Douthat is a reliable source of laughs:

So cashiering Sessions would be a remarkable statement (though hardly the first) that the president cares almost nothing for his own alleged platform and governing philosophy.

Ya think? Nah, not this president, surely. And here we all thought he was such a stickler for a coherent governing philosophy. I’m beginning to suspect he might not even be a champion of the working classes.  

This is why I despise Rolling Stone. They are now fellating Trudeau in the most ridiculous of manners:

Despite these contradictions, the prime minister is a progressive, rational, forward-thinking leader. Yes, he was -manor-born, but he actually feels his citizens’ pain because he’s had his own unthinkable personal tragedies.

Of course, personal tragedies are a little easier to bear when you have a shitload of money and aren’t averse to dipping into public funds to finance your lavish lifestyle of an entitled brat.

My parents are celebrating their 42nd wedding anniversary today, and my mother told me that at the wedding, many of the guests came up to them to say the marriage wasn’t likely to survive and they’d be divorced in a couple of years. The kindness and good manners of Soviet people are unparalleled.

The reason for the guests’ scepticism regarding the marriage was that my parents were of different ethnicities and social classes. 

By the way, my mother’s five sisters all married within their ethnicity and social class. All got divorced. 

Somebody on FB was commenting on this article and said, very correctly, that the practice of legally changing birth certificates to make them state facts that were clearly untrue began when birth parents were erased from birth certificates and adoptive parents were placed there instead. And nobody seemed to fucking care that the very existence of something like truth, history and facts was denied by these acts. 

Is there some new foodie fad happening with “ancient grains”? A bunch of stuff at the grocery store has suddenly been given “ancient grains” labels. I’ve been buying this stuff for years, and suddenly it’s all ancient grains. And I’m not as old as to believe that the food has become ancient together with me. 

I even saw “ancient grains” eclairs today. It seems a tad off-putting to see the word “ancient” attached to such a highly perishable food. 

Gosh, people are so weird.

The New York Times reports that, in the areas devastated by drug addiction, it’s hard for companies to find workers even for good-paying blue-collar jobs with benefits. It’s a vicious circle where many people turned to drugs after losing their jobs in the recession of 2007-12, but now when the economy has finally picked up, they can’t go back to work because their bodies have been colonized by drugs.

The especially sad part of the story is the number of young people who, instead of pursuing their dreams in the most energetic and productive season of their lives, have become useless, sad potheads. Obviously, a choice in favor of vegetating uselessly instead of discovering the world and making it your own isn’t made in a vacuum.

The US and Russia are now trying out concerted attacks on Ukraine. President Trump attacks Ukraine verbally, while Putin has stepped up the military aggression and is surrounding the country on 3 sides with more Russian troops. 

In the end, Ukraine will prevail, and so will American democracy. But there will be absolutely unnecessary losses in the process.

There is no new intellectual renewal challenge because I’m using my move to a new office for this purpose. I almost completed the move in just one day. Now I just have to wash the floor and move in the ancient hanging files that I never use but that have to follow me around for some unknown reason.

I came to this university before the digitalization, so I had a mountain of old paperwork to dispose of. It was so enjoyable to ditch all the merit folders and pre-tenure reports. Of course, everything has its positive and negative sides, and this move has them, too.

Positives:

1. The new office has a window. We have no windows in the classrooms, and I didn’t love being deprived of natural light the entire time I was at work.
2. Moving to a new office gives me a chance to go over my teaching materials and ditch everything I don’t need. I ended up disposing of 95% of my teaching materials because I love making up new stuff and I hate teaching the same thing all over and over again.
3. The new office has a huge soft armchair that will help me read in the office.
4. I got a chance to arrange everything in the new office to fit my new goals in my profession.
5. The new office has many more bookshelves.
6. The new office has no history of dead birds falling from the ceiling.

Negatives:

1. The new office doesn’t have a closet with coat hangers for the coat, shoes, dresses, and blouses. Until mid-October, I will have to change at least once (and ideally twice) at work because I don’t lecture, I work with students who are talking in small groups. I have to come very close to them and, sorry for the TMI, but I don’t want to reek of sweat when I do that.
2. I will now have neighbors. Not inside my office, of course, but in offices next to me. My former office was very isolated and I could blast my trashy Russian TV shows where people yell Russian obscenities at each other while I prepped and graded. Now I won’t be able to do that because it will disturb the neighbors. (I detest earphones).
3. The colleagues will finally discover what a lazy layabout I am. But it’s too late because I already have tenure.

Tomorrow I will complete the move and post photos of the new office.

When I see preachy, smug bumper stickers like “Jesus was a refugee”, I want to slap one saying “Jesus was also male. So what?” right under it. 

What racists have to say about the Gilmore Girls sequel. Note the utter incapacity to notice the global economic crisis that occured between the two parts of the show. 

I found the curious review by clueless racists in this outlandishly bad piece from BuzzFeed. It’s all about flattering the vanity of some crazy old git but at least it led me all the way to the clueless racists.