I have found the most hard-working and effective person at our university. And it’s obviously not me. It’s a professor of environmental studies who is also an associate dean. Not only did he get me funding for the editing of my book, he accomplished it within minutes. And when it turned out that the costs ran higher than I initially thought because it’s a big project, he got me an increase of funding again within minutes. And immediately started the process of issuing the payment. Imagine if everybody (including me) worked this efficiently.

By the way, academics make great administrators. There are exceptions, of course, but in general, an administrator who teaches and remembers doing research is miles better than somebody brought in from the corporate world. Of course, we don’t have corporate sharks turned admin at my school because our salaries are very modest, and this is why we function so well even in the midst of the Rauner debacle.

Another reason why I’m happy the MLA resolution on boycotting Israeli academics was defeated is that I haven’t seen anything even remotely as effective as our programs where we take groups of students to Israel and let them see things for themselves. And the only way to make these exchanges happen is to get Israeli universities to participate. The state won’t pay, obviously, so we have to organize it as an exchange to keep the cost acceptable to our university. I’ve seen students after these trips, and it’s definitely a transformative experience for them. You’ve seen nothing until you’ve witnessed a student from East St Louis come back from one of such exchanges.

We have another ice storm tomorrow, and it’s the best thing ever. N is staying home from work, the university is closed, we’ll make borscht and sit in front of the fireplace eating it. If things get really hairy, I even got an oseledets squirreled away for such time when I’ll have a good enough excuse to have some.

What I found curious about the MLA is that A-list celebrities, so to speak, were not nearly as good as the B-list ones. 

Homi Bhabha was a bit of a disappointment but not in an expected way. He doesn’t speak in a nearly as convoluted and incomprehensible manner as he writes. In fact, he is a good, forceful, clear speaker. I didn’t have a problem with the form of his delivery but with the content. He spoke about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book and everything he said I’d already heard before. The talk sounded like a pastiche of all of the reviews of the book, and I found no new insights in anything Bhabha said.

Rita Felski was undoubtedly the star of this MLA. She recently published a new book on theory  (and I mean on, not of), and everybody else took care to bash this book in their talks. Which is already a sign of Felski’s importance because here you are, obsessing over her book while she has no idea that you exist. Felski’s own talk was good but not amazing. 

The amazing talks were delivered by people who are not that famous but are on their way to making it. One session that I visited had 7 absolutely outstanding speakers. I loved all of them with a passion. 

The moral of the story is that one should retire on time and open up a space for younger talent. 

The only two useful things one can glean from the notorious dossier is that Russians are open to the opportunity once again to swap Putin for a milder Medvedev or somebody they will sell as less tough and that there is definitely something going on in Trump’s finances that is Russia-related. There were too many denials of this in the dossier for it not to be true. 

I haven’t taught Klara to say any words but I taught her how to imitate sneezing very convincingly. 

That is one important life skill.

At the Jeff Sessions’ congressional hearing, people who are against his confirmation speak about the cases he tried, the opinions he voiced, the legal positions he took. People who are in favor talk about how he is a nice guy. One fellow exclaimed with a pained look, “How can you be against Jeff Sessions if you haven’t spent 10 minutes in the same room with him??”

These are not some dumb, uneducated folks who simply don’t know any better. These are people of consequence if they are invited to speak at congressional hearings. But this is the extent of their understanding of politics and law: who’s nice to have lunch with and who isn’t.

When people hear the words “Russian propaganda”, they imagine statements like “Putin rules! Russia is a paradise! I ♥♥♥ Putin!” Since nobody they know ever said anything like this, they sincerely announce, “I don’t spread Russian propaganda! And neither do my favorite news sources or the politicians I support!”

Problem is, that’s not what Russian propaganda is like. These are not the ideas that propagandists have been trying to implant into our brains.

A great example of propaganda is this: Russians were willing to improve relations with the US throughout the 1990s and early 2000s but the US betrayed and antagonized them by expanding the NATO. This is propaganda but not in the sense that Russia loves the NATO and welcomes its expansion. Of course, not. It’s propaganda because this line of thinking suggests that had the NATO not expanded, the Russia-US relations would be great. In other words, there is a recipe, a way of action you need to follow to have a good relationship with Russia.

And that’s simply not true. You can buy into this idea and give Russians the NATO. In five minutes they will want something else. And then some more. And so on. They need the US like every superhero needs a villain. You can’t quit your part of being a villain by making concessions. You’ll just position yourself as a dumb victim that can be tricked into anything.

Another example. Tillerson was saying at the hearing this morning: “Russia wants respect on the international arena.” This sounds innocuous enough to those who haven’t heard this phrase repeated verbatim by Putin and his friends too many times to count. The question to ask here is why does Russia believe it isn’t respected? The answer Putin gives is that Russia has been disrespected by the US, and specifically Hillary Clinton, by organizing a neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia when all Russia did is help the Crimea escape from the Nazis.

Smart propaganda is pleasing and easy to believe. It’s tempting to give oneself over to it and explain complex political reality with a superficial “Russia wants respect.” But the moment you let yourself get baited, you have become easy to reel in with the line of thinking attached to this simple statement.

Marcus Lemonis from The Profit is starting his own version of The Apprentice. We’ll need a new president eventually, and this seems like the current path to the presidency.