You know what’s expensive? Baby activities. If you want to sign a baby up for activities – gym, Kindermusik, etc – that’s not cheap at all. Especially if you factor in the cost of the parent’s time in attending the activity (little babies don’t do activities alone). Of course, this kind of thing is completely optional but still. There are free activities for babies at public libraries, which will continue to exist for the next two seconds.

This is all less important if you have several children of different ages but a single child or a child with a great age difference from the sibling(s) needs activities.

We have a great Children’s Museum in town. There are rooms decorated like a dentist’s office, a credit union, a police station, a science lab, a crime lab, a supermarket, etc, and kids can go from one room to another to play. It’s a great place and children adore it. But it’s $105 per year for a family membership or $7 admission for each person. Not everybody can easily afford that.

In the view of the preceding post this will sound dumb but I would love to see a Children’s Museum founded and sponsored not by Boeing but by the state. I feel old, frumpy and outdated when I write this.

“Stay strong Israel,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “January 20th is fast approaching!”

Mr. Netanyahu responded warmly. “President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel!” he wrote, adding Israeli and American flag emojis.

This is all so bizarre. Twitter, emojis, no diplomatic protocol, leaders of states communicating like giddy 11-year-old boys. Trump is consistent, at least. He’s all about the death of the nation-state and is dismsntling it as effectively as ever.

But Netanyahu? The only way for Israel to keep existing is to maintain the mystique of the nation-state as if today were year 1920. And instead of cultivating that mystique, he makes a mockery of it in order to make a dig at a completely irrelevant Kerry. Yes, Netanyahu has no control over his moods but that’s not all that is happening here. The logic of events is stronger than individual wishes and carries everybody in the same direction. 

This minor event is one more sign that the nation-state model cannot survive. Twitter and everything it symbolizes are stronger and more attractive.

I’m very much over people going on and on about how 2016 was THE WORST YEAR EVAH because we got a disappointing result in the election. We don’t get all that many years to live and dismissing a whole year just like that seems quite wasteful.

My 2016 was the best year of my life by far for obvious reasons. I finally have everything I wanted and more and have entered into a midlife crisis because I don’t know what else to want right now. I always make a wish when the clock strikes 12 at midnight on New Year’s night. It’s supposed to be a huge wish and it always comes true. And this year I don’t have a wish. It seems too early in my life to just rest on the laurels and not strive for anything new. I need to figure out where to go from here. 

We have a huge feast planned for tomorrow, and of course I’ll share pictures. Happy upcoming New Year and may you greet it with peace, hope and love of life. 

A propos the discussion in the preceding post: Melissa McEwan has a very popular blog. Her moderating policy is the exact opposite of mine. She bans all the interesting people with original ideas and valuable insight and leaves saccharine sycophants who never say anything fresh or original. 

I’m not going to her blog to inform her that her strategy is dumb and will never help her have interesting discussions on her blog that will expose her to new ideas and enrich her intellectually. I’m not doing that because interesting discussions are clearly not her goal. Her goal is creating a comforting space where she’ll never hear anything she hasn’t said herself a million times before. She is really successful at that goal. There is no need for me to lecture her because she wants something entirely different and she gets exactly that. 

The following excerpt is from Tom Cotton’s article on the immigration policy he’d like to see in place in the US:

This policy would resemble the immigration systems of Canada and Australia, countries with similar advanced economies. While our system gives priority to reuniting extended families and low-skilled labor, their systems prize nuclear-family reunification and attributes like language skills, education and work experience. A similar system here would allow in immigrants like doctors to work in rural areas while not pushing down working-class wages.

Just to get this out of the way: immigrant doctors can’t practice medicine in Canada without getting educated pretty much from scratch. And it’s only right because you don’t want to be attended by somebody who bought a diploma on the black market in Ukraine or wherever. 

But the question I have is whether it’s true that the US favors reunification of extended families and why. This seems bizarre. Is he inventing this? Another question is why would anybody who is not planning to exploit cheap labor oppose moving towards the system resembling Canada’s professional immigration when it so clearly works. 

P.S. What I’m not interested in hearing is how Cotton is a bad person. I only want to discuss the issue I mention in the post. 

I wanted to buy Soviet champagne at the Global Foods store for our Soviet / Peruvian New Year’s but I didn’t see any on the shelves. It was the most devastating experience ever. Things are already horrifying. Trump is preparing to murder my whole family and the families of everybody I know. Gangs of Nazis are roaming the streets. The country has descended into soul-crushing poverty and our feudal overlords are laughing in our doomed faces. The patriarchy is invincible. Angry white men are harassing everybody in and out of sight. As an immigrant I live in constant terror. And in the midst of all this is can’t even find momentary solace in a cultural experience that will make me feel the illusion of being at home. Colonialism and imperialism have robbed me of the beautiful memory of the only alternative to predatory capitalism. . .

And then I saw 5 different kinds of Soviet champagne and my attempt at feeling like a true member of my tribe was over. 

The Starbucks lady spelled my name as “Olda.” I’m either very nasal today or I look exceptionally ancient. 

Kenan Malik explains beautifully how identity politics flourishes in the empty space left by the death of class consciousness. 

The damage done by the absence of even the most rudimentary forms of class consciousness is enormous. People on minimum wage sincerely believe that billionaires will defend their interests. There isn’t even a glimmer of understanding of how class interests work and how class antagonisms – which don’t disappear because you refuse to notice them – shape our lives. 

In keeping with the Russian theme of this election, the genre of letters to the Good Tsar has already begun to appear. People are making asses out of themselves, trying to tell Trump that he is being fooled by mean advisers and are “explaining” things to him. 

And in keeping with the entitled immaturity theme, a bunch of cabaret dancers moans at an incredible length about how humiliating it is to perform at the presidential inauguration. As if anything can be more humiliating than being in a profession where you always have to exhibit your panties. 

In a way, I’m almost glad that Trump won because his victory helped demonstrate how many idiots and special snowflakes there are. Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet, he hasn’t had a chance to do anything, and people are acting like he roasted and ate all of their family members.