My Facebook has exploded with joy, “France has made it illegal to email employees after business hours, how great!”

But it’s not in the least great.

Unemployment in France is insane. For young people, it’s simply ridiculous. Finding anything but a succession of crappy short-term contracts is next to impossible. The few who do luck into a permanent job never leave it irrespective of how much they hate it because they know there will never be another permanent job in their lives. Professional realization is a very rare luxury in this environment. Gifted young people are running away in droves because the situation is so lousy.

The reason for all this misery is that labor relations are hopelessly over regulated. Employers and employees can’t develop mutually enriching relationships because they are never left alone to do so. This is one of those situations where the majority of good, reasonable people is suffering because of possible wrongdoing by a tiny minority. Most employers are good people, and so are most workers. But they all get to suffer because somebody somewhere might over reach. It’s totally an equivalent of that stupid affirmative consent deal applied to a different area of life.

My sister and her employees practically live in each other’s pockets. They are in touch at all hours, and what a wonderful, joyful environment their company is. It’s a place of personal and professional growth for employees and employers alike. It’s very easy to destroy this environment by convincing everyone that they are each other’s mortal enemies who should be permanently on guard against the opponent’s possible depredations.

Most employers are not evildoers. Most workers are not lazy layabouts who steal paper from the office. The more you are treated like a pig, however, the faster you become one. The last place we should envy in terms of labor relations is France where the workplace is poisoned with suspicion and resentment.

I’m back to working on my research every day, so while I’m doing that, here is a collection of articles for you to enjoy:

The most dangerous group in this election is not even the neo-Nazis. It’s the folks who are bored and want to be entertained.

“I wince when I read oh-so-liberal parents explaining that they knew their toddler son was a girl when he wore pink and played with Barbies. Is there really anything so wrong with being a boy who wants to dress up as Elsa from Frozen? Or a girl who would rather be outside getting muddy than wear skirts and be “ladylike”?” She winces, and I wish social services interfered and protected children from these abusive fucks who nourish their narcissism by turning small kids into freaks.

This is why politicians who are promising to “create” manufacturing jobs and bring back the attendant lifestyle are treating you as an idiot that you probably are if you believe them.

And now suddenly everybody has to steal my daughter’s unique name.

“How a pharma company made billions off mass murder by faking the science on Oxycontin.”

Victimhood Olympics now hold competitions even in the arcane area of cut up fruit. The righteous outrage of these fools is hilarious.

In case you are one of 3 people on this planet who hasn’t heard of the insane Doggie Men subculture, here is an overview. Like the previous link to a rant on cut up oranges, this is an attribute of the overfed and bored society of extreme opulence. (See also link 1 in this encyclopedia).

Bernie Sanders has the most horrible campaign manager known to humanity. Bernie could have been more successful in his campaign without this tool who is slavishly besotted by Reince Priebus.

And the best quote of the week is: “When a company, or anyone or any other entity begins defending itself by referring to its religious faith, it’s a pretty good bet that they have been engaging in evil fuckery of some kind.” So absolutely true.

Here is a really great website with very clear and informative visuals that demonstrate the damage Rauner has done to the state and is still planning to do. 

I don’t know what else I or anybody can say to convince people that this is not working. I feel quite desperate because the state is being destroyed and nobody – including the people who are far more attached to the state than I am – seems to care that much. 

All three of us will be traveling with different passports because we are all citizens of different countries.

. . . is when you look at somebody’s vacation photos with interest.

. . . is when somebody is telling you their dreams and you are listening with interest. 💑

Unless, of course, you are an analyst. 😱

The massage therapist turned out to be a very chatty person. I’d never met anybody who talked as much in a quiet massage room with dimmed lighting and ambient music. 

First, she informed me that I have “an extremely heavy accent” and demanded to know how that came about.

Then, she asked me the weirdest question any massage therapist ever asked me.

“Do you still work?” she inquired.

It’s the word “still” that confused me. There is no way I look over 65 years of age. But who else can you ask if they STILL work but a retirement age person?

I made another appointment with this massage therapist, though, because she is very good at what she does. An artist should be allowed to have her small foibles, I guess.

Today, I slept until 10:30, then had a long, lazy breakfast with my husband, and am now at my salon for a pedicure and a massage. After that, I’m going shopping.

My students often complain that my Hispanic Civilization course is too dark. They are right. If you are not already wildly enthusiastic about the culture, it’s easy to get tired of all the genocide, dictatorships, military coups, economic misery, and corruption. I’ve been trying at least to end the course on a positive note, but in the year that passed since I taught that course, the already slim reasons for enthusiasm evaporated.

Before, I could end the course with, “Finally, Spain established a functioning democracy. The economy is growing, and Spain overcame its long-lasting marginalization in Europe when it became not only a member of the EU but its model member and success story.”

All that is now shot to hell because Spain hasn’t been able to come up with a government in over 6 months, its economy is in shambles, and it’s once again marginalized in Europe.

Or I could say something like, “There is hope that the government of Evo Morales will improve the standard of living of the indigenous population of Bolivia, etc”, but Evo Morales has turned into the same ridiculous type of dictator we see throughout the course, and the whole of Bolivia is following, with great dismay the pathetic soap opera of Evo and his idiot mistress.

At least, I could say, “El Chapo has been captured”, but we all know how that ended.

Venezuela is falling apart, Cuba sucks as much as ever, and Argentina’s narrow escape from the clutches of Putin is hardly enough to cause massive enthusiasm. I’m afraid my course will be more negative and depressing than ever. What am I to say at the end of the semester? “But the literature that comes out of all this is sensational”? I’ll feel like a dumbass.

When Nadiya Savchenko returned home to Ukraine from Russian captivity, she was greeted by happy, adoring crowds. The president himself went to fetch her in his airplane, she was drowned in flowers, every TV station wants to interview her, people are going nuts with joy.

At the same time, the two Russian POWs who were exchanged for Nadiya and returned home to Russia were not greeted by anybody except their mildly indifferent wives. Nobody talks about them, it is as if they didn’t exist. 

This is not strange if we remember that the existence of POWs was considered shameful back in the USSR. A Soviet soldier was expected to die before he got himself captured. The liberated Soviet POWs were considered traitors and were sent to concentration camps back in the USSR.

But hey, this isn’t just a Soviet thing. Isn’t there a presidential candidate who agrees with Stalin that POWs are contemptible because they allowed themselves to be captured?