Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity. So if we are to compare the two, we have to look at what Christianity was like 600 years ago in order to compare it to today’s Islam.

Back in the 1400s, Christianity was only about to gear up for its own version of Sunni / Shia sectarian violence and its emissaries were only getting ready to conquer the world, wiping out the unfaithful at every turn. The debates as to whether the unbelievers are fully human were only about to take place. Very public executions of those who committed some minor infraction against the orthodoxy were gradually getting into vogue.

So even the most backwards forms of Islam are way ahead of schedule in terms of their development as a major monotheistic religion.

Tried to find out what is going on at the occupied federal building in Oregon.

Accessed radio, newspaper, blogs, television, and word of mouth.

Discovered that all of these media transmit the single idea that “if these were Muslims or blacks, they’d be dead already.”

Got very tired of hearing this statement.

Gave up on the possibility of finding out what the hell is going on.

If this is true, then my Bernie Sanders sticker goes down today:

While Sanders frequently mentions the importance of electing Democrats, he focuses instead on his own “political revolution,” which he contends will sweep other party members into office.

. . Top aides believe the sheer breadth of energy from Sanders backers should be more than enough to elect fellow Democrats on his coattails come November 2016.

The article makes Sanders sound like a self-important jerk with zero understanding of the political process. I hope this is all a calumny because I don’t want to believe Sanders is as bad as the article paints him.

An American colleague is teaching in Germany this year as a visiting scholar. She decided to talk to students about the refugees (although her field is in no way related) and get them together to volunteer some help.

The students’ reaction was unexpectedly negative. This colleague has a tendency to exaggerate, so I’m not sure whether the students really “behaved like total Nazis”, but they were definitely not too happy about her lecture and suggestions.

Google Translate translates “Russians” from Ukrainian to Russian as “invaders” and “Russia” as “Mordor.”

As you probably know, Google doesn’t really translate anything. It simply picks the most frequent usage from its humongous database. Last year, for instance, there were several months during which the Russian name and patronymic “Vladimir Vladimirovich” were translated into English as “Mr. Putin.” This must have really sucked for the rest of Vladimir Vladimiroviches.

Also, last summer, “Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity” would be translated into Russian as “a political crisis in Ukraine.”

Friend! Remember: when you use Google Translate, you are forced to subscribe to its ideology.

1. A friend comes by your house unexpectedly. What will you put on the table?

A. What does the table have to do with this? – 0 pts

B. A 3 – course dinner complete with a selection of desserts. – 10 pts

C. My friends don’t come by unexpectedly. – 0 pts

D. A cup of coffee. – 3 pt.

E. Coffee and some cookies. – 4 pts.

2. What do you think about putting a carpet on a wall?

A. I don’t see a carpet in this photo. – 0 pts.

B. This can be good in cold climates as a way of insulating the apartment. – 5 pts.

C. Well, it’s better than wearing the carpet out by stepping on it! – 10 pts.

D. This just looks weird. – 0 pts.

3. When you visit other people’s houses, the first thing you do is remove your shoes.

A. Of course! It’s rude to trample around other people’s living quarters! – 10 pts.

B. Of course not! It’s rude to run around strangers barefoot or, even worse, in socks. – 0 pts.

C. It depends on the weather. – 0 pts.

4. Do you have something like this in your house?

A. Yes. – 10 pts.
B. No. – 0 pts.
C. No, but I’d love to have one. – 5 pts.

5. When was the last time you talked to your parents / siblings / adult children / adult grandchildren?

A. Today. – 10 pts.
B. Yesterday. – 7 pts.
C. Last month. – 0 pts.
D. I don’t remember. – 0 pts.

6. If you see people queuing up for something at a store, are you…

A. More likely to become interested on whatever it is they are lining up for? – 10 pts.

B. Less likely? – 0 pts.

C. Neither more nor less likely? – 0 pts.

7. Do you iron your bedding, underwear and/or towels?

A. Yes. – 10 pts.
B. No. – 0 pts.

8. If you lose your job, how many people will lend you some cash to tide you over?

A. I prefer to use my credit card. – 0 pts.
B. One. – 3 pts.
C. A few. – 6 pts.
D. All of my friends will be happy to do it no questions asked. – 10 pts.

9. How many of your friends are cheating or have recently cheated on their spouses?

A. None. – 0 pts.
B. One. – 2 pts.
C. A couple. – 7 pts.
D. All of them. – 10 pts.

10. Do you throw away orange and lemon rind?

A. Of course. Why would I want to keep it? – 0 pts.
B. I always feel bad about throwing it away when I can make such great things out of it. What a waste! – 10 pts.

Answers are under the fold!

Continue reading “How Much of a Soviet Person Are You? A Quiz” →

The Modern Language Association’s Executive Council has issued a statement criticizing growing anti-Muslim bias as well as bias against those who teach about Islam.

The MLA (my professional association) is so pathetic. This year, the number of job offerings in languages dropped off a cliff. The number of positions offered is back to the levels of the horrible 2009-10 job cycle which was at the height of the recession and saw 40% of job searches in foreign languages canceled or frozen.

The economy is no longer in recession, the job offerings have been doing much better, but then this year the numbers of positions across all fields have collapsed again.  Nobody knows why but instead of discussing this really serious crisis, the MLA is issuing ridiculous statements about the non-existent persecution of “those who teach about Islam.”

