I never participated in edited collections with crowds of star academics, so I had no idea how the process works. There are six rounds of corrections and review. Six! It’s nothing like the “once you are accepted, you are done” process in place at academic journals. I will be working on these articles until the end of April.

On the positive side, the editors are driving me like a stubborn old mule, so the articles will turn out great. These will definitely be the best pieces I will have written so far. My biggest problem is that I never drive myself until the very end. I decide I’m done before I’m really done. And these editors will not let me do that.

Not that I have any interest in Dawkins but I feel for the poor fellow when he gets viciously trolled by a self-righteous creep and feels the need to apologize slavishly and pathetically (see the Twitter exchange at the link).

This is why I don’t participate anywhere but on my own blog. Here I can surround myself by intelligent, interesting people and avoid any engagement with the professionally outraged and customarily aggrieved.

I don’t understand how anybody can care about the lower salaries of Hollywood actresses or the absence of black Hollywood performers from the Oscars. To me, these are neither women nor African Americans. They are immensely rich folks who don’t give a crap about me and my interests, so I’ll be damned if I care about theirs.

And I especially resent the idiotic argument of, “Well, if these super famous people suffer discrimination, then what hope do we have?” There is no connection between their lives and ours. Their whole existence is about getting us to identify with their petty dramas so that we’ll forget about our real troubles. That’s what they get paid for. And whether they manage to get paid even more than they already do and get even more fame than they already do, they’ll never do anything for me.

Back in the harshest years of the post-Soviet economy, we were all glued to the TV screens watching a Mexican soap opera titled “The Rich Weep, Too.” It was comforting to imagine, in the midst of food shortages and an inflation of 1000%, that the rich experienced all the same problems we did. . . Only they didn’t. It was an illusion that they were peddling to us and that we idiotically lapped up. And while we stared beatifically at those screens, feeling sorry for the rich, the real oligarchs robbed us blind.

6. Roosevelt appointed Herbert Lehman, of the Lehman Brothers family, to manage refugee aid at the end of the war because he thought it would be enjoyable to watch Germans beg a Jew for food. Of course, he also really liked Lehman as a person. Lehman was succeeded as the leader of UNRRA by Fiorello LaGuardia who, as it turns out, was a Yiddish – speaking Jew (and a polyglot who spoke a ton of other languages.)
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As you can see, I put nothing but fun anecdotes in this review. That’s because there isn’t anything else in Sebestyen’s book. He doesn’t have the intellect to create any sort of an overarching narrative and, instead, tries to connect disjointed anecdotes about 1946 with the help of the banal idea that all politicians are imperfect and all human beings are deeply flawed.

Ultimately, the book fails because the author never manages to rise to the level demanded by his challenging, complex material.

And once again, a Russian fighter plane breached Turkey’s air space. Erdogan acted with commendable restraint and did nothing but issue warnings. Let’s see how many more times he will let these provocations slide.

If there are still people who don’t think Russia wants to provoke a conflict with the NATO, I’d like to know what they are smoking.

My regular readers will not find this interesting but I know there are many fellow bloggers who are curious about the way the WordAds program functions.

If you look at the table of this blog’s earnings, you will see that WordPress has dramatically lowered the compensation for each ad impression. Note also that ad impressions are not the same as the number of hits. You have no way of knowing where the “ad impressions” figure comes from and why it varies from one month to another. You will have to trust WordPress on that. I experimented with placing the maximum amount of ads as opposed to a moderate amount of ads and that had absolutely no impact on the number of ad impressions.

After perusing the table, you can judge for yourself if the WordAds system is something you want to try out on your blog.

I continue following the story of Lisa, a Russian immigrant girl raped in Berlin, because I believe that looking at a single story in depth can be more revealing than skimming over a hundred of similar stories.

Yesterday, I watched an interview given by Lisa’s lawyer. The lawyer is a very calm and reasonable fellow, obviously neither a Nazi nor a Putinoid. He is obviously deeply hurt by the shrill accusations of being a Nazi that he keeps getting hurled at him for doing his job and representing his client. But he’s completely opposed to the narrative of “all migrants are rapists” and says that he’s a migrant himself and detests persecution of migrants.

So here is what he said. Lisa is from a bad family, or rather, a typical post-Soviet family. The parents are very controlling, the mother badgers her constantly. Of course, such children form a perfect victim pool for pedophiles, rapists, and abusers. They are taught since infancy that they are not entitled to control their bodies and lives, they feel perennially guilty and terrified.

