I’m reading National Review, and hey, it’s a fun magazine. A much better way than Marie Claire to pass the 3 hours it takes to get my hair under control at the salon. 

A tiny example:

The Supreme Court has mandated gay marriage everywhere. 

You can just imagine people forced to gay marry at the behest of the Supreme Court. There is also a great article on how Latinos are on the verge of turning Republican. They are almost there! Wait for it, wait for it! Just a second! Almost there! It’s coming! 

No, not really.

Well, maybe next time. 

This article titled “Coding White Trash in Academia” made me want to vomit. People read this kind of ridiculous, self-pitying garbage and actually believe it. And it’s all lies invented by a manipulative, dishonest, entitled prick.

Half of academics are immigrants. Another 40% come from humble roots. All of my favorite, superstar professors came from such poverty that even my Soviet origins felt like royalty. Hey, at least my parents could read and write. 

Curiously, my colleagues and mentors who grew up in poverty, misery, dictatorships, war zones, areas with no schools, religious cults, etc never come out with self-congratulating rants like the linked piece. 

It’s ok to be a repellent, judgmental asshole, like the linked author is. But everything comes at a price, and repellent assholes need to accept that the price of their assholery is that people shun them. This has nothing to do with their class, gender, sexual orientation, or immigration status. All it has to do with is their nasty personality. 

But it’s easier to blame non-existent class condescension in academia than to accept that people can’t stand you because you are a nasty character. 

It blows my mind how concisely and clearly scholars of mathematics write (on general subjects, nit mathematics. I can’t evaluate how well they write on mathematics). There are many people in English, Comparative Literature, Philosophy and History who should take writing classes from them.

Maybe reviewing the work of local mathematicians was not the best service appointment for me to get. The very first document they provided me with starts with the words “classical non­-Euclidean geometry.” My eyes glaze over in extreme boredom immediately.

It all started back in 1991 when hopeful Ukrainians looked to the US to support their struggle for independence from oppressive Soviet rule. President Bush came to Kiev. . . and delivered his shockingly pro-Russian speech that has been nicknamed “Chicken Kiev Speech.” 

Bush made it clear that he expected Ukraine to remain under Russia’s degrading and exploitative tutelage. He was so eager to promote Russian colonial interests that he even departed from the text of the speech he was supposed to give and inserted an aside about the “suicidal nationalism” of Ukrainians.

Since then, the pattern remained in place: Republicans in the White House were always eager to defend Russian colonialism. Senator John McCain was planning to change that but he failed to get elected. 

This wasn’t even that long ago yet many people already forgot how desperate the US Republicans were to preserve the Soviet Union. Of course, they wanted to see it modified under Gorbachev but they were eager to protect its territorial integrity.

Lane-splitting is now legal in California. This is horrible and a nightmare for careful, calm drivers. 

We had a really great departmental secretary. Intelligent, efficient, organized, kind. Everybody adored her and felt grateful to her for doing a fantastic job. 

Then the university fired the secretary at the neighboring poli-sci department and told our secretary to pick up her duties in addition to her own. Meaning, she’d have to do two jobs. For the same ridiculous salary of $26,000. (Clarification for foreign readers: you can’t live on it.)

So what do you think happened? Duh, she found a better job. Because anything will be better than this crap. But hey, it’s all good because the university will now be able to save on her salary, too. Her job and that of the poli-sci’s fired secretary will be done by professors. For free! Yippee!

Of course, we are allowed to try to hire a new secretary but can you imagine anybody with any sort of a choice taking that job offer? 

Today at work people were greeting me with, “You are a good mother! Being here does not make you a bad mother!”

This was helpful and very welcome because I already started asking N things like whether it would be immoral for me to go to the gym while Klara is at the day care. Of course, he says no, but what else can he say? He is terrified that I’ll get diabetes, so he can’t be against me going to the gym.

While I run to meeting #3, please peruse this absolutely hilarious and deeply ridiculous piece on why the naked Trump statues are bad. 

Like it’s going to make the campaign look like less of a mess. Or erase Trump’s Putinoid statements.