There is a much loved tiger called Amur in one of Russia’s zoos. The administration of the zoo brought in a male goat called Timur so that the tiger could hunt the goat and eat him. The tiger, however, decided not to harm the goat and instead became his friend.

The story went viral in Russia. My guess is that people are tired, on some level, of feeling constantly at war with the world and welcomes the videos of Amur and Timur playing happily together. The administration of the zoo installed webcams in the area where the tiger and his new friend live, and now everybody can watch the two play together.

This week, however, a concerned citizen filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s office. The story of the tiger and the goat, the plaintiff says, promotes gay relationships, which is illegal in Russia. Both Amur and his friend are male, and even though they are not engaging in anything sexual, the very fact of their cohabitation might lead children to think that it’s OK for two males to enjoy a non-traditional relationship. The constant discussions of the pair on social media can give kids the wrong idea about what’s normal, the plaintiff claimed.

I want to believe the complaint is a PR stunt but with the way things have been in Russia, anything is possible. The Attorney General’s office is currently investigating if there is gay propaganda in the story of the tiger and the goat.

Let me preface this by saying, Republicans, please vote for Trump. Because Cruz is iffy. He’s weird, something’s wrong with him.

20:07 – Rubio thinks he is running against Obama. The poor puckered up fellow is so clueless.

20:08 – Bush is trying to crack a joke and fails, as usual.

20:12 – asking the perennially Peter-Pannish Rand Paul about his Daddy is a low blow.

20:15 – I’m still not entirely sure how Kasich’s last name is pronounced. Or what his first name is. That’s not a good sign re: his popularity.

20:18 – again with milking the ISIS thing? Will they ever speak of this country that they profess to love so much? Hello, wage stagnation over here! College debt! Underemployment! Enough with the freaking “carpet bomb the enemy” already.

20:27 – Christie looks like he is about to cry with big, slobbering, heaving sobs.

20:28 – Cruz is such a bully.

20:32 – yes, let’s discuss terrorism anxiety and pretend that economic anxiety does not exist. A great way to remain completely irrelevant, guys.

20:36 – Megyn Kelly is not letting Christie fib about San Bernardino. Good for her!

20:38 – Carson is trying to sub for Trump with a “political correctness is evil” spiel.

20:50 – of course, Cruz will be fine with people losing their health insurance. He’s a smug, rich, grubby sociopath.

21:01 – Fox News is beating up Rubio real bad on immigration.

21:07 – the spectacle of immigrants’ sons competing in which one of them hates immigrants more is disgraceful. Do none of them have any balls to defend their own positions they’ve espoused for years?

21:13 – at least, Bush managed to squeeze out something positive about immigrants.

21:32 – Rand Paul is a religious libertarian? What a joke he is. I especially love his “the abortions WE have.” Maybe the freak should stop having all these abortions if they bother him so much.

21:35 – Fox News must think Putin is beyond irrelevant if they give the quest about him to Carson.

21:43 – this debate is a joke. They are on to Bill Clinton’s sex life? Seriously? There is no greater problem in this country than Bill’s affair 20 fucking years ago? People who were born in that year are old enough to vote. Can we discuss their college bills and not Bill’s penis?

Melissa McEwan speaks brilliantly on the intense shittiness of Sanders’s insistence that Hillary is establishment while he isn’t:

Sanders calls Clinton emblematic of an establishment that has never even allowed a woman to be seated at the head of the table. And the only way that argument works is by saying that Clinton’s gender doesn’t matter. Which is always, always, an inherently misogynist and dehumanizing line of attack.

Absolutely. It’s all right there with the criticisms of Hillary for not acting as an independent agent while she was the First Lady.

I’m not noticing much difference between this approach and that of people who insist they “don’t see race and aren’t the real racists the ones who do?”

So who’s with me on watching the Schadenfreude debate tonight? Seven lame ducks, pouty and aggrieved, trying to look relevant. This will be fun.

It’s hard not to be grateful to Trump for doing this to the Republican party.

