I haven’t taught Klara to say any words but I taught her how to imitate sneezing very convincingly. 

That is one important life skill.

At the Jeff Sessions’ congressional hearing, people who are against his confirmation speak about the cases he tried, the opinions he voiced, the legal positions he took. People who are in favor talk about how he is a nice guy. One fellow exclaimed with a pained look, “How can you be against Jeff Sessions if you haven’t spent 10 minutes in the same room with him??”

These are not some dumb, uneducated folks who simply don’t know any better. These are people of consequence if they are invited to speak at congressional hearings. But this is the extent of their understanding of politics and law: who’s nice to have lunch with and who isn’t.

When people hear the words “Russian propaganda”, they imagine statements like “Putin rules! Russia is a paradise! I ♥♥♥ Putin!” Since nobody they know ever said anything like this, they sincerely announce, “I don’t spread Russian propaganda! And neither do my favorite news sources or the politicians I support!”

Problem is, that’s not what Russian propaganda is like. These are not the ideas that propagandists have been trying to implant into our brains.

A great example of propaganda is this: Russians were willing to improve relations with the US throughout the 1990s and early 2000s but the US betrayed and antagonized them by expanding the NATO. This is propaganda but not in the sense that Russia loves the NATO and welcomes its expansion. Of course, not. It’s propaganda because this line of thinking suggests that had the NATO not expanded, the Russia-US relations would be great. In other words, there is a recipe, a way of action you need to follow to have a good relationship with Russia.

And that’s simply not true. You can buy into this idea and give Russians the NATO. In five minutes they will want something else. And then some more. And so on. They need the US like every superhero needs a villain. You can’t quit your part of being a villain by making concessions. You’ll just position yourself as a dumb victim that can be tricked into anything.

Another example. Tillerson was saying at the hearing this morning: “Russia wants respect on the international arena.” This sounds innocuous enough to those who haven’t heard this phrase repeated verbatim by Putin and his friends too many times to count. The question to ask here is why does Russia believe it isn’t respected? The answer Putin gives is that Russia has been disrespected by the US, and specifically Hillary Clinton, by organizing a neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia when all Russia did is help the Crimea escape from the Nazis.

Smart propaganda is pleasing and easy to believe. It’s tempting to give oneself over to it and explain complex political reality with a superficial “Russia wants respect.” But the moment you let yourself get baited, you have become easy to reel in with the line of thinking attached to this simple statement.

Marcus Lemonis from The Profit is starting his own version of The Apprentice. We’ll need a new president eventually, and this seems like the current path to the presidency. 

Sorry, people, it’s the first day of the semester, I’m busy setting things up. I have 3 lectures today, the last one going until 7:20 pm, so you can imagine.

In other news, I have hit an important milestone: yesterday I confronted a dead car battery for the very first time. The old gentleman who came with the towing truck was probably a Cold War spy. His facial expression remained unchanged throughout the embarrassing scene during which I said things like, “Oh, so it was leaving the rear door open that drained the battery! I didn’t know it would do that. Oh, how interesting!” and “So you are saying that driving will charge up the battery and the battery needs to be charged to be able to drive? That’s so weird!” and “Oh, so that’s what a battery looks like! Oh!”

The only time the man cracked and let out a shocked smile was when I tried shaking his hand in the end of the process.

Klara was happy to see me once I finally got to the day care but what made her truly ecstatic in the literal meaning of the word was when N came home and we sat on both sides of her. The happiness she experiences when we surround her and admire her simultaneously is the most touching thing I have ever witnessed.

I wonder what this woman’s damage is for her to allow some piece of trash guy to piss on her like that. Also, try to imagine what impression this story would make on people from Iowa or anywhere where people are not entirely brain-dead. Who wants to be on the same side with this detritus?

And honestly, who wants to be on the same side with this either?

Funny from Kellyanne Conway.

Starbucks is going sous-vide. But not for the coffee, at least. 

No, lady. Your grandma wasn’t strong. She was a pathetic weakling who abused children to compensate for selling her nasty ass to a freak. 

I can never figure out if people are trying to be funny in such posts. 

“Philistines settled in Palestine in the 12th century BCE, which confirms that Palestine had long been a nation.” I have settled in Illinois 8 years ago, which confirms that the US has been a nation for those 8 years. 

The millennial spokesman is old enough to be my father. 

Laramie, Wichita, Terre Haute, Little Rock, Omaha, Akron, Tulsa, Morgantown – I don’t have to Google these places because I know immediately what states they are in. I’m very glad I got to live in the Midwest because it’s a beautiful, majestic place, and I learned a lot living here. 

Before I understood this region, I used to say idiotic, ignorant things and feel profoundly convinced of their brilliance. If I hadn’t come here, today I might be one of those boneheads who rant about the “stupid racist hicks” who elected Trump. I would still think that the deep-country religiosity is meaningless fanaticism, dislike of government is small-mindedness, attachment to gun rights is sexual dysfunction, and talk about family values is hypocrisy. 

This hasn’t changed who I am. If anything, I’m more pro-gay rights, pro-choice, pro-federal welfare, reparations, affirmative action, etc. The only position of mine that has changed is that I’m no longer against school prayer or religious signs on public buildings. Symbolic gestures are not worth hitting people on something that informs their existence so profoundly. And fostering even more hatred of the federal government for nothing is dumb.

I read all of those rants about flyover rednecks with their crazy jesusy beliefs and poky small-time lives and feel happy that I’m no longer one of the fools who can write such rubbish. Understanding does not mean joining or justifying. It means enlarging your own perspective and enriching your own worldview. 

I’m not judgmental of people who are having beers at the airport bar at 6 am but I’m very judgmental of those who are being extremely loud and cheerful at this hour. 

My plane back to St Louis got in the air on time yesterday but one of the chassis didn’t lift. We flew around for 40 minutes to burn off fuel, disembarked, waited for another 2 hours while the slow-motion workers of American Airlines prepared the new plane, got on the new plane, rolled away from the gate and. . . heard the pilot announce that we had missed our time window and according to federal regulations it was too late to fly. 

Of course, people started screaming “Fuck the fed!” but that didn’t help. So we disembarked again and stood waiting in line for Customer Service for another 2 hours. I had to observe the extremely slow workers first abuse an elderly Jew and then a Muslim woman with a baby. The woman started to cry when the workers began to scoff at her and the baby’s passports.

When it was finally my turn, I found out that they wanted me to stay until next evening and wait for a plane to North Carolina. So obviously I walked away and had N buy me a ticket with another airline for an early morning direct flight. It’s good to be able to afford it since I have zero reason to believe I’ll be reimbursed for anything. 

So now I’m waiting for plane number three.