hear that somebody has a “chemical imbalance” that obligates them to act in ways that are not comfortable to you, you are perfectly justified in leaving and never being in this person’s company ever again.

And if we all did that, the incidence of “chemical imbalances” would plummet immediately.

Putin’s press secretary casually wears a watch that costs $720,000. (Yes, seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars.) And this is just a press secretary, not an actual oligarch. (Yes, of course, there are more expensive watches.)

This is the kind of riches that Bernie Sanders wants to persuade Putin’s clique to give up for the sake of the environment. And this is why I’m saying that, as nice as Bernie is, his understanding of foreign affairs equals Sarah Palin’s.