Elizabeth Warren for Veep?

I’m beginning to suspect that Joe Biden wants Hillary to lose the the election. He said she should choose Elizabeth Warren for her running mate. I know Warren has fans but they like her for her ideas, not her charm. And since a Veep is largely a ceremonial position, Hillary’s running mate should up her charm quotient, not lower it because, frankly, there is not that much space where it could descend.

Trump’s is a TV star, he knows how to work the cameras. Hillary needs somebody charismatic by her side. Somebody with the charm of a lamp post – even a really honest, intelligent, progressive lamp post – won’t cut it.

And I don’t in the least think that it’s wrong to expect politicians to bring charm to the table. All of us who get paid 10 times less than they do are managing to accept this reality.

So no, not Warren, please. And obviously not Bernie because all Trump will have to do is choose somebody in his forties, and the game is over. Hillary needs somebody young and smiley in a non-creepy way by her side.

Street Art in Vilnius

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But at least my Facebook gives me this. Putin must be very hurt to be given a much less shiny hair.

News Sources

So people actually get news from Facebook? Strangely, my Facebook never even tried offering me any news aside from some gossip articles about starlets I don’t even know. But I haven’t gotten a single election-related suggestion or anything political at all. Is it true, as the NY TIMES says, that Facebook is the world’s most influential news source?

Liberal Academics

So. Want to guess how my colleagues – aka supposedly hugely Liberal college educators – respond to Rauner’s hijacking of our healthcare?

Yes, of course, their response is that Obamacare is evil and should be repealed. 

What does Obamacare have to do with our health insurance? Nothing what-so-bloody-ever. But it should be repealed because government can never manage anything right. Instead, we should all get tax credits and be able to buy health insurance across state lines, which will foster competition and solve all our problems.

The above-quoted argument is a very short rendering of the rants I’m receiving through campus email from my supposedly hugely Liberal colleagues re: Rauner’s depredations in the state of Illinois. I have not received any rant imbued with a competing ideology.

First, I was at Yale where using words like feminism, ideology and identity made me a target of veritable persecution. Then, I was at Cornell where we had actual conferences on how to despise any introduction of the political into our research. Now I’m at a regional state school where the only answer to everything is “repeal Obamacare” and “government is evil.” I can’t tell you how many times the subject of “evil government” has come up a propos of every subject in existence at our state school.  

In the meanwhile, all I ever hear about is this powerful cabal of Liberal academics who kill every vestige of conservatism on campuses. My only question is: where are those Liberal campuses? I’d like at least to catch a glimpse of one before I retire.  

Hysteria

It turns out that when I’m tired I have fits of hysteria. They consist of bouts of uncontrollable laughter. It’s better than weeping, of course, but it’s not always pleasant, given that it gets to the point where I can’t breathe and can’t stop.

Rauner and Debt Collectors

Some colleagues are getting hounded by debt collection services because their health insurance company isn’t paying for their medical expenses. Of course, these colleagues have been faithfully paying their premiums to the insurance company, the company is flush with money and desperate to pay, but the corrupt and lazy Governor Rauner is standing in the way.

So people are persecuted by debt collectors. For no fault of their own. What’s really curious, though, is that I’m the only person I have been able to find who keeps the story of Rauner’s depredations alive by writing about it all the time. It’s very hard to keep it going when nobody among the directly affected by this lunacy is joining me in raising a stink.

Ceiling Fans

It is becoming clear that Klara will probably be an air ventilation specialist when she grows up. She is endlessly fascinated with ceiling fans, and mind you, she’s never seen them move yet because we haven’t been turning them on yet.

More on Consumerism

Traumatized people buy more. They medicate their psychological wounds with stuff. This is why liquid capital facilitates the creation of individuals who are traumatized from the cradle. Within the consumerist logic of “everyone who can afford a pet poodle deserves to have one”, infants are dragged from one continent to another, deprived of their names and histories, stuck into liquid family arrangements of 3 mommies and an MIA daddy, and so forth. They are guaranteed to buy like their lives depend on it when they grow up, which is all that matters.

No, this is not an anti-adoption post. It’s an anti-consumerist post. Non-consumerist adoptions that preserve a child’s name, history and original family are a wonderful thing.

Victims of Fluidity

Liberals are a lot more likely than conservatives to feel sympathy towards the people who are thrown off by economic fluidity. Conservatives are a lot more likely than liberals to feel sympathy towards the people who are thrown off by ideological fluidity.

As if these phenomena bore no relationship to each other and fluid genders, sexualities and family structures were not linked to capital’s need for a liquid workforce that is not kept in place by family ties or a stable vision of self.

Tuesday Link Encyclopedia

When the rich and middle class disagree, each wins about half the time.

Turns out that “liquid workers” is now an actual term.

Trump’s anti-semitic supporters.

An on the subject of anti-semites, here is a short but vivid example from an angry liberal.

Hillary’s campaign chairman recently spoke at a conference on climate change and laid out some pretty fantastic ideas; and there was practically no media coverage of it compared to the frenzy over Donald Trump’s taco salad.” I also can’t believe the insane coverage the stupid tacos got. It’s pathetic. 

In a rant where he compared being transgender to pretending to be 65 to get Medicare, Ablow proposed injecting transgender children with hormones corresponding to their gender assigned at birth to “go with nature” and make them “feel more comfortable.” What a vicious, disgusting freak. He is just as monstrous as the creeps who inject healthy children with the opposite sex’s hormones. 

A fire that is hidden under a mountain of trash: an ecological disaster we don’t often discuss. 

I agree with this blogger completely that nobody should ever adjunct. In spite of terrible financial circumstances, I never even considered adjuncting when I was on the job market. And I believe that nobody should unless they are specifically looking to be lifelong part-timers.

France is finally ready to pass a labor reform bill that will address the permanent unemployability of millions.

Stories like these make me wonder if there isn’t a covert attempt to create widespread hatred for gay rights through this completely fake defense of them.