Thanks to Bernie, we are now on the news! It’s like we actually exist or something. This is so cool. I’m now once again for Bernie.

No, I’m not. But it’s still very cool that Bernie came by. I hope it energizes our students and makes them interested in politics.

I wish there were a political figure who could muster the courage to tell voters that the only way manufacturing jobs are coming back is to be done by robots.

Of course, nobody who still wants to get elected anywhere can’t afford to burst this sad, pathetic bubble but how about people who aren’t going to run again? Obama could do that at the end of his last term, just as a kind, charitable thing to do. Voters won’t believe him but if they keep hearing this, they will eventually absorb the information.

It’s heart-rending to see how everybody dangles the carrot of manufacturing jobs in front of the people’s noses, knowing full well that it’s a lie and the reality where those jobs and the attendant lifestyle were possible is dead and gone.

20:03 – Trump calls Romney a failure. And he’s right, no matter how much people boo.

20:08 – oh God, Trump did go straight to Rubio’s penis allusions. This is such a mockery of the political process.

20:17 – the Fox moderators are so lazy. They use against Rubio the exact same taunt Trump used against him in the last debate. Could they at least come up with something original?

20:27 – nobody knows their numbers, nobody has anything to offer but wild promises and rhetoric.

20:30 – it’s disturbing how Kasich keeps attributing the oil boom to himself. Now would be a good time to ask him if he thinks he’s God.

21:02 – Trump slipped in that the 9/11 attackers were not from Iraq.

21:05 – Trump is actually absolutely right on flexibility. Enough already with the inane revelations that people changed their minds on something. Rigidity is a quality of dumb pricks like Ted Cruz. Even Trump realizes it.

21:33 – in order to bring back manufacturing jobs, Ted Cruz will repeal Obamacare. These people are deranged. There is no other word for it. Or, alternatively, they despise their voters more than I despise cockroaches.

21:52 – Kasich’s Trump / Putin ad is funny.

________________

Conclusion: this is very depressing.

A Russian blogger is on trial right now for writing, “God doesn’t exist” on his blog. The charge is “offending the feelings of religious people.” (That’s an actual crime in Russia. Offending the feelings of non-religious people is not considered a crime.) The crime carries a punishment consisting of a fine and a prison sentence of up to 3 years.

This is a country where only 2% of population practice a religion.

Last week, a single mother in Russia was brought up on charges of terrorism for posting a pro-Ukrainian cartoon on her Facebook page. She was found guilty and sentenced to having her laptop and computer mouse destroyed. Fellow bloggers tried to donate some money to buy the woman a new laptop but were threatened with being brought up on charges of assisting a convicted terrorist.

In unrelated positive news, President Obama prolonged sanctions against Russia for one more year.

Of course, more than seeing Bernie I’d love to see the Bernie audience. We are very much a Cruz / Trump country. Even Rubio is way too sophisticated and worldly for us. So it would be a powerful and unusual experience to see a bunch of people who actually want to hear what Bernie has to say.

Bernie is coming to speak on my campus! On Friday!

This is very exciting and I totally want to go. I wonder if Klara feels like going.

I saw an anti-Trump ad on TV and I wonder who the intended audience is supposed to be.

The ad tells people not to vote for Trump because “he doesn’t care about us; he only cares about himself”, “he’s selfish”, and “he stole a house from a widow using eminent domain”. The language of caring and the concern for a widow make the ad sound like it is aimed at the “love and kindness” crowd that is already voting for another party.

What the point could be of airing an anti-Trump ad that is only likely to appeal to  bleeding-heart Liberals is a mystery. Trump appeals to so many people because he speaks their language. And it’s pretty clear that this language is not that of condemning the selfishness of people who trample all over innocent widows.

I agree completely with this article that points out how deeply immoral is the Europeans’ dedication to turning the journey of refugees to the EU into some sort of a Hunger Games spectacle.

It would have been much more honest and worthy of respect if Europeans simply recognized that they need immigrants* and helped these much needed immigrants to arrive safely. Instead, they organize a deeply distasteful Survival of the Fittest contest where everybody in Europe oscillates between shedding crocodile tears for dead toddlers while snatching the few sad family heirlooms from the refugees’ hands.

The whole situation is set up to make sure that both the migrants and the locals end up detesting each other and never manage to relate to each other on a basic human level. The resulting animosity will, of course, be blamed on the migrants but the receiving side is doing all it can to create tension and anger on both sides.

* If people stubbornly and consistently engage in a course of action, it means that this is what they want to be doing. Nobody keeps doing shit they don’t want to be doing. I had this acquaintance who refused to return the money she’d borrowed from me saying, “I didn’t want to borrow it in the first place. And, by the way, I didn’t really need it!” Which, of course, did not prevent her from spending it.

And since I’m sharing life hacks, here is another one. Sometimes, we depend on the goodwill of others and can’t guarantee that those others will choose to be kind, just, or humane. A mean boss, an uncooperative colleague, or, as in my case, an anti – pregnancy HR department might create a lot of hardship at a moment when one doesn’t have the resources to escape from their influence.

So here’s the life hack. Imagine and learn imaginatively to inhabit a reality where the boss is amazing, the colleague is helpful, and the HR department is competent. I, for instance, started telling myself and everybody else how fantastic our HR department was. It was not true. Our HR is as bad as anybody else’s HR but I desperately needed them to come through for me. So I convinced myself they were great.

And it worked. The HR magically transformed into the HR of my fantasy and went out of its way to be helpful. Colleagues find the whole thing very suspicious because that same HR behaved atrociously to them in identical situations.

In the past, I also used this life hack with a boss everybody feared and detested. The life hack is great because it doesn’t require you to do anything other than exercise your imagination. I imagined the boss as helpful, kind and grandfatherly and, just with me, that’s how he was.

Maternity clothing is notoriously hideous and scratchy but this winter season a new endearing quality was added to it. Whenever I’d go to a maternity clothes store and try on a sweater, I’d discover that it’s transparent.

The number of see-through winter clothes for pregnant women I tried this Fall and winter was so huge that I have to conclude this is some kind of a fashion trend these days. And mind you, these clothes were so dowdy and plain that there is no likelihood they were aimed at pregnant 16 – year-olds who want to shake their pregnant bellies at passers-by.

The only solution (other than sinking a fortune into beautiful and expensive European maternity wear) is to rely on plus-sized clothing. In the US (unlike in Canada where plus-sized clothing does not exist, unlike plus-sized women), you can actually find pretty, comfortable clothes in larger sizes that are kind enough to accommodate pregnant bellies.

I was so successful in finding nice stuff in the plus-size section that nurses at the doctor’s office told me they were looking forward to my appointments because they loved seeing my stylish outfits.

So this is a pregnancy life-hack: forget maternity wear and head straight to the plus size section of the clothing store.