Yesterday, the Berlin police made an official statement saying that it has been proven beyond all doubt that “there was no rape or physical abuse.” After that, the police spokesman added in a small little voice “on January 11.” Obviously, the German press published the statement without the qualifying “on January 11.” Whether anything did or did not happen on January 11, it is a fact of objective reality that the police have in their possession videos where Lisa is being raped by the two Turkish men in question starting back in November. 

This is beginning to look increasingly like a Rotherham-type situation. A child from a bad family is being gradually groomed and broken by two adult rapists. She is being filmed while she’s raped for purposes that have not been established yet. German authorities are hiding from this disturbing reality behind the silly little tricks of mumbling “on January 11” really fast and hoping that nobody would notice and the irresponsible journalists are ready to oblige and publish whatever crap they are being fed.

Lisa’s tragedy is being used by people to promote Putinoid, anti-Putinoid, pro-Russian, pro-Ukrainian, anti-immigrant, pro-immigrant, neo-Nazi, anti-Nazi, and all kinds of other narratives. Nobody wants to engage with the facts instead of with voices in their head. Even the journalist who interviewed Lisa’s lawyer was obsessed, above all, with whether what happened to the child was “rape and not just pedophilia because rape is so much worse.”  

P.S. I forgot to mention that the German police absolutely is investigating the rape videos. My beef with them is not that they are not doing their job, it’s that they are misleading the public for political purposes.

The obligatory wisdom teeth removal is a scam. Don’t risk complications just to give your dentist a chance to make an easy buck.

Talking about scams, don’t donate to charities. There are ways of relieving guilt that don’t contribute to debauchery.

When teaching becomes a nightmare.

Another clueless fellow who believes he is entitled to lecture Hillary on how to be a feminist.

It’s always very heartening to see how well young women exploit the popular online platform to derive financial gain.

I live the life of a recluse because spending a lot of time with this kind of people can shatter one’s mental health.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is back! After a couple of very bad articles, he finally recovered his voice. Love, piece, bubble gum.

[Russian] Yes, there are good Russians, too! And they all live in Canada. (And in my house.)

A slacker prof comes up with an ingenious way to explain lack of achievement. Hilarious stuff.

Only female senators showed up for work after the snowstorm.

An academic ridicules the idiotic idea that burqas give women identity. Making women look exactly the same as an identity – building device is a truly crazy idea.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists finally takes a stand against the ridiculous “breast is best” bullying that is so prevalent on this continent.

The stupid freakazoid Michael Schiavo still has the gall to milk the story of the poor woman he was so desperate to murder to please his mistress. It’s incredible that such shitty human beings even exist.

This Pope is such a freak. He has no problem celebrating the greatest tragedy ever to befall his church, yet relaxing his murderous opposition to condoms is way too revolutionary for him.

“The Left needs to end its juvenile cult of the beautiful loser.  The point of the political game is to WIN dammit.  It’s not to be a better person than your opponent.  I don’t like writing that, but that’s the damn truth.  I love Sanders’ ideas and his passion, but what would a Sanders presidency actually accomplish?  As of now, I would have to say not much.” Hear, hear. Let’s lose the fear of being successful already. Being a loser victim doesn’t make anybody a better person. There is the exact same number of vicious fuckers among losers as there is among victors.

The demonstration of folks Mommy didn’t want. Now they can’t stop fantasizing about symbolically punishing Mommy for not wanting them. Of course, it would be better for all of us if they laid this all at the feet of their actual Mommies but no such luck.

The 9-month academic appointment is the best thing about being an academic, yet some weirdos oppose it.

A really pathetic case of hiding the jealousy of successful women behind fake political consciousness.

I’ve saved the best for last! Here is an absolutely hilarious way of determining whether you are racist. It’s the funniest thing on Earth, check it out.

Folks, have you seem Cameron’s “Life Chances” speech? It’s shockingly, amazingly good.

Shared parental leave! The crucial nature of the first two years of one’s life! Toxic stress in infancy sets one up for a lifetime of dysfunction! Health visitors! Parenting classes! Publicly funded arts and culture! Talk therapy for children! Compassion for addicts!

Am I dreaming? And if not, what do we need to do to get somebody like this over here? Because I’m not seeing any politician on this continent capable of saying anything this intelligent.

Russian air force and troops in Syria finally managed to create a corridor that will give Hezbollah access to the Israeli and Jordan borders. The King of Jordan and Netanyahu are apoplectic.

Abdallah, the King of Jordan, wrote to Putin asking him to stop helping Hezbollah. Putin didn’t answer but Assad did, telling Jordanians to prepare to suffer.

Of course, Russia has been financing Hezbollah since the moment of its creation in the hopes of using the organization to destabilize Middle East.