This is becoming farcical, people. I’m talking to a candidate.

“Are you sure you are available 20 hours a week for at least a year?”

“Yes, I’m available!”

“For a year? Meaning, at least until next June?”

“Yes, sure.”

Fifteen minutes later.

“Can you come over for an interview next week?”

“No, I can’t next week, I have several appointments for the baby. I’m 7 months pregnant.”

“But if you are pregnant, how can you work for me for a year?”

“A year?? No, I can only do until August.”

Curtain.

This conversation took place in writing, so it’s not my accent that is causing this.

Decided to give a chance to a younger candidate. The younger candidate writes “wut”  instead of “what”.

Lord have mercy.

And. . . another nanny just flaked out on me in almost the exact same way. I’m starting to realize that there is a sort of a regional phenomenon going on: women in their 50s and 60s who don’t want and don’t need to work and who pass the time going to interviews, getting to know people, hanging out with them, having fun.

Both flaked out nannies, by the way, are pretty insistent about wanting to hang out with me socially. Creepiness.

Should I give younger women a chance instead?

So remember how I wanted to find someone older to avoid flakiness? The 52-year-old nanny just flaked out on me big way. After confirming several times that she was sure she was ready for a 20-hour per week job, she told me she is only looking for 3-5 hours a week.

I hate living in an area where there are no immigrants.

I always suspected Anderson Cooper was an entitled jerk but the following is just the ultimate in extreme douchebaggery:

As a feminist, I find it outrageous that a man bullies a woman half his size on TV and this is considered news. I also find it deplorable that Cooper uses somebody else’s tragedy to preen and self-congratulate.

Bleh, what a piece of trash.

My professional organization failed to adopt a constitutional amendment to

“support faculty members and students who challenge Islamophobic rhetoric and the increased militarism, xenophobia, and racism associated with the upsurge in Islamophobia,

”

I’m completely opposed to Islamophobic rhetoric but I’m happy this idiotic amendment didn’t pass. First of all, its adoption seems to suggest that the association’s constitution was pro-Islamophobia before the amendment. Which it clearly wasn’t. And second, it invites a question of where are amendments in support of members who challenge anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and anti-everything else rhetoric.

It would be great if the MLA stopped buggering around with idiotic amendments and started doing some actual work.

What is welfare state? Why did it come into existence? As we know, in a capitalist society nothing happens that does not serve the needs of capital. The whole point of the welfare state was to make it easier for capital and labor to get together. Capital was in need of fairly healthy, clean, literate, socialized, nice-looking, stable labor that would show up for work in a reliable way. The welfare state arose to make sure capital had unfettered access to such labor.

So what happens when capital no longer needs fairly healthy, neat, stable labor that will show up every day? Of course, the welfare state dies. And what happens with the formerly neat, clean, regularly showing up labor? It begins to filter towards the bottom of society where the perennially excluded by the job market reside.

An article in The NY TIMES informed me today that the Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was “a nonpracticing Muslim.” Apparently, it’s not actual practice of Islam that makes one a Muslim. It’s the passionate need of others to connect Islam with terrorism even where no such connection exists in reality.

The whole thing is ridiculous beyond belief but people are so used to rejecting reality in favor of ideological constructs that nobody bats an eyelash.

Brexit is winning the day because the EU never generated any emotional attachment.

A new line of jewelry that blooms with just a drop of water.

Standard of care is often based on false information provided by lobbyists.

The childish bickering over the words “radical Islam” needs to stop. Obama insists there is nothing magical about them yet he behaves like there absolutely is. So annoying.

The public space is polluted by idiots of shocking proportions. Consider the freakazoid who said the following: “The sacred monotheistic texts contain prohibitions that would by just about any legal definition be considered hate speech in the modern secular world.” Smug as a clam in his intense dumbness.

These emotions are not nameless!

The drama of the Russian avant-garde.

How Putin became president: detailed, informative and important. Highly recommended.

This is one of the reasons we are so enthusiastic about Hillary. And it’s a pretty major one.

I feel intense vicarious shame when I see adult people write this kind of stuff: “Facebook, Instagram, and other social media often feature a constant steam of fabulous moments that often inspire envy or guilt in others who are not achieving the same level of excitement in their own lives.” How can people be so lacking in insight? It’s not Facebook that inspired this guilt in you, you dumb creature. These feelings predate the invention of Facebook by decades.

How propaganda is created to make Hillary look bad.

How is it even possible that such disgusting, horrible people exist? They treat children as consumer goods yet we tolerate these animals in our midst. Shame on us all.

Why you don’t need to worry about robots.

Two men who tried placing flowers and a placard with the words “Love wins” by the US Embassy in Moscow were arrested by Russian police. It’s not OK to express solidarity either with Americans or with gay people. Currently, these men run the risk of being jailed for “engaging in propaganda of homosexuality”, which in Russia is a crime.