My news feed is populated by endless whiny posts by people who complain about being forced into consumerism by two and three-year-old kids. There is not a single post, though, where any of these people admit to how much crap they bought for themselves over the holidays.

For everybody else, the festivities are over but for us they are just beginning. The best gifts, the biggest celebration, the most attractive food selection, the prettiest outfits – everything will only be beginning next week.

It’s like we’ve had a trial run with Christmas and now get to do the real celebration.

And a great article in the NYTIMES about the high-achieving immigrants and slacker locals. Now try to guess which group will go to college to count microaggressions and demand nurture and which to study.

These polar bears grew up in the San Diego zoo, away from snow. And now they suddenly got 26 tons of snow to play with! Their joy is something I can really identify with:

Two days without turning on my computer. That was very relaxing. However, not having the computer on did not mean I was distanced from my newsfeed. Here are some interesting links:

And here is a result of the corporate student protests: academics are asked to provide “diversity statements” quantifying how many diverse consumer goods. . . sorry, people they have purchased for the organization.

A brilliant article on the Republican political field. It’s long but it’s very insightful and goes beyond the superficial “all them Trump supporters are stoopid.”

A Montreal blogger made a roundup of all Montreal murders in 2015. It was an eye-opening reading because it turns out that beneath the Montreal I know there is a city of gangs, drive-by shootings, organized crime, dismemberments, and God knows what else. Every place has a secret life of its own, and we should not forget that.

An English translation of the most popular article of the most valiant Russian journalist. Russia’s official ideology is infantilism, says the journalist.

And this piece is the comedic sensation of the week. I almost fell over with laughter when I first read it. UN delegates from Poland, Costa Rica and the UK visited the US and “were appalled by the lack of gender equality in America.” I wish they’d invited women from Saudi Arabia, Russia and Afghanistan to be appalled at the horrible life of women in the US, as well. That would have made the piece even punchier.

“There must be a consensus on how all of a country’s residents are expected to treat each other. A government that invites people of dramatically different ideas into the country without clear plans for developing such a consensus is cruelly betraying its residents. It’s also setting up the immigrants themselves as scapegoats whenever anything goes wrong, whether it involves them or not.” All true but does anybody have any examples of creating such a consensus without strictly punitive means and / or extreme propaganda (like in Israel)?

A tenured professor of Spanish is fired, and with good cause. Once again: people who say that tenure exists to prevent professors from being fired are degenerate idiots.

For those who still don’t know: this is how Russia’s mafia state functions. It’s the same state that Syriza and Marine Le Pen take funding from, the same state that Spain’s Podemos loves so much, the same state that Trump glorifies, and the same state that Bernie Sanders is convinced will give up its profits because of global warming.

In Russian. A brilliant example of why psychotherapy is difficult.

Why have we never heard of the great Fatema Mernissi?

The new chairperson of senate committee that oversees education in Arizona believes church should be mandatory, the earth is only 6,000 years old, and that chem trails in the sky are manipulating the weather.

How Montreal is sticking it to Vancouver. Hilarious! But also points to a very dangerous immigration-related precedent.

I had no idea such unhinged anti-Semitism even existed any longer: Jews are blamed for “the war on Christmas.” And they slaughter innocent babies, too.

People are so passionately rejecting the label of being anti-psychiatry as if there were anything wrong with it. I’m anti-psychiatry, so what? Weirdos.

Anti-Semitic attacks in wartime Montreal. Also, the story of a Jew who decked Montreal’s fascist leader.