The greatest weakness of authoritarian leaders is that they always end up believing their own propaganda. Even when they come to power on a wave of popular support, they stop listening to anything but their own narratives and confuse them with the truth. Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Putin – they all find themselves trapped in their own lies. 

I saw the notorious United video clip, and in all honesty, I wouldn’t want to be on the same flight with the crazy “doctor.” Overbooked flights are super annoying but his reaction is beyond unhinged. I’m not on his side. 

I stared and stared at this sentence, trying to figure out what it means:

Are you one-half of a dual-career academic couple?

It sounds like it might mean “are your spouse and you academics?” Or not. 

God, I’m happy I’m not this fellow’s student. Imagine a whole lecture delivered in this jargon. 

In a Dutch study of 55 transgender people who were given puberty blockers during adolescence, however, none changed their minds and none regretted treatment.

And women who were subjected to FGM tend to insist it was a great thing for them and go on to mutilate their daughters in the same way, so what? People make do with what they’ve got, and it’s easier to celebrate mutilation than to place parents under critical scrutiny.

I don’t know who’s a bigger freak, a 94-year-old who is “setting the industry ablaze with his creativity” or a 12-year-old who “received venture capital funds to start his own company.” 

The kid, at least, has the time to find a doctor to help him. The old man doesn’t. 

P.S. The capacity to live in accordance with one’s age is one of the most reliable markers of psychological health. The utter incapacity to resist the demands of neoliberal economy is a sign of non-existent individuality. 

I hate it when people blame their failures on anybody but themselves. I just watched an interview with Hillary, and it’s all misogyny, Coney, and the Russians. Not a word about her own grievous mistakes during the campaign. Nothing about her failure to integrate Bernie’s message. Nothing about the incomprehensible decision to place the wife of the country’s most notorious pedophile at the heart of her campaign. Nothing about the inanity and helplessness of the messaging. 

I was forced Hillary without reservations during the campaign but I would like to see a more adult approach post-election. If she wanted to do something for the party, to show that she could have been a real leader, she’d engage in the analysis of her own mistakes to show Democrats that this is what’s needed. 

Inside Higher Ed published a painfully pathetic letter to Trump. Scroll down to the closing lines if you are not in the mood for lengthy exercises in servility.

But hey, Chronicle of Higher Ed is even worse. See this ridiculous article about Jane Austen and the alt-right.

I hate it when stories about horrible parents are masked as stories about immigration laws. Yes, immigration laws need a lot of work. But no law can give one good parents instead of this sort of freak.

Does food consumption have higher entry barriers than music consumption? I don’t think so but I don’t consume music. 

LiveJournal goes anti-gay. 

If you haven’t seen the first official portrait of our First Lady, you’ve totally got to. I promise, you’ll laugh for an hour. Poor dumb broad. 

The “good tsar” narrative about Trump. 

I never thought I would be interested in reading a long article on Marvel Comics but this one was good and I read the whole thing. 

All of the university libraries in Illinois are suffering because of our lack of state budget. Scholarly books published since 2015 (which are the ones that I need) aren’t getting bought by libraries. So I can’t order them from other university libraries. Our own collection is pathetically tiny but I used to be able to rely  on other college libraries in the state.

When / if we finally get a budget, nobody will give us extra funds to close the gaping hole in the library collections that is being formed right now. Libraries are living organisms. You can’t treat them this way or they begin to die. Which, I’m sure, is not something that a creature like Rauner is capable of understanding.

After the strike on Syria, all of the Russian dissidents immediately and decisively fell in love with Trump. Now I can’t read the Russian-language part of my newsfeed at all.

These people are so facile.

“My doctor told me I have to go back on the low-carb diet,” I told my mother.

“And I’m on the Ukrainian diet,” she said. “It means I eat often and in huge portions.”