I continue following the story of Lisa, a Russian immigrant girl raped in Berlin, because I believe that looking at a single story in depth can be more revealing than skimming over a hundred of similar stories.

Yesterday, I watched an interview given by Lisa’s lawyer. The lawyer is a very calm and reasonable fellow, obviously neither a Nazi nor a Putinoid. He is obviously deeply hurt by the shrill accusations of being a Nazi that he keeps getting hurled at him for doing his job and representing his client. But he’s completely opposed to the narrative of “all migrants are rapists” and says that he’s a migrant himself and detests persecution of migrants.

So here is what he said. Lisa is from a bad family, or rather, a typical post-Soviet family. The parents are very controlling, the mother badgers her constantly. Of course, such children form a perfect victim pool for pedophiles, rapists, and abusers. They are taught since infancy that they are not entitled to control their bodies and lives, they feel perennially guilty and terrified.

Yesterday, the Berlin police made an official statement saying that it has been proven beyond all doubt that “there was no rape or physical abuse.” After that, the police spokesman added in a small little voice “on January 11.” Obviously, the German press published the statement without the qualifying “on January 11.” Whether anything did or did not happen on January 11, it is a fact of objective reality that the police have in their possession videos where Lisa is being raped by the two Turkish men in question starting back in November. 

This is beginning to look increasingly like a Rotherham-type situation. A child from a bad family is being gradually groomed and broken by two adult rapists. She is being filmed while she’s raped for purposes that have not been established yet. German authorities are hiding from this disturbing reality behind the silly little tricks of mumbling “on January 11” really fast and hoping that nobody would notice and the irresponsible journalists are ready to oblige and publish whatever crap they are being fed.

Lisa’s tragedy is being used by people to promote Putinoid, anti-Putinoid, pro-Russian, pro-Ukrainian, anti-immigrant, pro-immigrant, neo-Nazi, anti-Nazi, and all kinds of other narratives. Nobody wants to engage with the facts instead of with voices in their head. Even the journalist who interviewed Lisa’s lawyer was obsessed, above all, with whether what happened to the child was “rape and not just pedophilia because rape is so much worse.”  

P.S. I forgot to mention that the German police absolutely is investigating the rape videos. My beef with them is not that they are not doing their job, it’s that they are misleading the public for political purposes.

The obligatory wisdom teeth removal is a scam. Don’t risk complications just to give your dentist a chance to make an easy buck.

Talking about scams, don’t donate to charities. There are ways of relieving guilt that don’t contribute to debauchery.

When teaching becomes a nightmare.

Another clueless fellow who believes he is entitled to lecture Hillary on how to be a feminist.

It’s always very heartening to see how well young women exploit the popular online platform to derive financial gain.

I live the life of a recluse because spending a lot of time with this kind of people can shatter one’s mental health.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is back! After a couple of very bad articles, he finally recovered his voice. Love, piece, bubble gum.

[Russian] Yes, there are good Russians, too! And they all live in Canada. (And in my house.)

A slacker prof comes up with an ingenious way to explain lack of achievement. Hilarious stuff.

Only female senators showed up for work after the snowstorm.

An academic ridicules the idiotic idea that burqas give women identity. Making women look exactly the same as an identity – building device is a truly crazy idea.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists finally takes a stand against the ridiculous “breast is best” bullying that is so prevalent on this continent.

The stupid freakazoid Michael Schiavo still has the gall to milk the story of the poor woman he was so desperate to murder to please his mistress. It’s incredible that such shitty human beings even exist.

This Pope is such a freak. He has no problem celebrating the greatest tragedy ever to befall his church, yet relaxing his murderous opposition to condoms is way too revolutionary for him.

“The Left needs to end its juvenile cult of the beautiful loser.  The point of the political game is to WIN dammit.  It’s not to be a better person than your opponent.  I don’t like writing that, but that’s the damn truth.  I love Sanders’ ideas and his passion, but what would a Sanders presidency actually accomplish?  As of now, I would have to say not much.” Hear, hear. Let’s lose the fear of being successful already. Being a loser victim doesn’t make anybody a better person. There is the exact same number of vicious fuckers among losers as there is among victors.

The demonstration of folks Mommy didn’t want. Now they can’t stop fantasizing about symbolically punishing Mommy for not wanting them. Of course, it would be better for all of us if they laid this all at the feet of their actual Mommies but no such luck.

The 9-month academic appointment is the best thing about being an academic, yet some weirdos oppose it.

A really pathetic case of hiding the jealousy of successful women behind fake political consciousness.

I’ve saved the best for last! Here is an absolutely hilarious way of determining whether you are racist. It’s the funniest thing on Earth, check it out.

Folks, have you seem Cameron’s “Life Chances” speech? It’s shockingly, amazingly good.

Shared parental leave! The crucial nature of the first two years of one’s life! Toxic stress in infancy sets one up for a lifetime of dysfunction! Health visitors! Parenting classes! Publicly funded arts and culture! Talk therapy for children! Compassion for addicts!

Am I dreaming? And if not, what do we need to do to get somebody like this over here? Because I’m not seeing any politician on this continent capable of saying anything this intelligent.

Russian air force and troops in Syria finally managed to create a corridor that will give Hezbollah access to the Israeli and Jordan borders. The King of Jordan and Netanyahu are apoplectic.

Abdallah, the King of Jordan, wrote to Putin asking him to stop helping Hezbollah. Putin didn’t answer but Assad did, telling Jordanians to prepare to suffer.

Of course, Russia has been financing Hezbollah since the moment of its creation in the hopes of using the organization to destabilize Middle East.

The rhyme is the line’s birthday, as you know,
and there are certain customary twins
in Russian as in other tongues. For instance,
love automatically rhymes with blood,
nature with liberty, sadness with distance,
humane with everlasting, prince with mud,
moon with a multitude of words, but sun
and song and wind and life and death with none.

