I really really hate it when people empty words like “rape”, “slavery”, “abuse”, etc. out of all meaning by using them in ridiculous and even offensive contexts. 

Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss recently doubled down on his claim that teaching creationism to children was a form of child abuse during an appearance on the “The Weekly,” an Australian satirical TV news show.

No, having to get up in the morning and go to work is not rape or “like rape.” No, sitting on your ass in a comfortable, air-conditioned office checking your Facebook feed is not slavery. And teaching creationism is not child abuse. There is not a single person, I can guarantee you, who is sitting in an analyst’s office today, trying to resolve the problems caused by exposure to creationism. 

Maybe Mr. Physicist should limit himself to physics and abstain from making pronouncements on child psychology, which is obviously a subject that is deeply alien to him.

And more on the subject of duvet covers.

If a hotel doesn’t offer a duvet cover and expects you to cover yourself with a blanket that’s lying on top of a sheet, remember: this is a lousy hotel and you have been stiffed.

Just think about it: there is no likelihood that duvets are dry cleaned after each visitor, right? This duvet (separated from a person’s body only by a sheet that obviously shifted a lot as the person slept) touched all kinds of body parts and absorbed all kinds of bodily fluids. Is it very respectful on the hotel’s part to ask you to put that on top of yourself?

I always thought it would be super cool to have snow-white bedding. But I never got a set because I had this vague feeling that white bedding was too good for me or I was not good enough for it. It wasn’t a fully verbalized feeling, it was simply there, irreflectively and powerfully.

Yesterday I finally noticed what was going on and bought myself a set. On the negative side, I was so excited about my white bedding that I couldn’t sleep all night. But on the positive side, I conquered back one more bit of reality from received conditioning.

The set misses a blanket case (called “duvet cover” in this country). Bedding sets around here always pretend that people don’t cover themselves with anything for some reason. But I had a blanket case that is white with big pink flowers, so it worked.

The Russian Orthodox Church is a very funny institution. The Church, for instance, allows people to marry even if they are married to somebody else legally. Also, the Church allows people to get divorced up to 3 times (or an infinite number of times if you are willing to pay a fee.) While you are getting married and divorced in the Church, you can absolutely keep getting married and divorced with other people legally.

As a result, it is possible to have two sets of rotating spouses that change every couple of years and exist independently of each other. The system exists to accommodate the Russian nouveau riches who can’t marry their endlessly swapped mistresses legally and pacify them with the “more spiritual” Church weddings.

Obviously, the Russian Orthodox Church is horrified with how the evil Westerners degraded the sacred institution of marriage by granting gay people the right to marry. Obviously.

In case you think I can only grow tiny little sunflowers, here is one that’s almost as tall as me. This one grows next to the front porch.

And here are the ones that grow in the backyard:

This is a little patch of Ukrainian identity in Metro St Louis.

Just saw part of a very disappointing Dr. Phil Show. A woman with “the bipolar disorder” is abusing her teenage sons. She beats them, chokes them, screams at them, and forces the poor kids to live in a horrible, chaotic environment.

“What if she acts this way because of a chemical imbalance in her brain? What if she can’t help it?” says Dr. Phil to the sons to shame them for feeling fed up with the abuse.

This is a very convenient, comfortable imbalance, of course. It never forces the poor sufferer to try to choke or cuss out a police officer or anybody who could make her suffer the consequences. It never makes her hurt herself in any way. She is very rational, polite and quiet with Dr. Phil himself. The “chemical imbalance” only awakens when she needs to abuse the children who have no way of defending themselves.

People are so brain-washed by pharmaceutical ads that whenever they hear about “chemical imbalances” they feel guilty and unable to resist. This is why I need to tell them here, at least: whenever you hear that somebody has a “chemical imbalance” that obligates them to act in ways that are not comfortable to you, you are perfectly justified in leaving and never being in this person’s company ever again.

And if we all did that, the incidence of “chemical imbalances” would plummet immediately.

Putin’s press secretary casually wears a watch that costs $720,000. (Yes, seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars.) And this is just a press secretary, not an actual oligarch. (Yes, of course, there are more expensive watches.)

This is the kind of riches that Bernie Sanders wants to persuade Putin’s clique to give up for the sake of the environment. And this is why I’m saying that, as nice as Bernie is, his understanding of foreign affairs equals Sarah Palin’s.

It’s very hot here this time of year, so I stay cooped up inside all day and then go for long walks around town in the evenings.

In a residential area across the road from ours, I just saw a white middle-aged cop chatting with 3 black teenagers. The cop showed them how his computer works and what the dash cam does. And then the kids asked the cop to play basketball with them. He dropped his vehicle, with the computer still on, and started shooting hoops with them.

I made a circle around the neighborhood, and they are still playing, laughing, having fun.

Ideally, of course, there’d be no reason for me to notice this scene.

John McCain has a crush on Hillary and hates Fox News. I guess he’d do my brain exercise, no sweat.

Russians are destroying enormous quantities of food. . . to spite the West.

Mike Huckabee wants to deploy troops against. . . women who seek abortions.

Yet another disturbing story of an academic being hounded for posting something on Facebook.

Rape has become so. . . (I hate to say it but the only word that can describe it is) prestigious in some circles that people are now coming up with completely insane stories of how they too were victimized by rape in spite of never being raped. I’m shocked and horrified that people can get so pampered and spoiled that they’d feel the need to attract pity to themselves in such a way.

The doctor told me to eat small, bland meals every 2,5 hours.

I managed the meals part and the “every 2,5 hours” part extremely well.

The “small, bland” part, however, is not happening.