There is a simple answer to the question of whether there is such a thing as Trumpism or Trump is a fluke. That answer is Bruce Rauner.

The Governor of Illinois is a millionaire with a ditzy, brainless wife. He is extremely narcissistic and lazy and is known to hold ridiculous childish grudges against people he believes didn’t give him his full measure of respect.

Rauner is unstable, given to unprovoked fits of rage, and sports an ugly little comb over. Rauner enjoys a very lavish lifestyle on the taxpayers’ dime and fakes being religious in an unconvincing sort of way. He also loves to rant about Muslims.

Just like his combover is a tiny version of Trump’s more flamboyant thing, Rauner himself is a miniature Trump. This incompetent and angry fellow offers a preview of what we should expect from Trump.

I find it extremely bizarre when people refer to Marco Rubio as “ethnic.” They probably don’t think they are being jerk wads of massive proportions but they are. In their minds, Rubio’s ethnicity is somehow qualitatively different from that of Jeb Bush or John McCain.

By the way, is Carly Fiorina considered “ethnic”? Is Bernie Sanders? Am I?

Or is the ethnic thing reserved for the cases when one needs to point out that even lily-white Hispanics are “not really white”?

There have been several dozen recorded cases of flu in Russia this winter. Russian politicians are claiming the US infected Russia.

There is approximately the same number of cases of flu every year but this is in no way influencing the Russians’ belief that this year’s flu is inflicted on them by evil Americans.

One stupid term is “the West.” There’s obviously no counterpoint, no “the East” that anybody ever mentions.

A better alternative is “Global North and Global South.” At least, these are two terms, so that’s already more nuanced than “the West.” But this alternative is still very imperfect because it’s emotional a lot more than it is intellectual. It’s all about hunches and vague feelings.

Plus, what about Russia, China, Australia? Global South has the emotional connotation of “pathetic and exploited”, but Australia obviously doesn’t fit in. And Russia and China just complicate everything altogether. What’s Bahrain? Do we feel sorry for it or not?

And so on.

The reason why the overwhelming majority of divorces is initiated by women is that men are socialized not to consider themselves competent to manage their personal lives. They simply don’t know how to determine whether it’s time to get divorced.

Men who initiate divorces are usually better educated and / or more comfortable with managing their emotions.

Pure femininity is passivity, weakness and submission, while pure masculinity is aggression, strength and dominance. It is simply impossible to be all of these things at the same time. (If you don’t agree with me – if you’re angry right now about my “femmephobia”, because I’ve defined femininity as weakness and submission – feel free to give me alternative definitions of masculinity and femininity. Whatever you come up with, they’re going to represent opposites of one another.)

I, for one, am uncharacteristically not angry, I’m disappointed. People don’t even try to think past the crap they read in glossy magazines.

Being female means nothing other than having a female body. Being male means nothing other than having a male body. Consequently, “pure femininity” is pure, undiluted comfort with one’s female body entirely irrespective of one’s aggression, etc or lack thereof. “Pure masculinity” is pure, undiluted comfort with one’s male body entirely irrespective of one’s aggression, etc or lack thereof.

An extremely angry, domineering woman will be perceived as ultra-feminine by everyone if she is clearly comfortable with her body. An extremely passive, weak woman will be perceived as very unfeminine if she’s visibly uncomfortable with her body. And it’s exactly the same for men. We can all think of a million and one examples of this.

The reason why people so often slip into the language of personal characteristics when discussing physiological realities is their puritanical fear of the body. They observe and react to bodies but can’t admit this. As a result, they try to push the purely physiological into the realm of the ideological. This is nothing but the tired old belief in the mind / body split that should have be abandoned a long time ago.

As you can see, pure femininity and pure masculinity are not “opposites of one another”, as the linked author states. They are exactly the same in nature. All that is needed to recognize this is to lose the fear of the word “body.” We are not female or male in the head. We are female or male much lower down. Which is precisely the reason why transgender people never seek brain surgery and the intersex are people with unusual genitals, not unusual brains.