That’s what the cheap and mega successful US presence in Afghanistan managed to avoid for 20 years. It was an extremely effective operation but the story we told ourselves about it turned it into a humiliating defeat. We have been so habituated to hearing how America sucks that we bought into an utterly erroneous explanation.

The result was a botched and unnecessary withdrawal from Afghanistan that entertained our enemies, made Putin comfortable to start a full-scale invasion, and is destroying the balance of power around the already complicated Pakistan.

This is why it matters what we tell ourselves about events that happen. You can take the biggest win and talk yourself into seeing it as a loss. And vice versa, obviously.

I took a break from the news for a couple of days but when I went back I discovered that there was yet another completely manufactured “Trump said he was going to murder everybody” controversy raging on.

I laughed until I got hoarse.

Lisa Gardner is a bestselling author of murder mysteries, and her 3 most recent novels are about Frankie Elkin, a recovering alcoholic who has a hobby of investigating cold case disappearances. Frankie is the perfect neoliberal subject, addictive, with an inflated ego, and incapable of staying put. She’s happy to belong to a “group of vagabonds circling the globe, picking up jobs here, there, and everywhere, and the more they move around, the happier they are, especially in the company of other people from nowhere.”

Frankie destroys her marriage because stability terrifies her. She spends her life traipsing around the country, working for minimum wage, and telling everybody how superior this lifestyle is to a life of boring responsibilities that tie you down. She’s the perfect embodiment of “you’ll own nothing and will be happy.” When Frankie meets other minimum-wage nomads, they exchange their pronouns and make speeches about evil white people at each other.

There is an actual mystery in Still See You Everywhere but it’s not remotely as interesting as the state of mind of the people who think it’s a good idea to pollute even murder mysteries with this propaganda.

The hardest thing to overcome in students isn’t even the woke sloganeering but the general ultra-liberal sensibility. I gently and patiently steer them away from believing that:

– immigration is always the best thing a person can do. It has no negative consequences, and every obstacle to it should be removed

– making any efforts to preserve a marriage is wrong. People should be completely free to abandon any relationship the moment it becomes uncomfortable

– it’s best to be single and never seek permanent relationships because then you can travel a lot*

And so on.

How does all this come up? you’ll ask. I supervise student research projects, and students endlessly try to massage a work of literature into confirming these bizarre beliefs. Even when a work of literature says the exact opposite, young people’s need to disgorge yet another neoliberal platitude is too strong for them to notice it.

This isn’t something that can be reversed through administrative decisions. Somebody has got to talk to these young people and help them out of this maze of self-defeating beliefs. We let them be consumed by propaganda, and now it will not be easy to bring them back.

* This and the previous point always come from young women. I never had a male student say anything like it. But who’s going to suffer more as a result of adopting this worldview? Obviously, women.

And the title of the idiot of the week goes to John Kerry. Here’s what he came up with on the subject of the most destructive war in Europe since 1945:

“I believe that Russia has the ability to be able to make enormous changes if it really wanted to,” Kerry continued. “I mean, if Russia has the ability to wage a war illegally and invade another country, they ought to be able to find the effort to be responsible on the climate issue.” 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/this-may-be-the-dumbest-thing-john-kerry-has-ever-said/

How did it happen that we put so many unintelligent, incoherent people in positions of power?

I think I figured out how to get professional photos that fully reveal my grumpy and unapproachable personality instead of trying to make me more “personable” and “upbeat”. I asked a student who works as a photographer to do it. I haven’t seen the final version yet but the initial stage photos are good. They look like me and not some hopped-up mental patient who only cares when the next meal will be served.

This is the size hail we had today:

I’m not sure I want to know what this bastard did to my roof.

I have nothing against the ban but it’s like fighting smoking by banning Camels and leaving the rest of the brands easily available. “Son, you are only 12, and I can’t have you smoking. This is terrible for your health. So no Camels from now on. Marlboros and Newports, on the other hand, go at it, little dude.”

Take Snapchat, for instance. It’s terrible for kids. Really bad. Take kids off TikTok, they’ll go on Snap. And what have we gained?

I’m leaving aside the part about “Chinese propaganda” on TikTok because it’s an argument of such extraordinary stupidity that I’m not going to address it beyond saying that we don’t need China’s help to develop the most successful propagandistic regime in history, and people who haven’t noticed that the source of the worst propaganda isn’t China are dense.

Let’s definitely ban TikTok but we have a much bigger problem. It will not be solved by government bans because there is no longer a government strong enough, not even in China. People will solve it (or not) as they see fit and can manage. Those who solve it for themselves and their children will be the cognitive elite. Those who don’t will be screwed.

It’s a very complex high-stakes project that will require a lot of individual effort over a long period of time, and most people won’t be bothered. That’s the stark reality we are hiding from amongst these boring debates about TikTok bans.

I know a professor who constantly complains that her students cheat. It’s a big obsession with her. Curiously, she’s one of the most dishonest people I’ve ever met.

Another professor complains that students are bored, unenthusiastic and have zero interest in learning. He’s ready to retire and says he struggles to find anything that would interest him.

My students are all very enthusiastic and happy but I wonder if that, too, is simply my reflection that I’m seeing in them like in a mirror.

Yes, Musk is a moron. But he gave us a great platform so he’s a useful idiot in a literal sense.

P.S.  And he hired Don Lemon? To achieve greater diversity? OK, I rest my case now.