Few turns of phrase annoy me more than “amplify voices.” Every time I hear it, I imagine a pinch-lipped, desiccated spinster lecturing people monotonously and obnoxiously.

A friend told me that he’s not given to envy (and it’s true, he’s really not) but he feels intensely envious when I start talking about whatever my new favorite book is. He says it’s as if I had the luxury of falling intensely in love every month without any heartbreak, parting or loss.

Pritzker will be reelected Governor of Illinois. A corrupt billionaire who gives a new meaning to the expression “a fat cat rich guy” will rule us forever. What a shame.

But it serves us right for running an eminently unelectable Darren Bailey against him. I don’t know why a big state like Illinois can’t find anybody who isn’t either a corrupt, obese hypocrite from a family of freaks or a brain-dead moron who’s a step below a chimpanzee on the evolutionary ladder.

Klara is in the “but, Mama!” stage.

“I don’t want to be a butt Mama,” I tell her. “Can I at least be a knee Mama? Or an elbow Mama?”

She thought about it and came up with “head Mama” which makes me feel like I’m the head wife in a polygamous cult. I’m hoping to persuade her to go with ankle Mama.

My sister is an epic hero. Yesterday during a class at a Canadian university that she is attending as a student she said that sex is binary and she refuses to refer to men posing as women as “she.”

I’m not capable of such a feat of bravery but I admire it deeply.

She was 9 when the USSR fell apart but the Soviet censorship affected her so deeply that freedom of speech is the foundational, guiding idea of her entire life.

In a different class at the same Canadian university, she told the professor it’s shameful to spout woke ideology in the classroom and blab about diversity when there’s no diversity of opinion allowed. If this is not admirable, I don’t know what is.

Stacey Abrams is one of the weirdest people in US politics. A couple of weeks ago she floated a conspiracy theory that ultrasound machines are not real. Now she’s saying, “Having children is why you are worried about the price of gas and food.” The idea that people without children or with grown children don’t eat or drive is pretty much out there in the “exceptionally nutty” stratosphere. So is the idea that the best way of stopping the inflation is by suspending procreation.

One thing is clear. She has some kind of psychological trauma around child-bearing that she’s decided to not treat. Does she have any children herself, does anybody know?

“There is nothing so disturbing to one’s well-being and judgment as to see a friend get rich.”

Zac Bissonnette, The Great Beanie Baby Bubble