It’s the beginning of the academic year, and as usual in August, I’m very overwhelmed.

Got in my car, turned on the AC on full blast, but it’s still hot as on the day of damnation. A gust of hot air is hitting me in the face. I thought the AC chose this moment to quit on me.

Then it turned out that one of the windows was open, and that’s what caused the gusts of hot air to come in.

Who used soy sauce at the desk in the office and now has the dirtiest, smelliest desk in existence?

Yes, that would be me.

It looks as if I spilled way more sauce than I actually ingested.

We had to sit through a two-hour meeting the other day learning how to hire correctly. Start early, we were told. Post your job announcement widely, form a search committee, interview a wide variety of candidates, bring the best ones to a campus visit. Here are the places to look for the best candidates. Here are the questions to ask. Here are the activities for the campus visit. Here’s the funding. On and on it went.

It’s all a sophisticated form of mockery because we aren’t allowed to do any of this. I hired a new French professor, and because of our new bureaucratic procedure, I had literally only a few days – yes, days – to announce the position, interview, and extend an offer. There was no search committee because it’s the summer and everybody is on vacation. There was no campus visit. I didn’t even have time to interview more than one candidate. I had to hire whoever applied first.

Now it looks like I made a mistake and hired a person who’ll kill our French program completely. Everything was done to sabotage this search. But that wasn’t enough. We now have to be mocked by long-winded explanations of how we should have started these searches a year before we were actually allowed to start them. It’s akin to lecturing a homeless person on his correctly to cook beef bourguignon. And not just any homeless person but one whom you personally reduced to homelessness.

This is what neoliberalism is. It not only dispossesses you but mocks and blames you for getting dispossessed.

https://twitter.com/monitoringbias/status/1689079298689224704?t=uI20HLWncIWorVHmNDKL5A&s=19

This is not “a sharp turn” but the tiniest of backpedals to pacify the overwhelming public disgust with “gender”.

It’s sad that people are so used to having their wishes trampled that every teensy pretense at respect for their opinions fills them with gratitude.

Here’s the reason for why Trump has such an unbreakable core of support. With him, people experienced not being talked to like insignificant insects. And they can’t let it go. I don’t blame them for that.

A new history textbook for high school students has been published in Russia. Please note the terminology used:

The textbook also includes descriptions of events happening right now, such as the ongoing withdrawal of Western companies from Russia due to the war. “Such unique times are rare in history. After the withdrawal of foreign companies, many markets are open before you all. That means you have fantastic opportunities for careers in business and for your own startups. Don’t miss this chance. Today’s Russia truly is a land of opportunities,” the book reads.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/08/07/such-unique-times-are-rare-in-history

“Markets”, “opportunities”, “startups”, another “opportunities”. This is a history textbook, mind you. But the main principle of neoliberalism is “markets in everything.” And, apparently, “opportunities”.

Note also the gushy Oprahesque tone of “unique”, “fantastic”, “truly”.

It doesn’t get more sincerely neoliberal than this.

My Twitter account is getting close to the magical number of 400 followers, after which my accounts usually get banned. I barely even post but for some reason I always get banned.

The last time I was banned for inciting violence against an ethnic group. I told a group of Russians discussing where to deliver a nuclear strike on Ukraine to strike themselves on their heads instead. Obviously, they weren’t banned. Nor did I report them because I’m against censorship.

The whole concept of inciting violence is incomprehensible to me. If people act violently, it’s 100% on them, not on somebody who said something.

Klara is choosing a backpack for second grade. I show her one that I find very cute.

“It’s lovely, mommy,” says Klara in a kind voice. “But it’s a little bit too middle-aged.”

In the absence of what was once American journalism, it is hard to know which portrait of Obama’s post-presidency is truer to life: Obama as a celebrity-obsessed would-be billionaire, or as a would-be American Castro, reshaping American society from his basement, in his sweats.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/david-garrow-interview-obama

It’s true that there’s no journalism but we would easily see Obama’s mark in actual policy. And there’s none. I was very worried about a possibility of Obama’s “third presidency” with Biden’s election but there’s zero evidence. Obama himself is not capable of such stunning growth that he’d abandon all his pet obsessions and go in a completely new direction on pretty much everything.

I think it was Chesterton who said that all conservatives conserve any more are yesterday’s advances of the progressives. We can see this perfectly in the defense of Andrew Tate and his prostitution ring.

Yes, even liberals have realized that their defense of unsavory sexual practices is off-putting. Time for conservatives to take over this losing cause and immolate themselves for the “freedom” of Tate to whore out himself and others.

People who call themselves conservatives and defend Andrew Tate, what exactly do they think they are conserving? The right to sexual depravity?

Both Tate and his cohort of prostitutes are despicable people and should be beneath our notice. They pollute our brains, and we start rummaging in their filth, trying to figure out which one of them is “the victim” of the other.

They all suck (no pun intended). Let’s not lower ourselves to their level by knowing anything else about them.