– Vladimir Nabokov

These are really brilliant observations. I wish I were as attentive to any of my languages to notice these things. It wouldn’t work with Spanish, though, because the existence of the assonant rhyme where only the vowels need to match means pretty much anything has a rhyme.

Here is the entire text of the poem.

The server for Germany’s most influential neo-Nazi platform, Altermedia Deutschland, is located in Russia. The platform’s leaders were arrested today for criminal activity but the server is still operational, connecting neo-Nazis from all over the world. German authorities are trying to get Russia to shut down the server that regularly issues calls to violence. Russia, of course, doesn’t honor the requests.

Who could have guessed that 70 years after the end of WWII Russia will be helping German Nazis to stay in business.

N and I continue developing our new hobby of watching YouTube videos by Russian immigrants*. One really interesting thing to observe in the videos are the ways in which the authors enact gender.

Male presenters are always tentative, apologetic, and qualify their statements with, “This is just my opinion,” “I can’t be entirely sure,” “Feel free to disagree,” “I might be totally wrong,” etc.

The female presenters are always very categorical and self-assured. They speak at a higher volume than the male presenters and use the word “I” in every sentence.

The funniest part of the videos is where the presenters answer the questions from the viewers. One female video maker just slaughtered with her earnest response to the question whether there might be certain groups of people who shouldn’t consider emigrating.

“Yes!” the woman announced. “There are immigrants who really annoy me. They must stop immigrating. I find them annoying and they shouldn’t come. I hate this type of person. I don’t want them here.”

The woman is in her fifties, by the way. It does not occur to her that the question wasn’t really about what she wants.

This shit is all learned, folks. There is nothing innate about it. Getting attached to this stuff and defending it as immutable and physiological is a waste of time.

* It’s immigrants and not regular Russians because immigrants are far less likely to unload mountains of Putinoid bullshit. And it’s not Ukrainians because N doesn’t understand a word.

There is a much loved tiger called Amur in one of Russia’s zoos. The administration of the zoo brought in a male goat called Timur so that the tiger could hunt the goat and eat him. The tiger, however, decided not to harm the goat and instead became his friend.

The story went viral in Russia. My guess is that people are tired, on some level, of feeling constantly at war with the world and welcomes the videos of Amur and Timur playing happily together. The administration of the zoo installed webcams in the area where the tiger and his new friend live, and now everybody can watch the two play together.

This week, however, a concerned citizen filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s office. The story of the tiger and the goat, the plaintiff says, promotes gay relationships, which is illegal in Russia. Both Amur and his friend are male, and even though they are not engaging in anything sexual, the very fact of their cohabitation might lead children to think that it’s OK for two males to enjoy a non-traditional relationship. The constant discussions of the pair on social media can give kids the wrong idea about what’s normal, the plaintiff claimed.

I want to believe the complaint is a PR stunt but with the way things have been in Russia, anything is possible. The Attorney General’s office is currently investigating if there is gay propaganda in the story of the tiger and the goat.

Let me preface this by saying, Republicans, please vote for Trump. Because Cruz is iffy. He’s weird, something’s wrong with him.

20:07 – Rubio thinks he is running against Obama. The poor puckered up fellow is so clueless.

20:08 – Bush is trying to crack a joke and fails, as usual.

20:12 – asking the perennially Peter-Pannish Rand Paul about his Daddy is a low blow.

20:15 – I’m still not entirely sure how Kasich’s last name is pronounced. Or what his first name is. That’s not a good sign re: his popularity.

20:18 – again with milking the ISIS thing? Will they ever speak of this country that they profess to love so much? Hello, wage stagnation over here! College debt! Underemployment! Enough with the freaking “carpet bomb the enemy” already.

20:27 – Christie looks like he is about to cry with big, slobbering, heaving sobs.

20:28 – Cruz is such a bully.

20:32 – yes, let’s discuss terrorism anxiety and pretend that economic anxiety does not exist. A great way to remain completely irrelevant, guys.

20:36 – Megyn Kelly is not letting Christie fib about San Bernardino. Good for her!

20:38 – Carson is trying to sub for Trump with a “political correctness is evil” spiel.

20:50 – of course, Cruz will be fine with people losing their health insurance. He’s a smug, rich, grubby sociopath.

21:01 – Fox News is beating up Rubio real bad on immigration.

21:07 – the spectacle of immigrants’ sons competing in which one of them hates immigrants more is disgraceful. Do none of them have any balls to defend their own positions they’ve espoused for years?

21:13 – at least, Bush managed to squeeze out something positive about immigrants.

21:32 – Rand Paul is a religious libertarian? What a joke he is. I especially love his “the abortions WE have.” Maybe the freak should stop having all these abortions if they bother him so much.

21:35 – Fox News must think Putin is beyond irrelevant if they give the quest about him to Carson.

21:43 – this debate is a joke. They are on to Bill Clinton’s sex life? Seriously? There is no greater problem in this country than Bill’s affair 20 fucking years ago? People who were born in that year are old enough to vote. Can we discuss their college bills and not Bill’s penis?

Melissa McEwan speaks brilliantly on the intense shittiness of Sanders’s insistence that Hillary is establishment while he isn’t:

Sanders calls Clinton emblematic of an establishment that has never even allowed a woman to be seated at the head of the table. And the only way that argument works is by saying that Clinton’s gender doesn’t matter. Which is always, always, an inherently misogynist and dehumanizing line of attack.

Absolutely. It’s all right there with the criticisms of Hillary for not acting as an independent agent while she was the First Lady.

I’m not noticing much difference between this approach and that of people who insist they “don’t see race and aren’t the real racists the ones who do?”