The Dutch have gone completely nuts. They have started killing rape victims because it’s such a drag to have to treat them. A woman in her 20s was given a lethal injection in the Netherlands because it was decided that there was no way to help her overcome the trauma of childhood sexual abuse and it was easier to kill her off.

It’s curious that Netherlands is adamantly opposed to capital punishment for anybody, including rapists, but gladly execute rapists’ victims. With the erosion of the European welfare state, it will become increasingly convenient to get rid of people requiring mental health care by gently guiding them towards death. This is also a convenient way of unburdening the system of public medical care.

I support euthanasia for people in the very last stages of terminal illnesses who will die within the next couple of weeks. But killing off healthy 20-year-olds is beyond immoral.

Suck on this, Russians!

It’s very important to Ukrainians that they won with a song by an artist who represents the Muslim Tatar minority and whose sing commemorated the Soviet genocide of the Tatars. It’s so cool that the win went to the people who really need it.

Let’s celebrate!

Is it a new customer service fad to ask shoppers what their plans are for the weekend? Three weeks in a row I stare stupidly at store assistants and cashiers without the slightest idea as to what I’m supposed to say in response to their cheerful, “So. Got any fun plans for this wonderful, sunny day?” They don’t seem to be content with a yes or a no. But I’m pretty sure it’s not a detailed account of my schedule for the day that they want to hear. I tried deflecting by asking what their plans were but it sounded like mockery given that they were clearly working.

Just as I mastered the correct way to handle the interminable hi-how-are-yous, life throws me this new sociability curveball.

N is taking Klara around the house and telling her the names of objects she sees.

“This is a computer,” he tells her. “These are books. This is the kitchen sink. And this, Klarochka,” he says, picking a package of beets, “is identity.”

People who take identity too seriously are just sad, and we want to help our Klara avoid that burden.

One of the differences between Russians and Ukrainians is that the former think borscht is soup while the latter know it’s a philosophy of existence. You can find out a lot about people based on how they make and eat their borscht.

People who come from the Ukrainian countryside, put salo in their borscht. They do hard physical labor, and need to raise the caloric content of borscht because this will be their entire meal. When people move from the countryside to a city, they drop salo from their borscht.

Ukrainians who are poor and whose borscht ends up being too thin, eat it with a very hot red pepper to mask the lack of flavor.

Russians who are poor use a different money-saving approach. They skip the step of sautéing their vegetables in sunflower oil and just dump them raw into the stock instead. For a Ukrainian, however, it’s unimaginable that borscht can be disrespected this way.

Jewish Ukrainians like to accompany their borscht with a kotleta, instead of a slice of bread.

And I always accompany it with radishes because I’m addicted to radishes and eat them 5 times a day.

To be clear the Sander’s campaign is now justifying the continued acceptance of campaign donations on the premise that the democratic system, which they have labeled “corrupt” due to the utilization of super delegates, will now salvage THEIR chances for winning by giving them the opportunity to utilize those self same super delegates.

And it’s a good thing because who wants to support a party that nominates unqualified people for high office, thereby trivializing and sullying the office in question?

In a similar vein, a friend asked me where Hillary stood on the toilet issue, and I responded that she stood wherever the most recent focus group indicated it wanted her to stand. And that is unbelievably cool. I come from a place where nobody has cared what the people want – well, ever. I only want politicians who have no opinions, no beliefs, no personality, and who exist to transmit the will of the voters. Which has enormous drawbacks since voters are dumb. But this system is massively better than any alternative.

So good job, Bernie. Things are going exactly as they should.