People always ask me why I say I don’t have a sense of humor. I make good jokes but I can never figure out when people try to be funny or what the humorous part of their utterances is supposed to be.

Take, for example, the linked article. I did manage to figure out that the author is trying to be funny. But I don’t understand why the persona of a beaten down infantile husband of a stupid, bossy wife who is pathetically afraid of what the neighbors might think of his reading choices is supposed to be funny. If this were published on a website for seventh graders, I could understand how the title “Phenomenology of Spirit” might sound funny. But what’s so hilarious about it on a website for academics?

I feel as excluded from the human race when I read such articles as when I dropped my phone and couldn’t take any selfies for 2 months.

Good news: “Sanders Gets His Say. The Vermont senator will fill one-third of the seats on the Democratic Party’s 2016 platform committee, the DNC said. The group is responsible for drafting the party’s platform and is normally appointed by the DNC chair, but the group changed the selection process to better include Sanders’s supporters.”

Slavoj Žižek on Europe and the refugee crisis (a video).

“After the Sanders campaign leaders in Nevada realized they’d been out-organized by the Clinton people, they decided to bury that fact inside the persecution narrative: The Evil Democratic Establishment had stolen the convention for Clinton.” Yes, absolutely. And the persecution narrative is nothing short of pathetic. But it’s not just about Nevada. It’s been there from the start. How often did we hear that the debates were scheduled in a way that would make them invisible because Hillary was afraid of Bernie in a debate format? Which is ridiculous because she slaughtered him every single time. Nothing helped her more than those debates.

God, I’m happy I didn’t get hired at Pomona. These idiots are creating humiliating and ridiculous obstacles for tenure-seeking professors. Of course, the poor faculty members at that shithole are so beaten down that they don’t even dare protest.

Good news from Tennessee, though: the finding for the horrible diversity and inclusion office will be cut! When when will this blessing finally alight on my university?

It’s funny how dedicated are unhealthy, unhappy people to writing stupid books on sex.

People asked me why I consider Corey Robin to be dumb as a door knob. Well, what else can one say about a fellow who argues that Hillary Clinton is a Leninist? Whenever I read anything at all by him, it’s like he’s being stupid for a living.

The smell of used books is a new fad in perfume.

I don’t understand why Mike at Technology as Nature says that undergoing general anesthesia is like dying. I had anesthesia once, and it was simply like going to sleep. I had one of my very typical vivid dreams. In the dream, I was driving around with N looking for flowers to buy. We kept loading more and more flowers into our car, and soon we were both surrounded on all sides with reams of beautiful, aromatic flowers. This was a very realistic dream, too, because I was thinking about buying potted plants at that time. 

If after I die I spend all eternity buying flowers with N, that would not be an unpleasant resolution to my existence.

I finally watched Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next on PPV. I’m guessing it didn’t do well at the movie theaters since it’s on PPV so soon but I liked it. It’s a good movie, and he’s a talented guy. The film reads like a two-hour-long ad for Hillary. I know Moore isn’t a Hillary supporter  (any longer) but we are not so stupid as to believe that authorial intention is important, are we?

People take things very literally and look for stuff they “agree” with. Which often prevents them from enriching themselves intellectually and achieving any growth as human beings. I don’t “agree” with Moore’s movie on anything but the need to elect Hillary  (which he probably didn’t mean) but I don’t feel threatened by difference and managed to enjoy the film a lot. And I cleaned the fridge while doing it and barely even noticed.

I still need to make dinner, so maybe I’ll rewatch the film.

N is super happy to go to parties with Klara. She gives him the perfect excuse not to socialize. He sits in an empty room away from the festivities, playing with the baby, feeding and rocking her, and feeling perfectly justified in not mingling. From the identity of an unsociable fellow he has seamlessly moved into the persona of a good father who sacrifices his burning need to socialize to the needs of the baby.

Of course, older kids are only sad to lose the parents’ attention in families where that attention is positive. In abusive, controlling, bad families, kids welcome the arrival of younger siblings because it’s easier to have an extra target to absorb criticism, meanness or control to share the burden.

A friend’s daughter has a 3-year-old girl. The kid is adorable, and she’s been the smallest child at all the gatherings for a while. Everybodywas alwaysadmiring and praising her because she’s really a very remarkable child.

And then today Klara appeared on the scene, and a 3-month-old always beats a 3-year-old in terms of cuteness. After observing everyone make a fuss about the baby and listening to the endless, “OMG, look at the huge saliva bubbles she’s making, she’s the cutest, OMG, what a precious baby!”, the 3-year-old got into the middle of the room and desperately made the hugest saliva bubble anybody has ever seen.

But nobody appreciated her enormous saliva bubble. Instead, she was told to mind her manners and to stop trying to mock the baby.

I never understood the sadness of the growing kids who suddenly get a lot less attention and can’t figure out the reason. But it can’t be easy for them to realize that they are not the cutest and the most adorable any longer. Let’s remember to notice older children and try to understand their sadness.