Summer is actually quite nice when it isn’t scorching hot (which it almost always is):

There was a young deer circling our house pensively today. I really like it that wild animals around here are never afraid.

And happy breakfast time!

My two most favorite contemporary Spanish writers are now a gay Communist and a far-right ultra-Catholic.

Anybody has a chance to get on my favorite author list as long as that writer has talent.

Sorry to spoil the Saturday night mood but, yes, this is what we are dealing with.

Instead of “hijos de puta”, Spanish speakers now say “hijos de Putin”.

“Look, Mommy, there’s a book about different kinds of fruit. That sounds interesting,” says Klara at the public library.

Of course, it immediately turned out that “fruit” is a dubiously appropriate metaphor for the only thing we should all be concentrating on 24/7, which is obviously sex:

DIFFERENT KINDS OF FRUIT

In this funny and hugely heartfelt novel from the Newbery Honor-winning author of Too Bright to See, a sixth-grader’s life is turned upside down when she learns her dad is trans.

People who are living on a different planet will say, “what’s the big deal? It’s just one book.” But it’s not one book. 100% of books featured at the library (meaning, taken purposefully out of the stacks and exhibited prominently where kids will see them) are aggressively woke. All of them. Always.

I don’t object to such a book being published or being present at the public library. What I do object to is that subject matter which is of interest to the smallest percentage of the population is constantly, insistently and relentlessly shoved into everybody else’s face.

It started with “why can’t we be left in peace to love whomever we love and be whatever we are” and somehow led to the place where I have to explain to my 7-year-old that pussy and fruit mean something different to some people and we should go home and order books online instead.

So I discovered a new (to me) genius writer. His name is Juan Manuel de Prada. He’s so good, I read the first 50 pages of a novel by him 3 times in a row before proceeding with the plot. Those pages were so well-written I couldn’t let them go, not even for an excellent plot.

Of course, then it turns out he’s against Ukraine. And not just mildly against but cuckoo bananas, howling at the moon kind of against. This obviously doesn’t change my professional opinion that he’s a once in a generation literary genius. But why, why can’t I get lucky once in a lifetime and find a favorite author with political beliefs that I don’t find nauseating?

Rafael Chirbes was a Commie. Juan Goytisolo, a Commie with shades of NAMBLA. Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Russo are woke. Ana Iris Simón is a Putin groupie. Ramon Saizarbitoria is an open-border lib. Again, none of this detracts from their talent. Art and politics occur in different dimensions. But I’d so enjoy having a favorite writer who isn’t a moron.

If the word “freedom” isn’t accompanied by an answer to the question of “freedom to do what?”, it becomes a meaningless word. Today, thanks to liberalism, it’s become the most disgustingly ambiguous word in existence.

Leonardo Castellani

I always find it interesting how eager the proponents of small governments are to embrace initiatives promising to legislate away uncomfortable opinions.

Yeah, and how are you going to do it “on day one”? What’s the methodology?

All you can achieve “on day one” is make her scared to say these things aloud. But you can’t instantaneously persuade her she’s wrong. You can’t even stop the discrimination itself. But yes, you can shut her up. Is that what we are going to do? See who scares the other more? Terrify each other into silence?

None of this can be solved by the government. We’ll have to figure it out ourselves, like adults. Nobody can legislate wokeness or anti-wokeness away. There are no easy, “day one” solutions.