To me, it’s definitely Carson. He’s a religious fanatic while Trump is not the least bit religious. You can argue with and appeal to a cynic but there’s no discussing anything with a fanatic. If it becomes more useful to say he adores Muslims and Mexicans, Trump will do that in a flash.

Fanatics terrify me more than any cynic could.

When people at the union meeting heard my name, they looked at me with a glimmer of recognition.

“Ah, you are the person who writes subversive messages at the discussion board!” they said.

This was gratifying because I was afraid I was getting known as “the lady with the hair” on campus. I’d much rather be “the lady with subversive messages” instead.

On the really hilarious side, a hopeful young (as in really, really young) man at the library asked me if I wanted to study for the exams together. When I was at the age when this proposal would have made sense, no young men asked me to study for the exams together. Instead, I was hugely popular among old (as in the age I am today) men. So I almost jumped at today’s young suitor with, “Now? After all this time you are asking me??? Where were you 20 years ago, then?” I didn’t do that because 20 years ago he was probably not even in existence.

I just joined a labor union (IEA-NEA). Yay!

And what did you do for the preservation of the nation-state today?

Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act which will be a modification on No Child Left Behind.

Color me unoptimistic.

Does this mean they are still trying to convert everybody else?? Because that history has been just as sucky. If anybody should forget the word “convert” and pretend it never existed it’s Catholics.

Trump’s visit to Israel fell through because welcoming him into any self-respecting country at this point would be a disgrace. It’s very sad that the US is making a laughing stock out of itself on the world arena because of this buffoon. There are many pressing issues to discuss, yet everybody is fixating on strange antics of a reality TV star with lousy hair.

I keep thinking about the poor child of the San Bernardino terrorists. In his book, Bill Ayers tells the story of his adoptive son whose dumb parents dropped him off at grandma’s as a toddler because they wanted to go commit some acts of terror.

Ayers and his wife adopted the kid but, obviously, he began to unravel psychologically. The boy was well on the way to becoming a sociopath, a criminal, or a drug addict (or all three) but, thankfully, his adoptive parents and his grandparents were not only very educated but also extremely wealthy people. They hired a team of ultra-expensive psychoanalysts to work with the boy. It took a couple of decades and a fortune but the boy was finally rehabilitated and integrated into society. 

The likelihood that anybody in the San Bernardino baby’s life has the intelligence and the resources to invest into her long-term psychological care is nil. And if the baby is allowed to remain with the horrible grandma, a.k.a. terrorist factory, there will be no hope left for her.

Bill O’Reilly is interviewing Trump and actually sounding like the voice of reason. This goes to show that no matter how crazy one is, there is always somebody even more crazy.

The middle class is not as much eroded or destroyed as it is torn towards the poles.

This is the hallmark of the post-nation state: the poles grow while the middle is hollowed out. For now, it looks like the future class distribution tends towards:

~60% on the bottom (the bottom being not hungry and ragged but obese and constricted in movement physically, geographically and symbolically)

~25% on the top

~15% in the middle.

Remember, though, none of this is set in stone. It is up to us to change these numbers but we will have to come up with new methods that correspond to the new realities and not try to stretch the old blanket over fresh problems.

Israel is going to plant a forest dedicated to Ukraine. The Ukraine Forest will be the first one Israel has ever dedicated to another country. 300 acres of land for the forest will be allocated in the Southern part of Israel and an environmentalist organization will start planting the trees.

Ukraine’s Jewish and Muslim communities have been staunch supporters of Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity. The cooperation between Ukrainians, Jews and Muslims is helping to offset the tragic history of centuries of anti-semitism in Ukraine.

Ukraine is becoming a place where Jews, Muslims and people with some very distant connection to Christianity are working together in peace and kindness. That is beautiful and deserves to be celebrated with a forest.