People, did you see? Terrible devastation in Iowa:

Police say there are “multiple deaths.”

Even after the destruction, it’s clear that this was a beautiful place. This is so sad.

There are really nice brands that are being developed in Ukraine. I’ll post some pictures and explain the meaning in a while. But for now, I want to mention that the ordering process is really cute. It’s not automatic. People very pointedly choose to not make it automatic. As a result, each time you want to order something, you end up engaged in a long dialogue where you end up exchanging your life stories and explaining what you are all about.

Yes, it’s not remotely as efficient as Amazon. And it’s never going to make that much money. But it’s kind of really homey and nice. There’s also zero upselling. Upselling is outdated and should be buried once and for all everywhere but in North America not everybody has gotten the message.

Today, it was announced on Russian TV that the President of Iran had been killed by a Mossad agent called “Eli Copter.” Russians found this information in a French news report. And relayed it to the public with all seriousness.

Mocking Russian news is low-hanging fruit but I can’t fail to mention such a huge translation guffaw. “Eli Copter” does sound vaguely Jewish, so it works.

For today’s event in my book tour that has an audience of over 100 people, I showed up in the same very original and noticeable blouse that I wore in my book trailer. The trailer was shown at the beginning of the event, and I’m sure now everybody is wondering why I never change my clothing.

This is embarrassing.

The next stop in the book tour is on Thursday, and I hope to God I don’t brain-glitch myself into an identical outfit again.

I tell everybody I like sausage but thankfully nobody has taken umbrage so far.

Speaking of food, I’ve spent a long day preparing the talk for my book tour, taking Klara from campus to orthodontist to kids’ gym, making okroshka, and unpacking, only to discover that Red Lobster is filing for bankruptcy. I love Red Lobster. I feel as aggrieved as the sushi professor from the story above but with more reason.

What a gem of a book, my friends. Exceptionally enjoyable, charming, and lovely. Some reviewers complain that nothing happens in this novel but it’s a diary of a provincial lady. What do they expect to happen? This is a book about life. Life is what happens. Normal, often clumsy, sometimes disappointing life.

I highly recommend reading Delafield’s excellent novel and then following it with Richard B Wright’s devastating remake, 70 years later, in Clara Callan.

Diary of a Provincial Lady is very funny and light-hearted but I did manage to find a disturbing subtext in it. Trust me to find disturbing subtexts in everything. The way the narrator feels in the 1930s will be extremely easy for many women to identify with today. The same endless unhappiness with her own appearance, the same terror of the word “age”, the same incapacity to end a boring conversation out of onerous politeness, the same tendency to wrap her relationship with her children in layers of guilt. Many of the provincial lady’s monologues I could be reading on Facebook today.

An excellent novel. A perfect summertime read.

In 3 months, N achieved incredible advances with his Spanish. From absolute zero he went to the point where he tells stories, enacts funny dialogues, and does it all with almost no accent.

A strong intellect is a wonderful thing, indeed.

This is true. What we fear, what disturbs and defeats us is what we are meant to be doing. In other words, it disturbs us for a reason.

The journey towards “a work-life balance” tends to end up in burnout and depression because the pitting of work and life against each other is wrong.

Also, this one is absolutely crucial once you move into the middle age:

Middle age is when you become a conduit through which good things travel to other people. It feels great and reminds you that you have reached a great place in your relationship with the world. If you don’t become a conduit by 50, you’ll collapse into the dreaded midlife crisis.

Forget balance, and start thinking conduit.

By declaring that everyone could Be Like Me (if only they were properly socialized), the clever can, with clear conscience, continue to surreptitiously wage class war against the clueless.

Steve Sailer, Noticing

The idea that all brains are equally capable of performing all operations is the great scam of our times. “You aren’t trying hard enough!” “You will achieve mastery if you invest 10,000 hours.” “Everybody can succeed in college.” These are egregious lies that hurt people, saddle them with debt, and undermine their lives. But we aren’t noticing because those who have the capacity to do so benefit from not noticing.

I was going to skip Sailer’s article about Jackie Robinson because I vaguely know the story and have no interest in whatever sport he played. But as I was leafing through the piece, my eyes snatched the following sentence: 

We tend to be more outraged by minor slights to winners than by mass atrocities against downtrodden losers.

This is undeniable. Compassion – which means a common, or shared suffering – starts when we identify with the sufferer. What if this pain was visited upon me? What if I were hurt in this way? It’s harder to feel compassion when you don’t want to put yourself in the sufferer’s place at all. And it’s always easier and more pleasant to identify with somebody you see as “just like me”.

Show me who elicits your compassion, and I’ll tell you how you feel about yourself.