Bill O’Reilly is interviewing Trump and actually sounding like the voice of reason. This goes to show that no matter how crazy one is, there is always somebody even more crazy.

The middle class is not as much eroded or destroyed as it is torn towards the poles.

This is the hallmark of the post-nation state: the poles grow while the middle is hollowed out. For now, it looks like the future class distribution tends towards:

~60% on the bottom (the bottom being not hungry and ragged but obese and constricted in movement physically, geographically and symbolically)

~25% on the top

~15% in the middle.

Remember, though, none of this is set in stone. It is up to us to change these numbers but we will have to come up with new methods that correspond to the new realities and not try to stretch the old blanket over fresh problems.

Israel is going to plant a forest dedicated to Ukraine. The Ukraine Forest will be the first one Israel has ever dedicated to another country. 300 acres of land for the forest will be allocated in the Southern part of Israel and an environmentalist organization will start planting the trees.

Ukraine’s Jewish and Muslim communities have been staunch supporters of Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity. The cooperation between Ukrainians, Jews and Muslims is helping to offset the tragic history of centuries of anti-semitism in Ukraine.

Ukraine is becoming a place where Jews, Muslims and people with some very distant connection to Christianity are working together in peace and kindness. That is beautiful and deserves to be celebrated with a forest.

People in Quebec are super excited about the possibility of welcoming Syrian refugees. The media and the social networks are filled with touching stories of the Quebecois who are pledging to give their life savings to the refugees. People are creating databases of their houses and apartments where they are willing to welcome the refugees for free.

But wait, money and lodgings are nothing. The Quebecois’ kindness to the refugees has forced them to do something really unthinkable. They are willing – I’m not even sure I can pronounce the words, I’m overcome with emotion – to suspend their draconian language laws and allow the refugees into English – language schools!

What I find really curious is that these very same compassionate and kind Quebecois have been extremely hostile and shitty to the teachers of Quebec who were striking against the cuts to secondary education that are destroying Quebec’s public schools. If there is a case of people fighting for the public good it’s that of these teachers, yet they kept receiving threats and insults.

This whole phenomenon reminded me of the 19th – early 20th-century practice of getting kids to donate toys and coins to send to “savages” in Africa and Asia while teaching those same kids to despise the poor they saw in the streets.

The IMF is bending over backwards to accommodate Ukraine. Yesterday, it actually changed its rule as to not doing any lending to countries that default on their debts to other countries. The change aims to free Ukraine from its (entirely fictitious) debt to Russia but it will benefit all countries who want to use the new regulation.

Joe Biden came to Ukraine on the same day, reiterating the US support for the anti-Russian sanctions and confirming that the IMF will be amenable to Ukraine’s needs.

The Kremlin is livid and is promising to sue the IMF.

It has to be recognized that the IMF has been very good to Ukraine, pushing it towards much needed anti-corruption reforms. Yes, I know you read something vaguely convincing by Naomi Klein a while ago but please consider opening yourself up to the possibility that the world is a tad more complex.