And since we are on the subject of deeply obnoxious inmaturity:

I am a junior scholar with a secret: I enjoy Masterpiece Theatre’s British period drama Downton Abbey. Actually, “enjoy” is quite the understatement. And this is a very, very difficult thing for me to admit publicly. . . As an academic, I find myself apologizing, or overexplaining, to other scholars my interest in this show should the topic arise.

. . In conversations, I find myself explaining that I am quite “well aware of the racial and classist problematics,” as a way of introducing, framing and apologizing for my love of the show.

Jesus, lady, unclench. Nobody gives a rat’s ass what you do or don’t watch. The world is not breathlessly awaiting updates on your entertainment choices. If you are very lucky, there are a few relatives and friends who might be nice enough to pay attention to which TV shows you watch. Everybody else is too busy living their life to notice.

And the references to “classist problematics” in regard to a TV show make you sound like a twerp of massive proportions.

This is what people who insist at 15 that their Daddy take them to a playground amidst plentiful conversation grow up to be like.

These chirpy, vapid drama queens give a bad name to all academics.

A 15-year-old boy told me that someday he wanted to raise a family, not the way his parents are raising him (with phones out during meals and in the park and during his school sports events) but the way his parents think they are raising him — with no phones at meals and plentiful family conversation.

I believe the author is either lying or the boy in question suffers from a form of mental retardation. He’s 15 and he says things like “My parents are raising me”? And he wants to eat dinner with his parents? And have them engage him in “plentiful family conversation”? And he actually said the words “plentiful family conversation”?

Another possibility is that the boy is a sociopath in the making and says these things because he knows they will please the clueless adults.

Normal teenagers at this age want to be left alone in their rooms with their porn, video games, social networks, weird music, and drama. They don’t want to be “raised by parents amidst shared meals and plentiful conversation.” We have already established that this is a very kind and gentle society that delays development but that doesn’t cancel out hormonal processes, does it?

I’m being asked why I don’t support the independence of Catalonia when I did support the independence of Ukraine back in 1991.

In Ukraine, more than 90% of people voted for independence. That’s an overwhelming, unassailable majority. In Catalonia (Scotland, Quebec, etc), the break down is 50/50, and if independence does manage to squeak by, it will be by a couple of percentage points.

Besides, Ukrainians were ready to pay for their independence, and did pay, and are still paying. Catalonians, on the other hand, are demonstrating childish behavior when they declare they will continue being part of the EU even though the EU doesn’t want them.

Still, if Catalonians do act stupidly and vote for independence, I don’t think anybody should detain them by force or do anything violent to them.

We just came back from a great theater performance. I love theater with a passion of 100 literary critics and feel great compassion for people who don’t know how to enjoy this form of art.

We watched All the Way, a play about LBJ’s efforts to push the Civil Rights Act through the Congress and then his campaign against Goldwater. It is disturbing how, in spite of all the obvious and great progress, we are still hearing the same arguments and witnessing the same debates. The Voter Rights Act is once again sorely needed, the anti-gay sentiments are verbatim what the anti-black arguments were in 1964, etc. The play brought this home in a powerful way.

The only weak part of the play was the actor playing MLK. He was way too young and signally lacking in charisma and gravitas to play this part. If MLK had been as limp as this fellow made him out to be, we’d still be drinking from separate water fountains. This actor would take MLK’s powerful lines and deliver them with less enthusiasm than I show when I lie to my neighbor that her dog is cute.

Before the play, N was at the Strange Loop conference and then came to meet me at the Strange Folk festival. I have no idea why everything was about being strange in St Louis today but the city did look strangely alive.

The Strange Folk festival was so strange that it had a stall that sold. . . old Soviet pocket watches.

I saw myself in the mirror at the glass maker’s booth and realized that I couldn’t be happier with how stylish and put together I look, even though my hair has gone completely nuts again. People  (women only, of course. This isn’t Cuba) were touching me all the time at the festival because they loved my applique, my barrettes, my shawl, my handbag, etc. That was very funny.

Author: Belén Gopegui

Title: El comité de la noche

Language: Spanish

Year: 2014

I never read anything by Gopegui before because from the references to her work that I saw in criticism I thought she was not my kind of writer. This novel, however, demonstrated that, often, critics cannot be trusted. Gopegui is quite a good novelist.

The Committee of the Night came at the perfect time for me because I needed one more text to analyze to round out my book. This novel says exactly what I need it to say to support my argument.

There are moments in the novel where Gopegui the ideologue loses out to Gopegui the writer. By the end of the novel, though, the author manages to pull herself together, stop editorializing and make the novel work. This is a very surprising, pleasant discovery for me.

OK, who wants to hear a really short joke?

Here goes: Saudi Arabia will head a U.N. Human Rights Council panel.

It would be immensely funny if it weren’t true.

Remember how I told you about the typically American incapacity to admit the basic humanity of anybody who is not American? Here is an example:

As this NYT story illustrates, the White House is going to great lengths to make it look as if Putin is desperate to meet with Obama.

According to this mentality, whenever anything in the world happens, it has got to be the result of Americans’ actions.

In reality, though, the White House doesn’t make anything look like or whatever. Putin is really desperate for this meeting. Every single independent commentator in Russia or specializing in the subject of Russia has been pointing this out for months. For Putin, this meeting is an enormous win over the “weak and dumb” Americans and especially over the “[nasty racist words] Obama.” This has been all over the Russian media and it’s not the result of White House’s make-believe strategies.

It’s getting so that we will soon hear that “the White House is going to great lengths to make it look like it’s September.”

I’m hearing that I’m not supposed to rejoice because Boehner is retiring since he’ll be substituted by somebody even worse. But can anybody honestly say it will not be a relief to be spared having to see his weepy mug again?

All of these so-called Liberals who are peeing themselves with delight over the Pope’s visit demonstrate how easily they sell out the interests and the dignity of women. The Pope is militant and very aggressive in his anti-woman agenda but that does not worry his Dem fans.

Women’s rights always take the back seat to absolutely everything else.

A really brilliant Russian scholar says, “Oh, of course, Putin will get a great reception at the UN General Assembly. About 150 out of the 200 participating nations have no idea what Ukraine even is or where it is located but they are deeply convinced that the US is evil. They don’t often say it directly but everybody they perceive as being against the US is guaranteed their support. Putin’s success is not about Putin. It’s about the popularity of anti-American rhetoric.

Putin will not be contented, though. The opinion of these 150 representatives is of no value to him. He needs to be loved by the US.”