A question on the quiz is, “Who won the Spanish Civil War?”

As the students write, I walk around the classroom and spot that one of them answers, “The United States.”

“Think about it,” I say quietly. “It’s a CIVIL war. What does that tell us? Who fights in civil wars?”

“Oh gosh, of course!” the student exclaims. “Silly me!”

She crosses out her answer and writes, “Cuba.”

As you know, the Civil War is my topic. Can you imagine how many times I spoke about it? How passionately? In how much depth? I’d interrupt my discussions of medieval poetry to talk about the Civil War because I’m so obsessed. (And if anybody can figure out how I connected the two gets extra points on this blog).

And in case you think the student didn’t understand my lectures in Spanish, she is a native speaker. And this is a high-level course for Spanish majors.

If you like cats, you will love this invention. Or so I think but I don’t have cats, so what do I know?

It’s kind of embarrassing to see people so in the grip of the Electra complex: “As filmmaker, Jen Senko, tries to understand the transformation of her father from a mild mannered life-long Democrat to an angry, Right-Wing fanatic, she uncovers the forces behind the media that changed him completely.”

Russian authorities are considering a bill that mandates fingerprinting of all HIV-positive people, including tourists. Words fail me to describe this egregious policy.

I usually read posts on Shakesville for their humorous potential but sometimes they are so offensive that my blood boils. This is an example of a post that turns the expression “rape culture” into a joke, and that’s very hateful.

And this is why, as much as I love stand-up comedy, I avoid listening to female comedians.

“Publishing has been historically and still is one of the most hidebound, exploitative, decrepit businesses in the world, right behind the clowns at (and members of) the RIAA and MPAA.” Hear, hear! And the worst are academic textbook publishers.

How can I not admire somebody who came up with the phrase “I really feel like beating a pillow into stuffinglessness”?

An interesting approach to to-do lists.

Why I would never want to teach high school.

I would totally use this phenomenal service on my trips.

A blogger ridicules the privilege check-list we discussed on the blog last week. Read the post, it’s very funny: “Not just anyone can use prescription drugs recreationally. Many there are who have to settle for such indignities as sniffing glue. This seems like an as-yet-unexplored vista of privilege, whereby those to whom the greatest advantages of self-destruction have accrued must ask themselves searching questions about how they attained their current misery and how they can redistribute it to others.”

In Spanish: An intelligent discussion of why García Márquez sucks.

NPR is bent on being stupid and “reporting” on things its stupid journalists know nothing about: “Most Ukrainians are primarily Orthodox Christians, and Easter is the most important religious holiday of the year.” And there is more idiocy from the same article: “I’m Rachel Martin. Ukraine celebrates Easter today as a divided country.” Ukraine is an invaded country, you fool. Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why no such division was in evidence even two days before the invasion by Russia?

A great idea: memorial library books. Absolutely brilliant. But only if there are still libraries with actual books in the future.

This kind of thing was super fashionable among us, poor industrial ghetto kids, back in the 1990s in Ukraine. It’s kind of shocking to see it touted as high fashion in today’s US.

“What say you, blogosphere? Is it hopelessly shallow to want to move for the weather and because you just don’t feel love for your place of employment?” No, it’s absolutely not shallow. The climate where I live is killing me, and I’m not being overly dramatic. So I’m extremely sympathetic to what this blogger experiences.

What kind of a hopeless Grinch could possibly hate Mrs. Doubtfire? Well, this one! It must be a painful burden to be so patently lacking in humor.

The new SATs substitute vocabulary with linear equations. And gives even few choice on the multiple choice. I say, why not just give one correct choice and assign high marks for those who manage to underline it without falling off their chairs?

There is A LOT of social mobility in this country: “It turns out that 12 percent of the population will find themselves in the top 1 percent of the income distribution for at least one year. What’s more, 39 percent of Americans will spend a year in the top 5 percent of the income distribution, 56 percent will find themselves in the top 10 percent, and a whopping 73 percent will spend a year in the top 20 percent of the income distribution.“

I know how much everybody likes my riddles, especially the ones that have to do with me. I like them, too, so here is one:

No matter how much we like our professions and our lives, many of us have a secret childish fantasy about a dream career we haven’t pursued for many objective reasons but still fantasize about. I know a very brilliant academic in her fifties who secretly thinks it would have been amazing to be a pilot or a flight attendant. Another academic still has fantasies of having his own ice-cream cart. Somebody imagines herself as a model or a movie star. Somebody else fantasizes of being an astronaut.

I also have such a secret fantasy for a profession for which I’m not qualified at any level. I avidly watch the reality TV shows where representatives of this profession appear and imagine myself as one of them. I think there is nothing more glamorous and fun than working in this field.

So here is Question 1: what is my fantasy profession?

And Question 2: do you have one?

Putin made a statement today that the Internet is a product of the CIA created to control the world. This is why, he explained, Russia needs its own Internet and if American companies (Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, etc) want to be accessible to Russian users, they need to move their servers to Russia.

At this point, the Internet is the only communication medium where the people of Russia can express themselves freely.

