The perennially aggrieved Ian Welsh is blasting Russians for sending troops Syria. When Russia invaded Ukraine and sent incomparably more troops to kill Ukrainians, Welsh couldn’t cheer loudly enough. The killing of Syrians, however, looks a lot more disturbing to him.

This is not as illogical as it might seem. Exalted pseudo-Lefties of Welsh’s ilk hate nobody more than non-Russian FSU people. They still petulantly cling to the discredited fantasy of a “good USSR” and detest those of us who demonstrated how horrible and oppressive the “prison of nations” was by escaping from it as soon as possible.

From vast personal experience, I can assure you that nothing dampens the mood at a gathering of arm – chair Marxists as an entrance of a Ukrainian. Welsh and Co can’t wait for all of us to expire already and stop marring the joy they get from their erotic fantasies about the USSR of their dreams. 

Thank you for the support, everybody. You are good, kind, profound people, and it helps to know you exist.

Tragedy always highlights who is a great person and who is a self-involved piece of shit. I have had an opportunity to discover that the overwhelming majority of people are good and capable of feeling compassion and offering help. Even those who make an occasional clumsy comment have the capacity to understand that they are wrong and apologize.

Of course, there is also a class of people who can’t help trying to make somebody else’s suffering about their all-important selves. I have learned that the most destructive people are those who start every sentence with the word ‘I’.

“I don’t know what to say that will help you. I’m afraid of saying something insensitive. I’m suffering, too. I have no idea what to say right now.”

The message here is, “Forget your suffering, come service my emotional needs instead.”

Such people are to be avoided at all costs.

People, tomorrow and the day after is the second anniversary of Eric’s death. I won’t be posting anything new for obvious reasons.

Here are some fun old posts for you to read while I’m away:

Students and money.

In case you forgot that robbery is not cool, here is a reminder.

I kind of miss taking the bus because of the funny stories that came out of the rides.

What the UK was like back in 1990.

A story about a Russian class I once taught.

Have you ever wondered why nobody wants to date happy men? Here is the answer.

Do you remember the weird anti-sex tantrum Naomi Wolf once pitched?

An immigrant discovers inequality.

Toilet religion is both funny and disturbing.

The KGB people had a sense of humor.

Do you remember the stuttering student debacle? That one was fun.

The attitudes towards responsibility among liberals and conservatives.

A short funny post on toddlers and tiaras.

Now seems like a good time to remember the Biden / Ryan vice-presidential debate. Good times!

In case you forgot my stalker story, here it is.

I’ll be back on Monday.

I found this on somebody else’s blog:

What is the total number of months during the Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush I administrations, plus the first term of Clinton, when the unemployment rate was lower than today?

I guessed wrong but not by much.

I think it’s ridiculous that the unstable county clerk from Kentucky or wherever had to be jailed. The woman obviously has mental issues, what’s with the weird personal history, the strangely emotional reaction to paperwork, sudden religious conversions, unhealthy appearance, and a weirdo son from one of the weirdo marriages.

It would have been more productive to send her on medical leave. Now she’s become some sort of a martyr for an undefined cause, and that’s just stupid.

People are incredibly stupid. A newscaster in Arizona has to defend herself for pronouncing Spanish words correctly because idiots were traumatized by the realization that other languages exist. The newscaster broke the unwelcome news to them:

Just so you know, I was lucky enough to grow up speaking two different languages and I have lived in other cities in the U.S., South America, and Europe. So, yes, I do like to pronounce things the way they are meant to be pronounced and I know that change can be difficult, but it’s normal. And I know that, over time, everything falls into place.

Just in case anybody has any more questions about the permanently unhireable, ask yourself what kind of a modern workplace would want an infantile hysteric who goes into fits when hearing the word “mesa” pronounced correctly. 

A flurry of news reports recently have suggested that as the Assad regime falters, Russia may be pouring troops and weapons into Syria.

Well, duh. Everybody who’s less into navel – gazing than the US media knows that Putin has sent troops to Syria. He’s doing it to impress and cow the US by posing as a fearless and dedicated anti-ISIS fighter. If he manages to make advances against ISIS, Putin hopes that his invasion of Ukraine will be forgiven and forgotten.

The added bonus of the plan is to show the world how weak and impotent Americans are, dawdling and fumbling in the region where valiant Russians save the day as the Americans stand helplessly by.

And Putin is right. The foreign policy of the US is all about finding any pretext for yet another idiotic “Reset” with Russia. And as we have seen since 2000, it matters not one bit who’s in the White House. Nothing seems likely to get the US off the path of appeasing Russia. Which means that Putin’s plan will be very successful.

OK, folks, do you want to know why I was rejected for insurance coverage?

Apparently, on my visit to my doctor last December I reported “excessive alcohol consumption.” What I did report was one drink every six months or so. But hey, whatever a person with a Russian – sounding last name says about alcohol, what everybody hears is “alcoholic”, right?

The funniest thing is that the idiot doctor who reported this also has a Russian – sounding last name. He must be a total alkie.

Every once in a while, people write to ask me this question, so I decided to answer here:

YALE.

Yes, seriously. Here is why:

1. They have the best funding. Cornell’s funding is almost as good but the place is depressive. Harvard has a great package but they don’t push you out fast enough. Brown is spotty in terms of funding. I don’t know about Princeton because whenever I ask, people who’ve gone there go to a very dark place in their minds and take forever to emerge.

2. The reputation of the school helps you get hired. It’s not a guarantee but it helps.

3. The library will blow your mind.

4. The program is very undemanding. And before you curl your nose, consider how great it must be not to be given useless hoops to jump through as you make your way towards your goal.

5. Nobody was accepted into the program this year, so the department will be eager to admit good, promising people.

6. And most importantly: I’m always here to give you helpful suggestions on how to handle being in the program.

I hated my experience at Yale. But that was nobody’s fault but my own. I had a set of naive, childish expectations both about the university and the country that buried me under the shards when they were smashed.

If you remember that this is a very poor and ugly region and abandon the idiotic fantasy of famous professors who will mentor you, listen to you, and talk to you, you will be much happier. Any hope of finding yourself part of a community of scholars, people who will have profound conversations with you, who will not shower you with endless platitudes should be abandoned immediately.

The best one can hope for – at Yale or anywhere – is to find one or two people who are in tune with you and will help you not to feel completely lonely.

Learn to work alone, use the Internet for meaningful discussions, identify those two intelligent people on campus you will enjoy being around, learn to smile vapidly through endless conversations about nothing, come up with your own career plan, try to find a mentor somewhere on the planet, and you’ll be fine.

And remember: this is the most rewarding, wonderful career ever. The prize awaiting you is huge, so keep your eyes on the reward and let that help you through.

I don’t tend to make the private emails I receive public but I’ve got to share this one:

Dear, have you eve thought about making your excellent blog about Our Brain and the Mystique of Hard-wiring available to foreign language speakers? I’m from Vietnam and could easily translate it in to Slovak for you.

Huh? Or as we say in Ukraine, tyuuuuuu*!

* The famous Ukrainian “tyu” is an interjection that can transmit any meaning and an enormous range of emotion, depending on the intonation and facial expression that accompanies it.