The first record I bought for my beautiful new turntable is The Christmas Songs by Nat King Cole. I also want to buy a record by Billie Holiday because that woman was a genius. 

Now a question for turntable pros: when I enter “Billie Holiday record” in the search box at Amazon, what I get is a list of things tagged as “vinyl.” Is that what I need? Back in the USSR, vinyl meant very thin blue records that were like sheets of paper. But I don’t think this turntable will play something like that. 

I’m very ignorant about these things. 

Students didn’t show up for my 3 pm class. And I can’t say I’m entirely sure that, in an attack of sleeplessness, I didn’t send them an email saying they don’t need to show up.

Am I losing it or am I really losing it? 

After chairing a work-intensive committee for two months, I have this to say: if only students knew how often professors forget their homework, claim ailing grandmas or assignment-eating dogs, forget to show up, etc., they’d feel much better about themselves.

The environmentalist discourse is failing so badly because it is promoted by the people whose political convictions are based on

1. The idea that there is nothing more important in the universe than individual choice and individual desire, and
2. The idea that the greatest tragedy that can befall a people is not seeing an endless improvement in their standard of material well-being from one generation to another.

Both ideas directly lead to the destruction of the environment. When you simultaneously moan that you are devastated by the impossibility of having even more cars and even bigger houses than your parents and that the environment is being destroyed by excessive consumption, that will never manage to impress anybody.

At 3:30 am Klara woke up in a fantastic good mood. Until 6 am, she laughed, giggled and smiled as I fed, changed, and wheeled her around in her pram. 

As weird as it feels to wheel around a laughing baby at 4 am, it is also very touching and cute. She is such a little treasure. Even her way of not letting me sleep at night is special. 

As for Germany’s endless fretting about low birth rates, pleas to reform its ridiculous child benefit policies have existed for years. Year after year, German feminists fail to get these good, useful measures passed. Year after year, politicians whine and fear-monger about low birth rates. 

And the easy solution that’s at hand and that’s proven to work is not even considered. It’s easier to blame women than actually to do something. 

And another dumb article in the NY TIMES: Democrats need to move to the Midwest because unless they spread out more evenly, they will never retake the Congress. 

No, it’s not about where anybody lives. It’s about needing to persuade people. And you won’t do it by being a condescending brat like the Hochschild woman or the rich kids on Ivy League campuses. 

If people are not buying into your message, there might just be something wrong with the message or with its delivery. 

There is a stupid article in the NY TIMES  about Jason Kander, a Senate candidate from Missouri. Please don’t believe that article. Kander (D) is not a perfect candidate but he is miles better than his opponent, the Senate long-timer and a vicious piece of trash completely in the pocket of Big Tobacco Roy Blunt. I’m living right at the border with Missouri, and let me tell you, Blunt is one of the worst people in the Senate. Which is saying a lot with this Senate. 

Kander is making the word “Democrat” sound acceptable and even good in Missouri. He is making people wake up to the horribleness of Blunt. I’m so hoping that he wins.