Russian nationalist guerrillas have liberated two more villages in the Russian Belgorod Region. Putin is unhappy, and so are the anti-Putin intellectuals. He’s angry because this makes him look like a putz, and they are upset because they “don’t support war.”

The Man in the Wooden Hat is the second novel in the “Old Filth Trilogy”, and it’s supposed to offer the perspective of the main character’s wife Elisabeth.

The problem, however, is that Elisabeth is an extremely vapid, boring person with no perspective. The only interesting thing she does in her life is cheat on her fiancé once. I’m not pro-infidelity but I was cheering on her to cheat again because literally nothing else happens in the novel except for that one instance of cheating that readers already know about from the first book in the series.

The novel doesn’t remotely live up to Old Filth. The writing is still beautiful but there’s nothing for Gardam to write about because there’s no plot. There’s a third book, which gives the story of the guy Elisabeth cheated with but I don’t know if I’m going to read it. He’s supposed to have pined for Elisabeth his whole life, and who but a boring person could love such a non-entity?

If anybody here is familiar with the trilogy, please advise.

In the meantime, the official Russian media have learned to use the AI and are excitedly posting fake photos of explosions at the Pentagon and the White House:

I have a ton of work but I’m mesmerized by the events in Russia:

The Russian nationalist guerrillas are pushing towards the Russian nuclear weapons cache. The authorities are scrambling to move the weapons. The supporters of the guerrillas raised their blue-white flag in Moscow.

Yes, the guerrilla force is small and insignificant. But the whole thing is still very funny.

Russian nationalist guerrillas have entered the territory of Russia and are fighting against the regular troops.

For people who don’t know much about the situation, Russian nationalist guerrillas are on Ukraine’s side but not part of the Ukrainian army. They are acting autonomously to liberate their homeland (Russia).

The citizens of the border areas in Russia are evacuating.

This is a great development. Let Russians fight it out among themselves because it’s their problem and it’s time they started figuring it out.

N has a really great sense of humor, and it’s a shame nobody except me gets to hear his jokes.

Today we heard that a family we know is switching to another church denomination in order to save on schooling costs. There’s a tuition rebate for people who belong to the school’s parish.

“I wonder how much they’ll end up saving,” I say.

“Thirty pieces of silver, of course,” N replies.

Want to hear something funny?

I left Ukraine in 1998 because:

1. People did nothing to help themselves except for pouting that “the government” wouldn’t solve their problems.

2. Nobody could be bothered to pick up their own shit, and the streets were hideously dirty.

3. People were scared to have opinions. They were passive and obedient like sheep.

It was such a relief to come to North America and see the exact opposite. It was glorious finally to live among people who were proud of their surroundings, proud of their freedom.

This is my native city of Kharkiv after 14 months of heavy bombing by Russia. It’s right next to the border, so it suffers badly. Every day. It’s hit every single day. But look at how clean and nice everything is. 40% of the pre-war population has come back. People are living their lives.

Can anybody explain to me why there isn’t now and never was anything here like miles of Philadelphia or LA-style homeless encampments filled with addled, dehumanized people? I simply can’t comprehend what extraordinary hardship befell the residents of Seattle or San Francisco that Ukrainians haven’t experienced. I don’t think there’s an excuse at this point. Bad politicians, hard lives. We’ve heard all that but it’s no excuse.

And that’s a very conservative estimate. Think about it. 100,000 (or actually closer to 150,000) people. For what? It’s a small town with no strategic importance. Why did they all have to die?

A Ukrainian officer reports on how, at the beginning of the war, he managed to defend his area with a tiny group of men against a Russian assault force 30 times the size of the Ukrainian defensive troop.

“We were stunned,” he says, “to see that they would repeat the same attack in the exact same spot, 10, 15, 20 times in a row. That’s the only spot we were able to defend, and they kept hitting it. If they tried to outflank us, we’d be done for because we had no resources to defend the flanks. But they refused to deviate from the original plan by a millimeter. By the end, we were laughing because we destroyed all of them simply because they kept doing the same thing.”

Lesson learned: if something doesn’t work, do something else.

Today’s farmer market finally made sense. I made roasted new carrots and asparagus (coated in real maple syrup + mission fig balsamic vinegar + smoky olive oil in equal proportions). There are also some turkey kotlety.

We have a simultaneous collapse of plumbing both at home and in my building at work – seriously, what are the chances? As a result, I have to cook stuff that doesn’t produce much dish-washing.