The other day I realized that I’d been so immersed in my sabbatical that I hadn’t even engaged in my hobby of reading trashy mystery novels for a scarily long time.

Plus, I needed something that would make the tedious Gutierrez novel more palatable, so I accompanied it with Elizabeth George’s latest addition to the Havers / Lynley series titled A Banquet of Consequences And it turned out that after three very disappointing novels, George is back full strength! She has gone back to the winning formula of her first bestseller of the series, A Great Deliverance. Shocking sexual perversions! Havers developing new interests in life! A domineering mother and a spineless daughter-in-law! A pathetic, beaten down husband! An angry feminist!

Ah, this was a peach of a mystery novel.

There are few things I hate more than reading things I don’t want to read. I had to read this stupid novel because I can’t avoid at least mentioning it in my book, and I can’t mention something I didn’t read. For two miserable years, I would start this poorly written, boring novel, and then give up. And today I finally finished it!

The reason I hated Gutierrez’s novel so much is because it’s written in the North American postmodernist tradition of Pynchon, Burroughs, Delillo, etc that I detest. It’s the smirky, smart-assy, self-congratulatory branch of postmodernism that doesn’t deserve to polish the shoes of the great Hispanic postmodern tradition of José Donoso, Juan Benet, Juan Goytisolo, etc. Why a Spanish writer in 2012 would want to resuscitate the putrid corpse of early American postmodernism instead of feeding on the vibrant and beautiful postmodern tradition in his own language is a mystery. This kind of thing was in vogue in Spain 25-30 years ago when there was still a deep-seated belief that everything Spanish was inferior to everything American, but this was a long time ago.

I can’t even think of anybody else who writes this way in Spain these days. The obnoxious Generation Xers have either faded from the literary scene (like Ray Loriga mostly did) or swapped the immature worship of the US for writing books that actually make sense (Benjamin Prado is an example of the latter approach.)

I can only hope that I never have to suffer through anything else by this author.

Another Russian airplane just crashed. This time it was a small Cessna, and it crashed over the Crimea. Four people are dead.

I’m not going to do this every day because it gets extremely repetitive but that’s how things are with Russian planes, buses, ships, etc.

I just want you to imagine what goes on with the country’s nuclear arsenal. What are the chances that it is being attended with due care?

I find it entirely unbelievable that the Charlie Hebdo shooting happened less than a year ago. I actually had to Google it right now because I was convinced that it’s been much, much longer. I’ve lived so much since then, I’m an entirely different person. So much has happened in my life – and it’s only been 10 months ago??

This post is not about Charlie Hebdo per se. It was an event that left a vivid memory and I remember exactly where I was (at a coffee-shop in Montreal’s Hampstead) when I first heard about it. So now it serves as a way to measure personal time.

Another Russian airplane crashed, this time in South Sudan. Forty people are reported to be dead. This isn’t necessarily a daily but definitely a weekly occurrence with Russian airplanes.

Once again, my alma mater is doing something dumb – assed.

Yale has decided to become more diverse, and as you can imagine, manufactured diversity always ends up looking ugly. The university will spend $50 million over 5 years to hire. . . ten visiting professors.

For those who are not in academia: the title of Visiting Professor sounds cool but all it means is that a scholar is expected to uproot her or his entire life every single year to flit from one part of the country to another without any hope of a real job.

I have met a professor, for instance, who is Native American and who has already helped half a dozen universities  (including mine) to meet their diversity requirement by hiring her for such a position. What this sort of professional instability does to her life and her scholarship interests no one. The woman is simply passed around from one school to another as some sort of a token that allows a bunch of bureaucrats at every one of these schools to tick off a diversity box in a report and forget all about it.

All of this turns out to be quite harmful to the scholars who happen to be black, Native American, or visibly disabled* because they end up being dragged around like exhibits in a show of fake diversity.

Real diversity, of course, can only be created by doing the exact opposite.

* These are the identity categories that are currently in demand by bureaucrats.

Whenever I eat anything, my entire menu ends up on the front of my dress.

“Ah, you’ve had lunch at the Indian place,” says a friend after glancing on my chest. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have loved to join you.”

I’m sure everyone has heard by now of the NYTIMES article on the plummeting life expectancy among middle-aged white people without college degrees. (The middle-aged black people didn’t make it into these stats because this phenomenon caught up with them earlier.)

This is evidence – in case anybody needed any more evidence – that there is no place in the 21st – century economy for people who have nothing but a high school diploma to shore them up against the tides of liquid capital. They turn into surplus people who self-destruct with drugs and alcoholism because capital doesn’t find them useful. This sounds cold but that’s what capital is like.

Middle-aged Hispanics are still resisting this trend because the extremely high value their cultures place on sociability reduces their alienation and provides a cushion against the especially negative effects of liquid modernity.

I’m just finding it so frustrating that Walker has managed to erase the memory of a very recent and a very pathetic defeat and project the image of himself as powerful and successful so easily and that his very opponents are bending over backwards to help him do it.

People, we can’t let ourselves be manipulated so easily. Even just a few days ago, Walker was political carrion. And now we have saved his political future with all this senseless howling about tenure. I participated in the howling, too, and I feel stupid about it. Being so easily manipulated by somebody so intellectually deficient is shameful. We will now not be able to get rid of this loser for many years to come.

All of the hullabaloo over the so-called destruction of tenure in Wisconsin is a total waste of time, people. Scott Walker feels humiliated by the pathetic performance of his presidential campaign and is trying to get his handlers to pat him on the ass and say, “Good doggie!” by creating a lot of drama over nothing.

Let’s look closely at what Walker has actually “achieved”:

Previously in Wisconsin, tenure was enshrined in state statute, and there were no provisions beyond financial exigency allowing for the termination of a tenured faculty member in good standing.

Got it? A claim of “financial exigency” was enough to fire any tenured professor. This is precisely the excuse that is used in every single case of firing a tenured faculty member that I ever encountered. Once this possibility is opened, tenure loses all meaning. And this was the situation in Wisconsin BEFORE Walker’s futzing with it.

And here is what’s “new” about the policy:

Last spring, however, the state Legislature changed the statute as part of a budget bill to make it much easier to fire tenured faculty members for any number of reasons — including those as vague as “program modifications.”

For those not in academia, here is a little clarification: “program modifications” are a synonym for “financial exigency.” Programs are often “modified” under the excuse of there not being enough money and tenured people are fired as a result. Ergo, nothing whatsoever has changed other than Walker’s desperate need to prove to those who have poured millions into his failed campaign that he is still worth something.

Let’s not allow him to succeed by paying too much attention to his childish antics. Every article titled “Walker Destroyed Tenure in Wisconsin” is a gift to the silly loser that doesn’t reflect reality.