The fighting has intensified in Ukraine this week. The Russians are using Obama’s obvious reluctance to act on the bill adopted by Congress that promised aid to Ukraine. At the same time, everybody is distracted right now by the massacre in Paris, and the Russians are using this to conduct a full-scale offensive.

Yesterday and the day before there was another big battle for the Donetsk Airport. The Russians brought fresh troops and sophisticated weaponry to the airport. After a long and exhausting battle, Ukrainians won yet again.

This is the worst type of warfare for Ukraine: a simmering low-intensity conflict that flares up every once in a while. The whole point of the Ukrainian revolution of 2013 was to conduct reforms and transform the country from a corrupt, sleepy mafia haven to a vibrant European state. This is precisely what the Russians don’t want. They sabotage Ukraine ‘ s project of reform by slowly draining the country of resources through an endless simmering conflict. It’s easy for Russia to do that since it isn’t pursuing any creative project of its own. Its entire creative agenda right now is limited to “Let’s stick it to the Americans.” So they can go on and on fighting. There’s nothing else to do in Russia that’s fun.

Realistically, the only hope for Ukraine right now is to resist until 2016 and then hope that a Republican gets elected in the US.

Imitation Game is a very good movie that follows a very traditional Hollywood model. Many changes might take place in the world but it’s comforting to know that Hollywood movies will not deviate even by a hair’s breadth from the tested and true model.  I’m not entirely happy that I went, though, because N had no idea why Turing had killed himself and now that he’s found out he is extremely sad.

On the positive side, the actor who plays teenage Turing is truly talented. I hope he sticks with acting because he has a great future in it.

In what relates to the collapse of the nation-state  (what, did you think it wasn’t going to make an appearance?), the film offers a very curious retelling of WWII from today’s understanding of war not as a series of grand battles but, rather, as a game played by complex
machines operated by nerds who never see any military action. The actual soldiers have descended from their pedestal of heroes and have become unimportant pawns who will only live if the nerds allow them to. The true war heroes are now gadgets and those who know how to use them.

Of course, in order for such a plot to make any sense at all it has to be pinned together rather inelegantly from very incongruous elements. The Soviet spy crammed into the middle of everything in quite a jarring manner allows the story to remain somewhat believable  (but only if you flunked history in high school). It doesn’t matter, however, because the movie isn’t about history. It’s about a new vision of warfare trying to colonize the past and impose itself over previous narratives.

Highly recommended but with a warning that the ending is very tragic.

N and I decided to go to the movies.

“There is this movie Selma that everybody says is great. It’s about MLK and the Civil Rights movement, very topical. And there is a movie about some guy called Tubing or Turing. . .”

After hearing the name “Turing”, N started making incoherent but happy noises, indicating an immediate readiness to be reunited with a movie about this fellow. He also delivered a small lecture on something called “Turing machine”, from which I gathered that Turing is very meaningful to programmers.

So the Turing movie it is.

Blatter said he had spoken with Putin during a visit to Russia on Friday and was assured “there is no intention to ask FIFA to change anything in the pattern and the program of the World Cup and we trust Russia will find a solution.”

Oh, I  wouldn’t worry either. The oligarchs are getting restless, and Putin needs the World Cup to give them a chance to compensate themselves for the pain and suffering of the sanctions. The Olympics were a phenomenal opportunity for the lucky few to siphon off an enormous portion of the state money set aside for the Olympics. Now the same thing will happen during the preparations for the World Cup.

Of course, this will impoverish the people of Russia even further but that’s OK. They are ready to go hungry in return for everybody noticing their existence. If you want to understand what a narcissistic trauma on a collective level looks like, observe the Russians.

Imagine a situation when somebody brushes you slightly with their shopping cart, opens the door without seeing that you are there, cuts in front of you in the line by mistake and says, “Oh, I’m sorry” or “My apologies.”

What is your response?

The reason I’m asking is that in this region people invariably respond with, “Oh, you are fine.” Not “I’m fine” or “it’s fine”, which would make sense to me but “You are fine.”

Example:

“I’m so sorry!”

“You are fine!”

I haven’t been able to get used to this in six years. The response sounds so bizarre to me. My question is: is this a regional thing or is it more wide-spread?

I’m experimenting with traditional American food: steak and a basil – mozzarella – tomatoes – strawberry balsamic vinegar dish. And asparagus. And a loaf that I had to bake in the oven. It is one of those premade loaves that have to be baked.

P. S. For those who asked: N’s martial art was called shotokan.

The Russians are joyfully reporting the following news (the text was obviously translated from Russian with Google Translate, so it sounds a little weird):

Foreign Minister of Tanzania Bernard Camillius Membe, who arrived in Moscow on Thursday, January 15, called Russia a superpower. As informed TASS, he said at the talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

“Of course, Russia is a superpower. We will always be reminded of Russia’s historic role that it should play,” said Membe.

I never thought I’d be so profoundly sorry for the Russians. It’s just so pathetic, you know? They send their young men to die by the thousand, experience an economic collapse, destroy a peaceful neighboring country – all just so that a guy from Tanzania tells them they are a superpower with a historic role. 

Dumb sods.

A protest is going to be held in Moscow against free speech. 100,000 people are planning to attend in support of the idea that the speech which offends religion should be illegal.

This is especially hilarious in Russia where, for the obvious historical reasons, nobody is religious. Of course, since nobody in the country knows much about any religion, it will be very easy to ban pretty much any kind of speech as offensive to some vaguely religious sentiments.

The situation where 100,000 of atheists  are marching to ban free speech on religious grounds is seriously funny.

As further reading, I want to recommend to you the most brilliant post anybody has written in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Read until the very end. It’s really powerful.

We are undergoing a new round of budget woes since our ultra-rich new governor is dedicated to the idea of sucking out more wealth for himself from the state. While the sick creep is impoverishing the state to buy a new set of mansions for himself and a new set of charitable organizations where his wife will be able to bully even more Hispanic kids into submission, our university  – a place which educates and helps actual real people – has to struggle to come up with money to feed this leech.

I have decided not to get involved with this series of budget cuts because I’m concentrating on my research. Stupid criminal governors come and go but scholarship is eternal.

But the university has come up with a funny way to process budget cuts: several departments will now share a single departmental chair. I have no idea who will agree to be chair in such conditions. But people are agreeing to teach extra courses for no pay, so I’m sure there will be eager volunteers.

In case anybody is wondering why academics are choosing to do all this extra teaching and service without pay: the alternative is to lie in front of the fireplace working on research projects. And that’s so much harder that people would do anything to avoid it. This is something that idiots outside of academia are too stupid to understand.

Everybody is having a fit of hysteria over the kids who were stopped by police as they were walking alone.

It’s easy to dump on the police and the mean strangers who called the police when they saw the kids walking alone. But you know what? I read the story of James Bulger and of the 38 strangers who saw him being led to his death by two kids and didn’t call the police. Something tells me that those 38 strangers have cursed their decision not to call the police a thousand times since then.

After reading about James Bulger, I’m totally calling the police if I see small kids just wandering around. I don’t want to be that stranger who didn’t call and then has to live with the guilt.

And as for the parents, they should be happy to live in such a caring society where everyone wants to look out for their kids.