Biden is not a dictator, and neither was Trump.

Biden is not preparing a genocide, and neither was Trump.

Biden is not “a threat to our democracy,” and neither was Trump.

Biden isn’t “just like” Hitler or Stalin, and neither was Trump.

Drama queens on both sides need to breathe deep, pipe down, and get ahold of themselves.

I went on social media for an update on current events after a busy day and found people freaking out to the extent you’d think Biden and Trump personally dismembered, cooked and ate their mother. Turns out one gave a speech and another posted something online. Get your bug-out bags, everybody! Two old, doddering fellows said something. Scary!

Our new top administrator is so neoliberal, it’s really funny. First, he centralized the power in his own person, fired everybody he could “to save money,” and then proceeded to spend several times what was “saved” by firing people on getting a new fancy car for himself and changing the university signage and letterhead to more aesthetically pleasing to him.

I find this so entertaining that I can’t even be upset. It’s like he stumbled upon a textbook titled How to Be a Mini Putin and is now putting its lessons into action.

I was on the side of the Finnish prime minister until she started weeping like a pathetic little bunny and using Ukraine to make those who criticize her feel bad. This is childish behavior that I can’t stand. She says she’s being held to a different standard than male leaders. Which male leaders cry and pout publicly because they’ve been criticized? Which male leaders so not get criticized?

She wants to talk about Ukraine, OK. Who in Ukraine’s leadership is weeping and doing the wounded little deer routine because of a few online memes? Or for any reason?

“It’s because she’s a woman.” No, it’s because she’s acting like she’s three. I’m teaching my 6-year-old that she’s too big for this behavior, and it’s working. We came up with a little rhyme she uses when people say mean things and she needs to remind herself that it’s not a reason to cry. The rhyme goes, “I don’t care what you say. You are not my friend anyway.” Instead of “my friend”, it can be “the teacher, my Mommy, Santa Claus, Christmas elf,” etc. Somebody needs to teach this basic emotional self-regulation trick to Ms Marin.

I also want to mention that it’s kind of funny that the NATO wants this and not Ukraine. I mean, the NATO doesn’t really exist anyway, so who cares, but it’s still funny.

Going back into translation swiftly brought back all the translator vices. The biggest downfall for a translator that I suffered twenty years ago and still can’t avoid today is called “just one hundred $ more.” These days it’s usually € and not $ but the incapacity to stop because there’s always another hundred beckoning is still there.

I finished translating the Russian novel and haven’t been able to scare up another literary translation project. There’s a lot of work but it’s all in Russia, and you can’t get any money out of there. It would have been great to get paid by Russians and send the money to Ukraine’s Armed Forces. So now I’m stuck in drug discovery texts.