I’m being invited to a show of a famous Ukrainian journalist with half a million YouTube subscribers. This is my husband’s favorite journalist, and it’s a dream of his life to see me on that show. I’ll be speaking Russian on the show, and I’ll post the link when it airs. If I don’t perish of nerves before then.
Nothing to Be Proud
Nineteen-year-old Ruslan V. V Turko and two unnamed minors were arrested on Wednesday for first-degree malicious mischief after vandalizing the rainbow Pride mural that sits in front of Riverfront Park located in Spokane, Washington.
The media description of what happened is, of course, extremely tendentious. These teens are facing felony charges for leaving skid marks while riding their scooters. That’s all they did. They revved their scooters and left barely visible skid marks. But the crosswalk where they left scooter marks was painted the saintly rainbow colors, so it’s now a felony to leave a scratch on it. It’s a good idea for everybody to avoid that crosswalk because what if you track mud on it? Or make a facial expression that is considered genocidal?
In the massively tolerant Canada, the support for LGBT “dropped precipitously” over the past couple of years. I wonder what the teens in Spokane will learned about the importance of tolerance from this experience.
Psychological Bean Broth
At work, I mostly live in a bubble that I created for myself but sometimes I come across a reminder of how much my university despises research, publications, books, and everything that constitutes the life of the mind. It shouldn’t bother me too much but it does. What we do is such a farce.
To extract myself from the dumps into which this sad state of affairs plunged me, I made a bean and fish stew. I don’t use canned beans because the whole point of a bean is building a broth. There’s no reason to eat beans if there’s no broth.
Carrots, coriander chutney, a cinnamon stick, a large onion (added whole and then removed because you know why), some juniper berries, a bay leaf. A large batch of fresh spinach at the end. It didn’t really need the fish but N doesn’t like vegan, so I added something called “Vietnamese snapper” that had a shockingly attractive price at the store.
I spent so much time nursing this broth as a way of providing psychological help to myself that when the stew was done it was too late to eat. I do feel better, though, and the dish will be good for lunch tomorrow.
Progressive Brezhnev
When Brezhnev was in steep decline and barely able to string a few words together, we used to joke that our great leader was so progressive that even his progressive dementia was the most progressive on the planet.
Sense of Community
One has truly got to be a terrible person to engage in such a performance. Whatever one’s political beliefs or opinions, this is disgraceful. One’s first loyalty should be to fellow citizens, and creating this kind of discomfort for your own community is not OK. The people in the theater aren’t political figures. They can’t do anything to address your grievances. It’s terrible to harass them like this.
Q&A about Teenage Smoking
I would tear the pack out of the teenager’s hands, smoke every cigarette in it to the nub, and lick the packet clean while heaving with delight.
Which would probably put the teenager off the weed but do nothing positive for my well-being.
Sorry, I’m not in a good position to try to prevent anybody else from smoking. I’m barely managing to prevent myself.
Q&A: English Usage
I’d say “it” to refer to a baby but for anybody older you can’t use “it”. If it’s an imaginary person or the sex is not known, you can say “they”. Sometimes, though, that’s confusing because people might think you are talking about a group. In these cases, I randomly use “he” or “she”.
At the Festival
We were at the festival for the historic Route 66 today, and, God, I love these small-town festivals. Inflatable castles, a petting zoo, a live band, local artisans, games for kids. Our town festivals are always held in the square in front of the public library, so those of us who are into reading can retire to the library to read on regular occasions.
At the festival, I saw a couple with three most magnificent large collies. The owners were decked out in Ukrainian symbolics, so of course I had to approach them. They have no personal connection to Ukraine but are great supporters.
“Isn’t it great how the Russian offensive on Kharkiv failed within days!” they gushed.
“Yes!” I agreed.
“And how amazing was Zelensky’s speech in France!”
“Yes!”
“And did you see what that veteran did, so touching!”
“Yes!”
“And did you hear what Putin said at that stupid forum of his that nobody visited?”
“Yes!”
“I only wish we took all the money we are sending to Israel and used it to help Ukraine win!”
“Yes! Wait, what?”
Regulate AI
Adobe arrogates the ownership of the content created by its users. Users pay the company and that act of payment means the company can take ownership over whatever the customers create using the product. It’s as if I sold you paper and then claimed ownership over the book you wrote on it.
The reason why Adobe does it is because the content created by its users is useful to train Adobe’s AI. Which Adobe will then monetize and take away the users’ jobs. In the end, nobody will have money to purchase Adobe products because there will only be AIs talking to other AIs.
This is going on everywhere – Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, etc. Whatever we create is arrogated, sold and used to train house AI with the goal of eliminating as much human labor as possible.
It’s urgently necessary to introduce regulations on AI. But we have such a sclerotic leadership and such an emotional, pouty electorate that it doesn’t occur to anybody even to stop and think why nothing is being done to regulate AI. We are poring over moronic partisan concerns and completely missing something of an extraordinary importance.
Q&A about Emigration
What is it with excellent questions these days? Every question I receive is a joy to answer. Here’s today’s:
If moving house is considered major life trauma, imagine moving countries. The first one, I was very young, so I mostly recovered fast. The second one, though, I was already 27, so it hit me hard. Took years to get over it. It’s like everything in your life is playing off-key. The feeling is disorienting, and it undermines everything you know about yourself.
It’s impossible to imagine what I would have put in the place that’s currently occupied with the Spanish-related stuff. I would have found something but what? Something psychology-related, maybe. I definitely would not have been an academic. I would have moved to a different region within the country because if I were to stay, I would have wanted to live as a Ukrainian, and back then it wasn’t possible in my very borderland city. I would have probably gone completely Ukrainian-speaking. I was massively nationalist in my early twenties, in case people don’t know.
I keep thinking about this, and I find it infinitely entertaining to imagine the version of myself that never heard the word “nation-state”, never read Rafael Chirbes, and has no opinions about wokeness.
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