I Refuse is a 2012 novel by a Norwegian writer, and it’s extraordinary. It’s like Madelaine Lucas’s Thirst for Salt but in its male version.

Petterson’s book is about masculinity. It’s about two 53-year-old men who were friends in childhood figuring out where life brought them and whether it’s too late to change things.

It’s just so good, people. Really good. You have male friendship, fatherhood, loneliness, falling in love when you are past 50, fishing at night next to other silent men. It’s the most male thing I have read in a while, and it’s not very easy to comprehend because I’m not a man but, God, it’s good.

Received from the local dry cleaners:

There are cultures where this kind of thing is impossible because people have a sense of humor.

It’s -22°C here right now. I looked it up and it’s -7°F. I did not think I’d reach this pinnacle of joy in this geographic area, so I’m happy.

Speaking of happy, students are greatly enjoying my course in interpretation (translation with an oral component). Translation speaks to something profound in human beings. One reason is that it takes people into the “zone” faster than most anything else. Achieving deep focus through translation is easy. And what people often forget is that deep focus is a high. It’s very pleasant.

There’s an author called John Katzenbach. He wrote Hart’s Law and several other bestselling thrillers. This is a very well-known writer who’s been translated into many languages.

One of his most famous novels is The Analyst. It’s about a psychoanalyst called Ricky Starks who finds himself a target of a ruinous conspiracy. It’s really good. I highly recommend to people who like psychological thrillers. An excellent novel.

But here’s the mystery part. In 2018, the sequel to The Analyst was released. And in a few weeks, installment #3 in the series is coming out. But get this. The Analyst 2 and 3 are only available in Spanish (and some people say German.) Katzenbach is an American novelist but The Analyst 2 that’s been selling up a storm in Latin America for 5 years doesn’t exist in English.

Does anybody understand how this is possible?

Sometime in 2011 or 2012, I bought a Jo Malone perfume. This is a brand that specializes in interesting, unusual scent combinations. I really loved my scent but then, for a variety of reasons, I moved on and didn’t buy from this brand again.

Then last November I passed by a Jo Malone stand in Montreal and saw that they had new, attractive fragrances. I went over many of them and chose one that I really liked. N gave it to me for Christmas.

Today I was looking for something and found the old bottle from my 2011 Jo Malone perfume. It was the exact same scent I selected 12 years later.

There were all those options but, without wanting to, I went with the same old one. I’m telling you, people, I have a rigid, rigid brain that needs to get exercised to avoid getting completely ossified.

Pardon the long quote but every word of this screed is priceless:

15 yo daughter returned to school this semester to grab some credits that are trickier to get with homeschooling

Some regular school stuff, from her perspective really does seem absurd:
– have to ask for permission to read, pee or close eyes?
– have to show steps in math, but it’s their steps?
– cannot drink water in specific areas of the school hallways?
– can’t leave the school at lunch for a walk outside?
– teacher can yell at kids?
– staying seated for 7 hours?
– everyone sad and gloomy?

And a whole lot more. Needless to say she’s already got a reprimand for refusing to present ID to a teacher who scolded her in the hallways for drinking from her bottle

https://twitter.com/MamanLunettes/status/1745520308428124304?t=ULwVoFmOvvROQc3bTazhAQ&s=19

Oh what a joy this VSC (Very Special Cookie) will be in the workplace. And in society at large.

I see VSCs all the time. Parents never took the trouble of socializing them because that’s onerous and unpleasant. Socialization means teaching a child to self-contain and accept the multitude of social limitations and demands as not only normal but good. And if you are aiming for psychological health, pleasant. We self-contain physically, as in learning not to pee if circumstances are not propitious. (I don’t interrupt my activity to pee when I teach or give a talk). We also self-contain emotionally and learn the difference between “everybody is gloomy” and “everything seems gloomy to me because I’m unequipped to deal with the situation.”

Socialization is the unpleasant part of parenting. The child doesn’t like it but you know you have to do it. Or you pretend you don’t, like the quoted mom.

The number of students I’m seeing who are incapable of following simple directions is enormous. They will take so much longer to be successful in the workplace because this skill, which had to be taught in childhood, remains undeveloped. The girl in the linked tweet is posing, of course, in order to please mom. But her capacity to self-edit to be part of a working group is already atrophied. Forget the capacity to feel joy when encountering a new environment. That never even made an appearance.

The one that really got to me is “have to show steps in math but it’s their steps.” I mean, oooh, you don’t say, Very Special Cookie. This is only the definition of working life. That’s what people get paid money for. No matter how many degrees they have or what great talents they possess, people do what they are told. And it’s OK.

Gosh, forget the working life. Imagine a person like this trying to form a family. With a baby, you really don’t pee until the baby is ready for you to pee. You eliminate the spice from your cooking because the husband has a sensitive stomach. You play Magic Mixies for two hours straight even though you are decades past the age where you could appreciate the pastime.

In short, this is not about schools. It’s about parents who want to avoid unpleasantness and end up raising children who are unable to control their raging Special Cookieness. When kids come to the house, I immediately see who’s getting socialized and who isn’t. They all go to the same school, so it’s always the reflection of the parents’ approach. For instance, some kids ask for a snack in polite, complete sentences. Others open the refrigerator and start rummaging there without saying a word. Some look around to see where we leave shoes and put theirs in that place. Others just fling their boots around wherever it pleases them. And it’s the same basic lesson that the 15-year-old in the linked story hasn’t been taught: when you come to a new environment, observe, learn, adapt, and be sincerely cheerful about it.

Percentage of US births to unwed mothers:

Blacks, 77%
Hispanics, 57%
Hispanic immigrants, 49%
Black immigrants, 34%
Whites, 30%
Asians, 27%
White immigrants, 13%
Asian immigrants, 11%

“Have you been learning about Martin Luther King Jr at school?” I ask Klara.

“Yes, but only about the big one.”

“What do you mean?”

“We learned about the big one, mommy. Not the little one.”

“So what did you learn about ‘the big one’?”

“He criticized the church’s beliefs about purgatory, mommy. Didn’t you know about this?”

A real-world riddle.

A woman married to another woman is raising a child she had with “a gender-fluid donor.”

What’s her job? Meaning, what field of human endeavor does she work in?

Nah, you normie. Wrong guess.

She’s a rabbi.

“Who sold the first American weapons to Ukraine? President Trump – Javelins,” [Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister] Kuleba said. “Who started the program of free transfer of the first naval vessels, Island and Mark-6 type boats to Ukraine? Trump. Who fought Nord Stream 2 and sanctioned the famous but now forgotten Russia’s Fortuna vessel that laid this pipeline? It was Trump.”

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-praised-first-us-weapons-sale-ukraine-1857509

All true. This is almost enough to get me to forgive the immigration fail, the Fauci debacle and the BLM enabling. Almost.

Trump was always good to Ukraine but a lot less good to Americans. I can’t completely disregard that.