The Sleeping Voice is one of the most famous novels of the Spanish Civil War. We all know how much I love this genre but this novel I detested.

This was supposed to be a novel about the Republican women in Franco’s jails. In reality, though, it’s not a novel, it’s a fairy-tale.

For one, it is written in this deeply obnoxious, childish voice that is so primitive and prattly that in the 450 pages of text I only needed to consult the dictionary twice.

The characters are all so perfect that they seem inhuman. They are all beautiful, kind, loyal, they invariably fall in love at first sight and remain faithful to their partners even when those are separated from them for decades. They are perfect parents, perfect friends, perfect siblings, perfect comrades, and perfect revolutionaries. After 450 pages of this unblemished perfection, you begin to detest these freakish robots.

This way of depicting the Republicans has a dubious effect. What if some of the Republican prisoners were less perfect and more human? What if they sometimes snored, picked their noses, yelled at their kids, fought with their friends, lied or even flirted with somebody other than their spouse? Would they not deserve our compassion then? Does our interest in them depend on their capacity to convince us of their saintly behavior throughout their lives?

And can you guess how the fairy-tale ends? Right you are, with a wedding!

But hey, among the hundreds of novels on the Spanish Civil War, this primitive tear-jerker was one of the 3 most successful.

Kansas’ Governor Sam Brownback, also known as Mr Useless Doofus, declared the month of October “Zombie Preparedness Month.”

This seems fitting in a state that was zombified by Brownback ‘ s inept handling of the economy.

Have you considered the oppressive nature of pumpkin spice lattes before buying one, you oppressor?

“Maternal and offspring fitness interests are aligned in certain domains and conflicting in others, which may have led to the evolution of fetal microchimeric phenotypes that can manipulate maternal tissues.” This is a crucial and often ignored area of research. I’ve experienced both the positive and the negative effects this study discusses and was stunned to discover how clueless doctors are about this phenomenon.

Raising tax rates on the highest earners will not have any impact on income inequality. The kind of economy where it did is dead. It’s not coming back. The time has come to stop fantasizing about its rebirth and start engaging with the new set of circumstances.

Kids’ palates are so undeveloped that they are incapable of eating school lunches that consist of anything but grease, junk, and garbage.

A really good observation on the weirdness of American dating practices.

“In a wide-ranging interview Friday, Fiorina also explained her opposition to abortion rights in the most personal way since her campaign officially started last fall. “I myself was not able to have children of my own, and so I know what a precious gift life is,” Fiorina said.” Ah, well, this explains the weird fixation on the imaginary “kicking fetus” video.

Russian ambassador to Poland blames Poland for WWII. Apparently, the new Russian definition of the word “diplomatic” is “capable of antagonizing everybody in sight with extreme assholery.”

The absolutely ridiculous things American psychotherapists are taught about sexuality. Please be very careful before you contact one for help with sexual problems. Instead, consider doing Skype sessions with specialists from Europe.

[Russian] A really good, honest post about the reasons why life in Haiti sucks so badly. Great photos, too. It’s only in Russian or Ukrainian that one can read insightful posts on the topic and not find the same idiotic regurgitation of the evil French and the nasty reparations.

I never heard of Garbage Pail Kids before but we had something very similar in the USSR in the form of little poems. These kinds of things perform hugely important functions for kids, and only idiots would try to censor them in any way.

Australians refuse to punish even the most egregious and horrifying kind of domestic abuse because the perpetrator is a woman.

The extremely bizarre situation of the NY school janitors.

The offensive and disturbing way in which a Chicago news station celebrated a Jewish holiday.

Do read this great report about the time when Obama humiliated Trump. It’s hilarious.

Russians broadcast Obama’s speech at the UN General Assembly with this really effeminate, affected male voice speaking with an accent that Russian-speakers identify as pissy and elitist and delivering the translation of the speech in a way that drowned out Obama’s actual voice.

Republicans – both in Congress and on the state level – have adopted the strategy of stopping all work altogether whenever anything is the least bit not to their liking.

Commentators are trying to come up with all sorts of political and ideological explanations for this phenomenon but I’m thinking that everything is much simpler: these folks are just not that into working and look for any excuse to avoid doing any work.

A Muslim father strangled his 19-year-old daughter to death after learning that she had been caught shoplifting condoms to have sex with her boyfriend, who she had been forbidden from seeing.

Asadullah Khan, 51, admitting killing his daughter Lareeb in the early hours of the morning on 28 January as she had brought ‘dishonour’ to the family, reports Germany’s Bild newspaper.

I’m posting this in response to the timid and mumbly question by blogger Echidne as to the possibility that the gender norms of migrants who are coming to Germany might not be entirely in tune with those of the “receiving population.”

Hmm, what a mystery. How can anybody possibly find an answer?

Hey, folks, and do you know who agrees with the crazy Russians that NASA discovered water on Mars to advance scary ideological purposes?

Rush Limbaugh.

The Chair of the Education Committee – once again, the Education Committee – of the Russian Parliament made a statement that NASA found water on Mars on purpose in order to distract the world’s attention from Putin’s speech at the UN General Assembly.

If after this you don’t feel profound compassion for Obama who has had to spend 1 hour and 40 minutes in a conversation with the source of this idea, I’m not sure you are capable of compassion at all. Obviously, a reasonable conversation is not possible with these people.

Over the weekend, there’s been a shooting in downtown St Louis and six separate instances of bullets hitting cars on the highways leading to and from St Louis.

The local newscasters are now asking viewers to call if we have any ideas on what to do about the insanely high level of violence in St Louis and the climbing murder rate.

By the way, why are my posts about violence in St Louis always downvoted? Are people jealous that I’m not writing about violence in their areas, or what?

Putin finally got to deliver the speech at the UN General Assembly that he’d been so desperate to give. Huge expectations had been built in Russia over this speech. People were told that Putin was about to reveal something so massively important that the world needed to sit up and listen.

Putin came to the General Assembly, opened his mouth and. . . said nothing. Nothing even remotely different from the same tired old stuff he’s been saying for years.

“Americans didn’t manage to be good Americans. Please elect us to be Americans, and we’ll promise to be much better Americans than these current Americans.”

Everybody has heard it a million times already but poor deluded Putin seems convinced that the problem is that people don’t understand what a great deal he’s offering.

This is why people in Ukraine and Syria need to keep dying: their deaths give Putin an opportunity to reiterate, yet again, the same boring message of “We can be much better Americans than the current, etc, etc.”