The Russian TV program I mentioned in the previous post is dedicated to the horrifying video of a woman being beaten into a coma and then slashed on her face with a knife by a man. 

A male witness is filmed walking calmly by as the criminal brutalizes the woman. 

People in the audience are horrified. “You men! You just walk by when women are being brutalized! And you brutalize women, too!” an angry woman says. “Why don’t you just say once and for all that you are not men! You are women! Women, that’s what you are!”

14,000 women are killed as a result of domestic violence every year in Russia. According to the most conservative reports, one out of every two Russian women has been a victim of rape. Yet the biggest insult a woman can come up for a woman-beating man is that he is. . . a woman.

Mind you, Russian men haven’t been working, providing or producing anything worth a crap for generations. When N told me his Dad had a job back in the 1990s, my reaction was, “Wow, seriously? How come? That’s just so bizarre.” [Mine had a job, too, but mine is a Jew.] Yet the Russian women who are, en masse, sole providers for their families keep fawning over these useless pieces of junk. It’s a mystery.

A newscaster on a Russian TV channel announces, “The victim of this crime was a young girl of 34 years of age.” In Russia, where any woman past the age of 24 is considered an ancient old reject (and this idea is being delivered day and night on every channel), “a young girl of 34” is an enormous progress.

This is so that people don’t tell me I only write bad things about Russia.

There is an old fable about 3 sisters of marriageable age. The eldest was lazy and never did any work, just stayed lazing around in bed. The middle sister was gloomy and moody. And the youngest sister was beautiful, hard-working, and always smiley and good-natured.

Once a fairy godmother came to see the sisters and told them she had the perfect husband for each of them. The sisters got on to a cart and it rolled into the neighboring village.

“Here is your husband,” said the fairy godmother to the lazy sister, pointing to the most hard-working fellow in the area. “You are each other’s perfect match.”

In the next village, she turned to the gloomy sister and pointed to the most good-natured, out-going, joyous guy there. “This is your husband,” she said. “You compliment each other perfectly.”

Finally, they got to the village where the youngest sister’s match lived.

“And here is your perfect match,” said the godmother, pointing to an ugly, miserable little drunk lying in a ditch.

Moral of the story: People who feel that they need to be perfect all the time end up with very flawed partners because they need the partners to compensate for their uprightness with some looseness. Your partner will always (although not consciously) try to become what you lack. So don’t try to be too perfect. It doesn’t pay off.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Thursday Russia would consider extending financial aid to debt-strapped Greece if Athens were to make a request.

This is really good. This is the only thing that can sour the Russians on Putin. They hate it when anybody gets handouts. Anybody but them,  that is. Let Putin keep handing out cash to every freeloader on the planet. And let’s see Russians finally awaken from their crush on Putin.

I’m hearing that the supporters of Spain ‘ s new party Podemos have been celebrating the election of Syriza. I’m really hoping Podemos doesn’t decide to become one of Putin ‘ s ass-lickers. Spain really deserves better than that even if Greece doesn’t. And Spain’s economy is improving.

Obama said in his recent interview that he doesn’t believe Putin ‘ s annexation of the Crimea was part of any grand strategy.

Of course, he doesn’t believe anything of the kind but is forced to say it to give Putin a chance to step back.

But Putin can’t step back because the overwhelming majority of people in Russia passionately wants the war to continue. The bodies of the Russian  soldiers killed in Ukraine are shipped back to Russia by the hundred and buried, nameless, under the plaques saying “Surgical Waste.” And not a single spouse, parent or sibling has asked for a chance at least to have a grave to visit. It’s OK with them that their loved ones should be discarded as “surgical waste” as long as Ukrainians get killed. There is nothing Obama or anybody else can oppose to this.

I live in a bubble, people. It’s only from the TVs at the gym that I discovered that there is a horrible snowstorm ravaging my state and that the whole country is about to watch some sports game where everybody will consume 2,400 calories while watching.

More calories is the last thing I need so I’m happy I’m not into that game. Instead, N and I will celebrate the very last round of New Year’s festivities  (yes, really, and who’s to tell us we can’t?).  I vowed not to take down the New Year’s decorations until I see snow but it seems like, at this rate, I’ll might have to prepare to spend the next 30 years with these decorations and that’s kind of extreme.

Like Monsieur Jourdain who was stunned to find out he spoke in prose, many people read articles inspired by Putin ‘ s propaganda and adopt their viewpoint without having a clue that this is what they are doing. Putin is spending significant sums of money on getting Western journalists and bloggers to spread around his ideas. It’s stupid to participate in that without even being paid.

So how do you know if a piece on Ukraine is Putinoid? Here is a list of useful clues (these are all ideas that Putin ‘ s propaganda machine has been pushing like crazy):

1. The article suggests that Putin has been demonized by the Western press (in reality, the Western press has been so unwavering in its support for Putin that nobody in the West even knows 1% of all the horrible things this vicious little animal has done).

2. The article mentions “pro-Russian rebels” or “pro-Russian separatists.” (By this time, there has been such overwhelming proof that “the pro-Russian rebels” are citizens of Russia who are fighting with Russian weapons that people who insist on believing in “rebels and separatists” will continue doing so no matter what. In reality, there has never been a separatist movement anywhere in Ukraine. What is happening right now is a war of Russia against Ukraine. It’s an absolute tragedy for Ukraine and an enormous win for Putin that this still even needs to be said.)

3. The article mentions the Olympics or Pussy Riot. (This is Putin ‘ s favorite rhetorical device: whenever he is asked about Ukraine, he switches the subject to the Olympics. In reality, neither the Olympics nor Pussy Riot are even remotely related to anything that has been happening in Ukraine.)

