Clarissa's Blog

I’ve just got to reblog this from the Shakesville blog:

Has someone ever recommended something to you, or said they just know you’ll love something (a movie, or a song, or a book, or whatever), and once you actually get a look at it, you’re slightly offended that they thought you’d like it?

Yes! And do you know what it was?

The Shakesville blog!

I’m still wondering what it is that people saw in me to think I’d love it.

So I’ve got the university to pay for my conference registration at Oxford, lodgings, and meals. It’s like pulling teeth but I’m making myself stay with it by browsing pictures of Oxford online.

Now I have to book the ticket. But the main part is done, and I will be in Oxford from July 10 to July 14.

“This is weird,” a colleague said. “Oxford is in England. What does it have to do with Spain?”

We haven’t had any riddles here for a while, so let’s liven things up with a riddle. Fellow Hispanists, please abstain from answering because it’s too easy for you.

My students were presenting their research projects today, and the issue of machismo (Latin American sexism) kept coming up. So let’s see how well you understand the real macho manhood.

Which activity should a man engage in at least once in his life to prove that he is a real macho?

The answer is under the fold.

(more…)

Toni Morrison published a new novel!

This is very cruel of her. It’s the end of the academic year, and now all I want is to get the book.

P.S. I have noticed that every interaction I have with human beings these days starts with an apologetic “It’s the end of the academic year.”

If anybody needed any more proof that surrogacy was about buying toys and not in the least about loving children, see this:

An Israeli Boeing-747 returned from Nepal to Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, and among its 229 passengers were 15 Israeli babies, all born within the past six weeks to surrogate mothers in Nepal.

Some of the babies were with their Israeli parents and others were cared for by Israeli passengers. None of the surrogate mothers were allowed to travel.

You’ve got to be a total frigging animal to tear a 6-week-old infant from its mother’s arms.

And please, let’s not make this about Israel. Purchasing human beings is wrong irrespective of what country allows it.

I think that the whole National Teacher of the Year award is stupid and counterproductive. This is such a big country that nobody could even remotely manage to find the teacher most deserving of the award. The award will make one person happy and thousands of people feel like they are being told that they are not good enough.

After knowing for only 8 years, N finally figured out how to engage with me during the end of the academic year.

4 kinds of sausage and my favorite very hard black bread from Lithuania will help me deal with the insanity that late April – early May always are for an academic.

“So why aren’t your colleagues getting assigned these great students you have?” N asked after hearing three of my fellow profs discuss students for an hour.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you work at the same school but all of your students are talented, amazing, creative, hard-working, and curious. Their students, though, are all lazy, stupid, soul-crushingly unprepared, and a total disgrace. How come you get such different students?”

So there is a biker gang in Russia called Night Wolves. The leader of the bikers is no fool. He found the perfect way to get his gang a free pass on everything it does and even – an unheard-of feat for a biker gang – receive enormous handouts from the government. The gang declared itself to be filled with Russian nationalists and started waving Russian imperialist symbols around at every turn.

Of course, Putin was hugely pleased and started shelling out millions to support the biker gang. And this made the gang beholden to Putin and obligated to do his bidding.

So over the weekend the domesticated bikers set out on a road trip to Poland. The purpose of the road trip was supposedly a celebration of the USSR’s victory in World War II. Why the celebration had to involve a gang traveling into Poland was never fully explained.

As you can imagine, the Poles did not welcome the aggressive biker gang waving Russian imperialist flags into the country. Poles do not have a good historic memory of angry Russians crossing their borders. Neither are they supportive of the Night Wolves’ participation in Russia’s war on neighboring Ukraine. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued one of its hugely bizarre statements to protest against Poland’s rejection of the Night Wolves:

“We demand explanations from the Polish authorities and decisively condemn their actions, which have demonstrated a readiness, for the sake of opportunistic considerations, to rewrite history and, in effect, to blaspheme against the heroism of those who have saved Poland and the world from fascism,” the statement said.

Note the part about “blaspheming against the heroism of those who have saved.” This is very, very important. Russia’s entire foreign policy is based on the idea that Russia saved the world from Nazism and going against any of Russia’s wishes today constitutes an insult to the memory of that heroic act of saving the world. 

This all sounds entirely deranged but Russians have been repeating this idiotic story about being entitled to do anything they want because “our grandpas fought in the war” that they now fully believe it.

 

“A Final Report On Letting The Academic Dream Die.” A great example of “The lady doth protest too much.“

Another idiot writing something idiotic about Ukraine: “His remarks on Ukraine may be the worst of all. Not only does he favor the dangerous option of sending arms to Ukraine, but he does so in the false belief that “they’re our allies.” Allies are exactly what they aren’t, which is why the U.S. has never been obliged to support them in an armed conflict.” Apparently, the words “Budapest memorandum” never crossed this fool’s mind. And yes, allies are exactly what they are, Mr. Brain-Dead.

Black boys and print culture.

[Russian] A new museum dedicated to celebrating Stalin is being opened in Russia.

An extreme case of hurt feelings. People really need to control their extreme reactions to having their feelings hurt.

Russia is reaching into its old bag of tricks to find an explanation for the forest fires devastating the country.

We are all so different. While some academics are terrified they won’t be able to effectuate their mid-career move, I fear that I might be forced to do it.

People are turning into such incredible sissies that publishing the linked photos of oneself is now considered “gutsy”. I wonder what it should feel to have such a sheltered life that something like this would even register, let alone feel like some major feat.

Female Fox News host eviscerates her own network over sexist article called “How to land a husband at the Masters”

In case you are interested in Jeremy Clarkson, read this article.

A great comment about the stupidity of libertarianism.

Routine jobs are disappearing.

At first, I thought this author was making a disgusting quip about Hillary (I mean, the part about “close proximity”), but then I realized he was being serious: “So where does this leave Hillary Clinton? She seems to have as good a resume for the Commander in Chief job as any woman could have with her close proximity to power in the White House for eight years, her eight years as senator and four years as Secretary of State.” Now I don’t know which possibility is worse: a nasty joke or complete seriousness.

It is very bizarre when Liberals try to insult men by feminizing them.

The books that idiots keep trying to ban.

People do say the weirdest things about convicted pedophiles: “After all, in spite of whatever may have been true back then, they have made a life together now, and—in the absence of any evidence to the contrary—it really isn’t anyone’s place to suggest that this life is somehow tainted or “less than” because of their history.” This author has convinced himself that it is his place to tell people what is their place. And that’s extremely hypocritical.

The most hilarious criticism of Hillary.

And yet another idiot academic drooling all over herself in her admiration of Putin.

[Russian] Jews in the Ukrainian Liberation Army.