There was a situation with somebody who ran afoul of her religious institution’s Statement of Faith with a discussion of Islam in the classroom. But does that mean that we should all drop everything and start worrying about how evangelicals resolve their doctrinal concerns?

Another equally idiotic initiative is MLA’s statement “on the exclusion of refugees.” Playing the noble savior of non-existent refugees is, of course, much more pleasing than figuring out what the hell is happening with the job market. Let’s dispense imaginary bounty and pretend we are powerful and magnanimous.

Obviously, the MLA can and will do nothing for any refugees but the association just can’t pass up the chance to get some sweet “white man’s burden” thrills out of mentioning them.

I keep wondering if people are genuinely incapable of retaining any memories of the not-so-distant past or if their desire to be crabby old farts overpowers all reason. See, for instance, the following preachy peace about the horrible, gadget – dependent youngsters:

Every day, I see two people having lunch with one another, both glued to their cellphones, not talking. And I cannot help but think: something valuable is being lost. What is the point of scheduling a lunch date with a friend when your attention is somewhere in digital la-la land?

Working on a college campus, I see many situations like this. Someone forgets their cellphone at home and suddenly it seems as if the earth is crashing down. Cellphones have become the new-age security blankets.

And the judgmental old lady proceeds to inform us that “authentic in-person conversations” are now less frequent. I’m sure she had tons of authentic conversations as she trudged to school barefoot in the snow but anybody with either the memory of pre-cell phone times or a capacity to read knows that absence of gadgets does not guarantee either authenticity or in-person conversations.

The number of works of literature depicting people’s incapacity to have a conversation is enormous. If we are talking specifically about lunchtime conversations, I can recommend Dorothy Parker’s great short story “Too Bad” whose protagonists get divorced because they can’t think of anything to say to each other at mealtime. As we all know, Parker wrote long before cell phones came into existence.

The saddest kind of New Year’s resolutions are those that are repeated from one year to the next. They point either to stagnation and lack of personal growth or to accepting goals because they are socially approved and not because they are relevant to one’s life.

Goals need to change dramatically from one year to the next. I used to have a lot of goals aimed at increasing my academic productivity. But that problem has been solved. I’m now more productive than what I could ever imagine being and can move on to other goals.

I have no goals for 2016 because I’m planning to change my life completely and live in a way I never had before. Obviously, I can’t set goals for the unknown. But when I do go back to goal-setting in 2017, the goals will be new and fresh instead of stale and repetitive.

A rambling yet still valuable article on why the #Occupy movement failed so spectacularly: “We insist on perfect politics and perfect language, to the exclusion of experimentation, learning, or constructive critique. We wear our outsiderness as a badge of pride, knowing that saying the right thing trumps doing anything at all. No one is ever good enough for us — not progressive celebrities who don’t get the whole picture, not your Facebook friend who doesn’t quite get why we say Black Lives Matter instead of All Lives Matter, not your cousin who mourned the deaths in Paris without saying an equal number of words about those in Beirut. Instead of organizing these people, we attack them.”

We all know I hate the word “privilege” but I can’t stop wondering what it must feel like to be so incredibly privileged, fortunate and carefree that one can worry about stuff like this: “January is the season to truly hate our bodies. We come out of the holidays with all of those INDULGE messages and then suddenly in January, we’re supposed to set a resolution to work out, eat “better,” lose weight–and generally feel shameful about our flabby, doughy, *DISGUSTING* bodies while torturing ourselves into thinness just in time for “bathing suit season.” It’s enough to make even the most body positive bitch, like yours truly, get a case of the January blues.” I’d love to be this person for just two minutes to know what it feels like to have such an easy life and a burden so light.

Workers these days don’t know how to protest against economic exploitation, so they turn out to strike against cultural appropriation and penis jokes.

The perfect example of somebody who projects his personal misery onto the rest of the world. If you know anybody like that, please avoid them. Just remove them from your life entirely because these people will sabotage you and grind you down until there is nothing left. After which, they will patter along, happy and sated.

Just one of the endless numbers of example of companies destroying their own product because reason and profit are always easily sacrificed to the need to fulfill a social mandate.

The brutal world of college chess. Well, at least it’s an intellectual game, so a college is justified in spending money on it.

I did not know about this and I am appalled: “Early last year, [Obama] made an effort to levy some taxes on college savings accounts, given that 70 percent of account balances in those and similar accounts are owned by families who make more than $200,000. The revenue from the tax would have been plowed into college subsidies that would reach low- and middle-income Americans.” Trying to raid people’s college funds is nothing short of disgusting. 

Washington Post published a very poorly written and superficial article on the crucial subject of poverty. The text sucks but look at the photos. They are a reminder that American poverty is obese, not emaciated. But it’s still poverty! It still needs to be addressed! Let’s stop judging indigent people based on our Dickensian fantasies about poverty.

The psychological trigger for serious illness. Let’s remember how easy it is to talk ourselves into being ill.

A really fantastic preschool. It’s so amazing that it makes me want to weep. In my area, we have beautiful, fantastic nature, yet all of our preschools are located in ugly little buildings invariably stuck on busy highways. While the kids play on sun-beaten concrete slabs with not a single tree or flower in sight, cars and trucks are bathing them in gas fumes.