4. The piece suggests that Putin annexed the Crimea because he was upset over Western bloggers making fun of toilets during the Olympics. (This is another one of Putin ‘ s favorite ideas that he’s been promoting very actively and in person. See my posts on his recent press conference, for instance. The idea is patently ridiculous. Nobody invades countries because of a couple of blog posts written all the way across the ocean. But this idea of Putin ‘ s flatters the Western bloggers ‘ feelings of self-importance, so they lap it up joyfully.)

5. The article states that Putin invaded Ukraine because he didn’t want NATO encroaching upon “his sphere of influence.” (I have explained in previous posts why that’s exactly the opposite of what Putin wants. What I haven’t discussed yet is how hurtful and demoralizing is for Ukrainians every instance of being casually referred to as “Putin ‘ s sphere of influence” in Western press. People are fighting for their lives in Ukraine, and all they are asking for at this point is not to be insulted in this way. They are people, not a “sphere”. It’s not ok to kill people because of somebody’s stupid fantasies about spheres.)

6. The article makes references to “ethnic Russians in Ukraine”, “Ukrainian neo-Nazis”, “far-right Ukrainian parties” or “a CIA-backed coup.” (These quotes from Putin that are never identified as such are quite outdated. Only the laziest journalist still makes use of them. Putin came up with a new one last week: “the NATO legionnaires that are fighting in Ukraine.” Let’s see who’ll be the first facile Western fool to bring up the NATO legionnaires in Ukraine.)

7. The general tone of the piece you are reading is that of “yes but.” Yes, Putin might have invaded but he was totally driven to do that because of evil things done by evil West. (In reality, what Russia does is not reactive. The people of Russia are so passionately and overwhelmingly in favor of this war that the absence of external motivation becomes evident. The war against Ukraine is serving the internal needs of Russia. It’s not about you, Obama, NATO, the EU, Merkel, a multi-polar world Putin supposedly wants, or anything of the kind. Russians went to war against their neighbors because of things that are happening inside Russia.)

I’ve seen Putin come up with all of these talking points during his press conferences and speeches. And then a week or two later, these same ideas would reappear pretty much verbatim in articles and posts by a crowd of Western journalists and bloggers. Of course, they are not all in Putin ‘ s pay. Most are simply lazy and repeat the stuff they’ve seen elsewhere because it speaks to their world view and feeds their sense of self-importance.

Don’t be a dupe for either paid-per-line Putinoids or recruited-for-free idiots. Approach what you are reading or hearing critically and carefully. There is a propaganda war going on,  and Putin is winning it. When the ideas I listed above start looking seductive, repeat the following:

“Putin is against gay rights and thinks that the existence of gay teachers leads to pedophilia. He is severely limiting reproductive rights in Russia. He has completely undermined the separation of church and state and surrounded himself with rabid woman-hating priests in a country where nobody even is religious. He is busily dismantling the few remaining vestiges of the welfare state in Russia, destroying state clinics, firing thousands of doctors who worked in them. He is jailing journalists and bloggers. He is against progressive taxation. He said he was envious of Moshe Katsav for raping several women because it meant Katsav was strong and mighty.”

Is this really what you want to support? Which part of the list seems attractive to you?

Facebook Needs a “Sympathy” Button

If you’ve ever posted some sad news on Facebook, you might’ve watched as the status received a few likes followed immediately by comments such as, “Liked for sympathy” or “I’m only liking this out of support.”

It’s not surprising that a gesture meant to stand on its own needs a little explanation when the post in question is negative rather than positive or neutral. “Like” is an odd verb to use when someone’s talking about their recently deceased pet or a crappy day at work, but a thread full of identical comments reading “Sorry to hear that” seems almost as awkward.

I’ve got to say, if you are capable of noticing Facebook reactions, your news ain’t that bad. And if people in your life need Facebook buttons to express their support, maybe it’s time to get rid of them.

I think the world has gone insane. My blogroll is overflowing with posts about the Leftist students who police each other and their professors for signs of anything they might find uncomfortable and politically unacceptable. Here is an example (linking to more examples). And here is another one. And here is the response to the previous one. And I have at least 30 more, if anybody is interested.

The whole thing is beyond weird. Where are these people hiding if they are managing not to notice that students on the Right behave in exactly the same censorious, nitpicking, fault-finding way?

There is no political division here. The “political correctness” scandal is entirely apolitical. For every anecdote of Leftie students freaking out over something minor and trying to shut everybody up, I can offer a mirror case of Rightie students doing exactly the same thing. This is the most bipartisan issue I can think of. The Left and the Right are offending very equally in this area.

This isn’t about politics, folks. This is about the society of consumers where people have been convinced by advertisement that any discomfort, no matter how tiny it might be, is entirely abnormal and should be immediately cured with a magic pill. These people are not called Leftists or Conservatives. Their name is consumers. And woe be unto you if you cause them any vague discomfort whatsoever. This discomfort might happen in the realm of political discussions but it can also be related to anything else. And when consumers feel discomfort, they descend on you like an herd of irate shoppers who have just seen the last 5-dollar waffle-maker escape from their grip during a Thanksgiving sale.

Have you considered that you only see Leftists engage in this obnoxious policing of everybody around them because you simply don’t meet enough people who are politically to your Right? I happen to be meeting them all the time, and they know how to be just as tiresomely whiny about anything that deviates in the slightest degree from their received pieties as the annoying idiot Lefties in Chait’s and DeBoer’s essays.