And to make the night truly special, I just got news that my second book has officially been accepted for publication by Bucknell University Press. 

😆🎉🎊🍨🎈😲😅🔬🤔💡📚📖📒🔜🔝🗽🌉🚈🛣🚀⛄❄📿

After the debate, Hillary spoke at a campaign event, looking powerful and energized. Trump, on the other hand, faded away after the first 20 minutes of the debate and never recovered. 

I wonder whose health really needs to be discussed. 

Trump bombed. This was a fiasco of rare proportions. 

Lester Holt pleasantly surprised. 

Hillary shone. 

7:45 – OK, who else is freaking out because I totally am.

7:55 – as I saw Bill and Melania appear on stage, I wondered at the coincidence of both candidates having spouses who are known for being loose in the pants. Of course, Hillary’s spouse is known for other things, too. 

8:02 – will the stupid commentators just shut the ef up? I can’t hear about the idiotic enthusiasm gap any more. 

8:05 – N is asking why Hillary doesn’t get a stool to stand on to look taller. I reminded him that she is not Putin. 

8:08 – Hillary is addressing the people. That’s good. 

8:09 – Trump or no Trump, anybody who promises a return to the industrial era is either lying or misguided. 

8:11 – “trumped up trickle down.” I ❤❤❤ this.

8:12 – Trump is saying he didn’t inherit and is self-made?? 😆😆😆

8:14 – Trump is rambling. The moderator tries to get him to answer but it’s useless. 

8:16 – Hillary is so right when she says that somebody will be the clean energy superpower and why shouldn’t it be us? We need to look to the future, not the past. 

8:19 – it’s a conversation between the past and the future. 

8:20 – Trump is repeating the same weird question about 30 years for the 3rd time. Boring. 

8:21 – he has now said the same thing for the 5th time. 

8:22 – “Donald, I know you live in your own reality.” Damn right. 

8:25 – Trump is trying to play catch up. Good. 🎉🎊🍨

8:26 – Trump will cut the taxes of the very rich because they will create tons of tremendous jobs. Oh, Lordy. How do you spell “dumb”? 

8:29 – she’s poised and in control and he’s angry and all over the place. 

8:30 – I could sit here for an hour listening to the beautiful sounds of “TRICKLE DOWN DOESN’T WORK. ” It doesn’t fucking work. Let’s move on.

8:32 – Trump says he doesn’t need to show his tax returns because he can tell us how much money he made this year. Like anybody gives a crap. 

PEOPLE, HOW CAN YOU VOTE FOR THIS. . . THING? He’s incoherent, he’s pathetic. A confused, rambling old man. 

8:39 – I have no idea what Trump is saying. He’s entirely incoherent. 

8:59 – yes, finally, the birtherism question! Trump insists that Hillary started birtherism. The best!

9:00 – Trump bombs on the birtherism issue.

9:04 – Trump seems to be competing with Hillary in who loves Obama most. Weird.  

9:06 – seriously, I have no idea what he’s talking about. 

9:09 – she calls him Donald and puts him on the defensive every time. He calls her Secretary Clinton and explains himself. 

9:10 – and again I lost the thread. Who weighs 400 pounds on the bed? Which bed? Huh?

9:14 – the real tragedy is that there are people who hear Trump’s weak ramblings and think they make sense. 

9:22 – Hillary openly mocks Trump and the audience giggles, too. 

9:27 – why did people dump on Holt? He’s doing a good job. 

9:37 – Mommy, Hiwwary is not nice! She is mean to me, Mommy! Whine, whine, whine. 

So it’s not Wednesday, eh? 😁

A brave blogger enters into a Twitter war with clueless Steinerites. 

Great news! Research as Second Language is out of retirement to take on the ridiculous Marcy sexual harassment case. This is the same blog that took apart the vicious persecution of Tim Hunt a while back. 

I was always against charters but when I read stupid shit like this, I have to struggle not to change my mind. 

A short but hilarious post about the human rights of students. 

Even more hilarity: “There is absolutely nothing easy about pursuing a graduate degree.  Long hours of sustained reading, writing, and thinking, coupled with the regular challenges of our everyday lives, can often lead to exhaustion, frustration, and burnout.” If reading and thinking are such exhausting activities, why doesn’t this person simply look for a different career?

And a great post that makes fun of a stupid article on menopause.

Ukrainians are desperate for Hillary to win. The text is in Russian but see the beautiful photos. 

We subjected every statement made by both the Republican and Democratic candidates — in speeches, in interviews and on Twitter — to our magazine’s rigorous fact-checking process. The conclusion is inescapable: Trump’s mishandling of facts and propensity for exaggeration so greatly exceed Clinton’s as to make the comparison almost ludicrous.

I also want to remind everybody that “It’s just like” or “they are the same” is a slogan of a lazy mind that is too primitive to handle complexity. 

Men aged 16-29 are more likely to hold traditional attitudes towards gender roles than older men, a new study has found. 35 per cent of young men were shown to believe that the man should assume the role of primary earner whilst the woman should remain home – shouldering the responsibilities of childcare, cooking and cleaning. In comparison, only 26% of men aged 30-44, and 21% of men aged 45 and over, shared these views.

Young men have experienced such economic security and comfort that they are confident they can guarantee the family’s well-being alone. Older people have experience of economic adversity and are more fearful. That’s all there is to it. 

Of course, I know that the predominant narrative is that the young generation is the most desperate and deprived ever, but this is a fantasy constructed by older folks who envy youngsters their youth and want to imagine them as pitiful. The reality is that this is a very fortunate, prosperous generation. And that’s great. 

What I hope for is that at the debate Hillary pushes Trump on the tax returns. People care about taxes and they need to know if their candidates do, too. 

Also, I hope she brings up the issue of how readily he has always exported jobs to China and imported Mexican workers to work for him. 

And I’d like to hear something like, “Many people say that Trump University is a scam.” 

What is your wish list for the debate? I’m not wishing for anything that moderators might do because I have no confidence they’ll do anything but suck. 

It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic:

Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday called the situation in Aleppo “unacceptable.”
“It is beyond the pale,” Mr. Kerry said at Tufts University, before a meeting with European foreign ministers. “If people are serious about wanting a peaceful outcome to this war, then they should cease and desist bombing innocent women and children, cease cutting off water and laying siege to an entire community, and work with the international community in order to be able to bring peace to people who are starving.”

What is it that “people” need to do to make Kerry understand that they are “not serious about wanting a peaceful outcome”? That they don’t want to “bring peace”?

This game of fake ceasefires has been going on for a very long time. How many more Syrians need to die for Americans to take their heads out of their asses and acknowledge what’s happening?

There was an article in The NY TIMES this week where Jimmy Carter was saying the same crap that Kerry is. “If Russia really wants peace, it should this and that.” It’s like a boutique if collective insanity.