I spent 6 hours offline, and in the meanwhile the Internet exploded with posts, articles and long screeds about an entirely trivial tweet of Trump eating tacos. The fellow can’t fart without an army of journalists finding profound meaning in this act.

He eats tacos! What can that possibly mean? What are the profound philosophical ramifications of his taco eating?

Hillary’s thought out and detailed policy positions cannot compete. Nobody cares about them as long as they can over analyze Trump’s lunch.

Sheldon Adelson endorsed Trump in spite of Trump’s clear indifference to Israel. Adelson cares about what happens in this country. Israel is but an afterthought.

So beets are sold with huge, bushy tails because people actually eat those tails?? I had no idea and always wondered why I have to drag these tailed beets home only to chop off the tails and throw them in the garbage. Now it turns out that I’ve been wasting something edible for years? Given how often I buy beets (I’m Ukrainian), that’s a huge waste.

Did you know that in the aftermath of the war in Iraq the American officials who were sent to Baghdad in order to organize a functioning state were asked in their job interviews how they felt about Roe vs Wade? It mattered a lot more to the Bush administration that they hate Roe vs Wade than that they speak Arabic or know anything about Iraq. Which is why most of these officials had no knowledge of the language or the country.

I’m reading Michael Mandelbaum’s Mission Failure, and the discussion of the Iraq war is absolutely devastating. I knew, of course, that the decision to invade Iraq was asinine but I had no idea about the extent of said asininity.

In case you think Mandelbaum is being partisan, though, you should see how harsh he is on the subject of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy. 

The review of the book will follow in due course but so far I like it.

I’m getting increasingly tired of the entirely specious argument that “there have been no reported case of a trans woman ever entering a women’s restroom and abusing anyone” (NYTIMES quote).

No, there hasn’t. But it isn’t trans women that are being feared. It’s male perverts. The fear is that, as the reality of transgender people becomes more visible and socially acceptable (which is a good thing), pedophiles, perverts, rapists and abusers will use this development to gain unhindered access to female bathrooms and locker rooms.

Once it becomes unacceptable to question anybody’s gender identification, what will be the mechanism of getting a male (not transgender, but male) pervert out of a women’s shower room? What are the words you use to ask him to leave? If it’s not ok to say “You are not a woman / man” because we now believe that the only reliable source of this identification is oneself, how is one to proceed in this situation?

This is an important issue that needs to be discussed and addressed collectively. Instead, both sides of the argument are convulsing in the midst of a massive and completely pointless freak out.

Forget toilets. In a society that worships at the altar of “identity”, there needs to be a consensus as to who has the right to name identities. Is it only the self that gets to decide on his or her identity? Or do others get to participate?