I’m baffled by this FB advice:

Never struggle peeling a banana again with this simple tip: turn it upside down! If you watch chimps peeling bananas, you’ll notice they start from the bottom.

Does anybody truly struggle peeling a banana?? More importantly, who on Earth tries to peel it from the top? That’s so weird.

In the blink of an eye, the most rabid of progressives have turned into free trade fanatics. It’s like they’ve been practicing for this their whole lives while sitting deep in a free trade closet.

Finally, the NYTimes is getting over it’s attack of prissiness and is managing to squeeze out a report that is at least not completely bullshit:

A Belarusian escort with close ties to a powerful Russian oligarch said from behind bars in Bangkok on Monday that she had more than 16 hours of audio recordings that could help shed light on Russian meddling in United States elections.

The “close ties” part is still hilarious. And the recordings that “could shed light” have been already published a million times. There’s nothing new here. Everybody who wanted to find out about this, already has. The Russians are going out of their way to make Mueller notice this.

Unbelievable. The next episode of Dr Phil will feature Anthony Scaramucci. Maybe I should start watching the cartoon channel for my escape from all this.

What’s next, Ivanka Trump on Shark Tank? God, I just realized that it’s actually quite possible.

The reason why I hate The Shape of Water is that it will give rise to endless daft “yay for transhumanism” academic articles and conferences. And I detest this shit even more than “ecofeminism.”

Klara’s favorite thing to do right now is for us to sit in front of each other and for me to talk while she listens with an enraptured face and those huge blue eyes staring with the kind of attention that a teacher in me can’t resist.

“What do you want to do?” I ask. “Play-Doh? Aqua mat? Dollies?”

“I want talking, mamma,” she says. “More talking.”

Sometimes she makes requests. “Talking about bear, mamma” or “talking about grandpa.”

She also loves observing me talk to other people. She sits there, quiet as a mouse (which otherwise never happens) and clearly enjoys the interactions.

She also now loves finishing the sentences in the books I read. Sometimes she doesn’t remember how a phrase ends, so she comes up with her own version which always rhymes and is often better than the original.

And she is finally in the word-artistry phase. For instance, she was fascinated to discover that “paci” is short for “pacifier.” So now anything she likes gets “fier” added to it. I’m now “mammafier” and N is “papafier.”

Yesterday she learned the expression “mamma is having a peach of a day,” so she now informs people that “mamma having peach of a day. Mamma eating peaches. Klara no eating peaches. Peaches are yucky. Eat more peach, mamma.”

She also learned from me to announce, “I’m having a great time. I’m enjoying myself”, which has strangers on the playground collapse in an attack of cuteness.

Oh, so there will be another season of House of Cards! I’m not likely to watch because it’s silly to try to build a show around a character who’s constitutionally dumb, even if that extreme vacuousness and total lack of brain matter is played so convincingly by the talented Robin Wright.

What can the show be like when centered on Wright’s character? In episode 1, she stares stupidly at a wall. In episode 2, she stares stupidly at a tree. In episode 3, she stares stupidly at human beings who make incomprehensible noises at her.

What I know for sure about the Trump trade tariffs is that they are an enormous, hardcore blow on Russia. Several of the ruling oligarchs are getting clobbered to within an inch of their stinky, useless lives. Alisher Usmanov (a bad, bad fellow. A real piece of work) is reportedly in hysterics.

This is so much bigger than any childish little sanctions. The Russians are losing it big way right now. And I can’t feel bad about that.

I was never one of the folks who worshiped at the altar of free trade. The whole term stinks of exploitative intentions. So I don’t see the reason to go all panicky because a couple of barriers will be thrown on the way of capital. Plus, it drives Putin up a wall, which is always nice.