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.

Prepare yourselves, people! An attack of cuteness is coming. It’s almost here!

Talking about stuff, what’s the object you have owned the longest? Taking into account how many times I moved both long and short distance, I obviously haven’t managed to save a lot of things from my childhood. But I did preserve my most favorite childhood toy, this little plastic piglet that you see in the photo.

Of course, I had dolls, and some really beautiful ones, too. But there was no doll I loved like this cheap plastic piglet. I created a wardrobe for him that was fit for royalty. I took him everywhere with me, never slept without him.

I first got this toy on a trip to Kiev with my father when I was 5. A little over a year later, my baby sister decided to use him on her freshly sprouted teeth, which is how the piglet lost his nose. I’m not sure I have managed fully to forgive my sister for mutilating my toy even 34 years later. Of course, there’s a pickled apple she’s holding over my head for a little over quarter century, so we’re almost even.

It’s really funny that out of everything I owned and lost it’s a little plastic piglet costing 11 copeck in 1981 that would travel all the way across the globe, from one country to another, from one state to the next.

A baby bathtub thermometer comes in two colors:

1. A blue Mickey Mouse thermometer that must be intended for boys
2. A pink Minnie Mouse thermometer probably intended for girls

Their price differs, even though it’s essentially the same product:

My explanation for the price difference is that people are more likely to buy stuff for baby girls, so it’s possible to get them to pay more. Boy things, on the other hand, are in smaller demand, so you have to give them away more cheaply to make any sales. 

Are there any other explanations?