Love and Money

Oh God, they are doing it for money, thank God, thank God.

But wait, have they been told about the inflation? Those $150 will not go too far.

In any case, I’m glad people have not simultaneously lost their ever-loving minds and are simply trying to make a buck.

My faith in humanity has been restored.

Historically Accomplished

OK, this is genuinely funny. I subscribed for the humor, unintended as it may be.

I will now refer to myself as historically accomplished. I have no idea what it means but neither does the pleasantly buzzed author of this tweet.

Venezuela Is Free

The Maduro regime in Venezuela seems to have ended. A massive effort to get out the vote and elect the opposition leader took place, and exit polls show that Maduro lost.

That’s incredible news if true.

Venezuelan Conundrum

Translation:

Do you believe that dictator Nicolas Maduro will remain in power today or will Venezuela recover its freedom?

Answers:

Yes

No

Show results

Look at the number of people who voted. I checked the results. “No” is winning at 48%. “Yes” came in second with 30%.

This explains the reasons why Venezuelans need to be asking such questions in the first place.

Mothers-in-law

I got married at 19 the first time. We went to buy the wedding dress, and after observing the interaction for a while, the store owner took me aside.

“Child,” she said, “please think twice about marrying into this family. You are so young but I, at my age, understand people well. Your future mother-in-law is toxic. Do reconsider this marriage.”

“This isn’t my mother-in-law,” I explained. “She’s my mother.”

“God help you, child,” said the store owner.

She’s lucky she never saw my mother-in-law. The woman was an almost comical evildoer. Not to me because my life journey includes no contact with MILs to speak of, but to her husbands, married lovers, and sons.

Culinary Triumph

For the first time in my life, I managed to make good syrnyky:

These are hard to make because they end up raw on the inside, burnt on the outside, and generally clumpy. I finally got them right, though. (The blackish bits are raisins).

The recipe is from here. You can translate it but where would you find tvorog, anyway

In Defense of JD Vance

We all know I’m not a fan of JD Vance, to put it very mildly, but what does it matter what he believed or said in 2017? Changing one’s mind when new evidence comes in is a sign of a functioning brain. It is a sad sight, indeed, when somebody proudly informs one that they “have said the exact same thing for 30 years.”

Vance grew up in a lumpen family. He went to Yale where the intellectual authority of people around him overwhelmed him. As a result, it took him a while to figure out what he actually believes. This is neither shocking nor bad. His journey deserves enormously more respect than that of those who keep parroting whatever line they are fed.

Also, after seeing the outlandishly sexist attacks on Vance, I kind of begin to warm up to him. I am waiting for just one Dem voter to say openly that falsifying a person’s autobiography to include ridiculous pornographic confessions is not OK. All I’m seeing, though, is widespread glee on the Democrat side. “Yes, it’s false but it’s so funny!”

A Difference Between Right and Left

A huge difference between right-wingers and left-wingers lies in the degree of their knowledge of each other’s narratives.

Right-wingers have an exhaustive knowledge of the left’s interpretation of every event, be it current or past. It’s impossible to avoid that knowledge because it’s everywhere. It’s being stuffed down one’s gullet whether one wants it or not.

Left-wingers, on the other hand, have not a whit of knowledge about the worldview of the right. They debate with their fantasy of the right that is not grounded in anything resembling reality.

The right-wing narrative of America’s past and present is one of this country’s most closely kept secrets. I am still not over the feeling of utter shock I experienced when I discovered it and realized how different it is from what I was told. Also, how logical and not at all insane it was unlike the competing and dominant narrative maintained by the left.

Evil in Search of Recognition

Evil needs a philosophical justification, a collective recognition of its appropriateness. It seeks the moral sanction from God.

Dmitry Bykov, VZ

This is precisely why evil will, time and again, inflict itself on everybody’s notice. It acts in showy ways because it needs everybody to become complicit. By making us look at its actions in silent impotence, it receives our seal of approval.

Above everything else, evil needs to convince us that, not only it has been approved by God but that it is God, making and unmaking reality in its own image.

Two Faces of the Devil

Bykov calls both such things – the ugly French opening of the Olympics and the pathetic Russian attempt to mock it – the two faces of the Devil. The former is smug and the latter is aggrieved. The worshippers of each of these disguises of the Evil One think they are enemies. But in reality they serve the same master.