Today, Russia directed most of its bombing to the Western regions of Ukraine. Because that’s where the Catholics live, and it’s their Easter.

The Ukrainian Orthodox will get particularly harsh bombings on Orthodox Easter, May 5.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate today.

In Canadian literature, people are constantly getting lost amidst snowstorms and have to trudge for miles through deep snow. That already is a great argument in favor of reading these books. Another point in favor of reading more Canadian books is the existence of David Adams Richards.

Nights Below Station Street is one of his early novels. David Adams Richards was only 38 when he wrote it, and he was over a decade away from having the maturity and depth to create his masterpiece Mercy Among the Children. In Spanish, we call the kind of writing one sees in Nights Below Station Street “costumbrismo”, or a depiction of customs and habits of everyday life. David Adams Richards doesn’t make any grand pronouncements or tackle great philosophical issues in the novel but simply writes about life among working-class people in New Brunswick. The novel is extremely peaceful even when it speaks of dysfunction. Everything is ultimately as should be. Everybody is where they are meant.

I’m fascinated by this writer’s trajectory, and I’ll keep reading him. Especially now that it’s hot as the dickens around here, and it’s good to imagine some snow.

N and I especially love all the normal family stuff – picnics, trips to the zoo, dinners, badminton games, and barbecues – because we didn’t have any of it growing up. I mean, we had the barbecues and stuff, obviously, but none of it was happy. In his case, such events usually led to violence. In mine, there was no violence but anger, humiliation, and nastiness. N and I never thought we’d get a chance to enjoy what family life has to offer.

We exist in a state of being shocked and humbled by our extreme good fortune in experiencing a normal family life.

Yes, because “being politically active” now means posting dumb memes online. People are “politically active” by sitting alone and feeling aggrieved.

This is a complete perversion of the initial meaning of “politics” which in its original Greek meant “affairs of the polis”, or “shared life together”. Today, people are most political when most alone. Everybody is too sensitive to discuss politics with others, so it’s only when they are alone with their phone that they let themselves express their political beliefs. And those beliefs are limited to vague, directionless pouting because that’s the only thing one can produce in solitude.

I don’t put my trips and family vacations on social media because the kids at Klara’s school have different lives, and it would be horrible, embarrassing showing off. Of course, Klara tells her friends but children have a way of processing such things through play that renders them normal.

As a result, my only outlet is here, and I’m happy to report that N and Klara are coming with me to Spain for the first time this summer. N is already learning Spanish on Duolingo. This was 100% his idea because I have given up on teaching languages to husbands since the first effort ended up in a divorce.

The opportunity to bring together such central parts of my life is exhilarating.

People have gone completely nuts. How can intelligence not be heritable? The rest of the article is partisan, emotional crap, as well, but the underlined sentence is beyond that.

Of course, intelligence is heritable, and the author of the article clearly lost the genetic lottery in this aspect.

That people ascribe moral value to IQ is their problem. They could just as well do it for height and then run around, trying to dispute the glaringly obvious.

I’m glad people are starting to get it.

Instead of cowering in fear of Russian threats, Ukraine destroyed one third of the entire Russian Black Sea fleet and achieved its objectives.

There’s a great lesson for everybody’s life here. Don’t listen to the dire warnings of the professionally senescent and the congenitally subservient. Decide what you need and go after it.

My most popular post in 4 years is about to get relevant again.

I know people who very sincerely believe that in 2020 California voted overwhelmingly for Trump but the results were falsified. I’m as sad for them as for those poor souls who are convinced that police kills many black men in America, so that post was an attempt to help.

As a result of participating in a conference from 4 to 6 am, I found out that I can still read aloud very well at that time of the night but my speaking skills deteriorate massively and also that I start fidgeting in annoying ways.

To speak at 4 am, I have to get up at 3 to do my hair and makeup and listen to some news. So it’s actually quite early.