I’m watching a lot of Ukrainian and Russian TV these days and what strikes me as very curious is how calm and respectful Ukrainian TV programs are in comparison with the utter hysteria of Russian TV channels. Pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian Ukrainians speak in calm, reasonable voices, nobody yells, interrupts, or insults anybody else. Everybody switches from Ukrainian to Russian and back easily, nobody gets shutdown for unpopular opinions. You’d think, based on this contrast, that Russia is the country invaded by Ukraine because the degree of how completely unhinged everybody is on Russian TV. s

So here is Putin’s official plan. On May 9, he will celebrate the victory in WWII, which is a holiday I always celebrated but now won’t because recent events have made me disgusted with all the ideological baggage that is being attached to it.

On May 11, there will be a “referendum” in the Donetsk region (where my aunts and cousins live). Putin will invade the day after and annex that region, too.

If anybody asks, “But what about the Geneva agreements?”, I’ll have to wonder whether you are intelligent enough to be on this blog.

Reader Stringer Bell asked a very interesting question:

There are things that will annoy or offend me, but nothing ever shocks me anymore. Do others feel the same? My generation sort of shocked my parents generation with our thoughts on sex, homosexuality, race, etc.

I’m sure the next generation will do the same to us, but I can’t imagine how. Like, how much progressive than me can my children be, haha?

So here are some of the predictions that I made:

♣ I think that we will see a very swift erosion of the boundaries between the public, and the private and the new generations will be a lot more comfortable with that than we are.

♣ I can also see people going in the direction of “endless childhood”, which is not a bad thing per se, but it can make old fogeys like me feel exasperated.

♣ Another thing I think might happen is people turning inwards and disentangling themselves from any political engagement. When I’m in a particularly bad mood, I envision presidential candidates having – instead of the debates in the format we are used to – singing or cooking competitions. The show can be called The Real American Idol and would be massively popular.

♣ I also think everybody will have their own online channel where they will stream live footage of their existences 24/7.

OK, that’s all I’ve got for now. What can you think of that might shock us about the future generations?

This just gets cuter and cuter. The famous Russian ballet dancer / media personality Anastasia Volochkova is being investigated by the Russian authorities on charges of prostitution.

The investigators explained that the charges were brought after the immensely rich ballerina (formerly married to a billionaire) gave an interview to a Ukrainian TV channel saying that she was ashamed of what Russia was doing in Ukraine.

“If she thinks she can speak publicly about Russia, we should investigate how moral she is in her personal life,” the police declared.

Evidence against the ballerina consists of a secretly taped phone conversation between her and an unnamed gentleman. k

Russia has adopted a law that will punish with fines and prison sentences bloggers who express opinions that are not approved by the government. Every company that offers a blogging platform or a discussion forum is obligated to keep all records of who said what and transfer these records to the state investigative services whenever needed.

Bloggers will also be punished for comments left by anonymous commenters on their blogs that do not reflect the official views on history and politics. Everybody becomes a snitch and a censor of everybody else. The alternative is to become a criminal.

Anonymous blogging is also now criminalized. All bloggers will be put on a registry and their activities will be monitored. The hilarious part of this law is that it obligated foreign online services (such as, say, WordPress, YouTube or Facebook) to participate in identifying Russian bloggers and spying on their verbal communications. The law doesn’t specify what will happen to WordPress for not snitching on bloggers and refusing to censor them, but it is quite clear: access to such web sites on the territory of Russia will be shut down, just like it’s done in China.

It is especially hilarious that this comes only a few days after Snowden gave Putin an opportunity to market himself as a defender of true freedom. Now, I hear, Snowden is making noises to the effect that he didn’t mean for his question to be so helpful to Putin. Of course, he must have thought that Putin would hear his question and exclaim, “God, you’re right, I’m such a tyrant! You just made me realize that I should stop oppressing people, incarcerating peaceful protesters, destroying freedom of speech and promoting fascist ideology! Thank you, you changed my life with your insightful question!”

So the campus art museum has been closed, right? But not to worry, there is good news. We just hired a “Director for Equal Opportunity and Access.” I’m guessing he will occupy himself with ensuring that we all have an equal opportunity to have no access to a museum and that we all get equal access to the junk food store. Yay! A huge win for the institution of higher learning.

Note how there is always enough money to hire these useless hacks but never any money for actual education. In the meanwhile, we will have a meeting on Friday to discuss which of our fellow teachers and researchers we are willing to fire to make sure that more Assistant Vice Chancellors for Brainless Butt-Scratching are hired asap.

On the second floor of our big and beautiful student center, there used to be an art museum. It was such an amazing place to go during a busy day, to wander among works of art, in a silent room, to think and contemplate beautiful objects. It was the place to meditate, recharge one’s batteries, and experience tranquility and beauty.

So I went to the museum to have a quiet moment and discovered, to my absolute horror, that there is no museum any longer. It has been closed down and a junk food convenience store has been put in its place. Because apparently the other 6 places on campus (including in this very building) that sell the same kind of junk are not enough.

I’m sure we will soon see a DVD rental and an arcade where the library used to be.

Seriously, folks, the shock I experienced when I saw the candy bar and soda aisles where artwork used to be was really bad.