I don’t believe, by the way, that the US is obligated to avenge a dead Russian dissident as a matter of principle. Or defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion, for that matter.

What I do believe is that if an American president made a very public promise, or if the US signed treaties and agreements, these promises and agreements should be honored.

The US signed the Budapest Memorandum and then spent 20 years aggressively coercing Ukraine to disarm and promising to defend it if Russia invaded. Once you incur an obligation, you have to follow through. If you don’t want to or can’t do that, then simply don’t incur obligations. Don’t promise, don’t sign, don’t foam at the mouth.

This isn’t unreasonable or too much to ask. The US placed itself between Ukraine and Russia since 1990. And then stayed there all through the Clinton, Bush and Obama presidencies. Then in 2014 we suddenly discovered that all those promises, including the very recent ones, were bunkum.

This is why I’m so annoyed by the “not my war” slogan. It very much is your war because your country made this war possible through consistent, open, decades-long policy. A nation-state by definition conducts foreign policy. You can’t have a nation-state while simultaneously saying, “I personally didn’t make these promises, so it has nothing to do with me.”

“I’m an individual and not bound by the social contract of my nation-state” is a post-national approach. And post-national means “open-border.” Because if there’s no nation, there can be no border like there can be no nose without a face for the nose to be located.

Not your war? Not your promises and obligations? Great. Welcome to the world without borders, police, comfort, standards of living, and everything else that the nation-state brings. Welcome to the third-world hellhole you are ushering in with your anti-national tantrums. Welcome to the world where words mean nothing and duty was obliterated by the whim of the moment. I hope you enjoy it since you worked so hard to bring it about.

We all know Russia is stupid, so the offensive Nazi nipples won’t surprise anybody. Russia was always a mess, so we aren’t that shocked to hear it still is.

What’s Spain’s excuse for turning into a piece of woke shit, though? Let me tell you about a single recent example.

The Spanish cultural establishment is deeply enamored of the US left-wing ideas and is aping them in painfully embarrassing ways. Recently, it began to “decolonize museums.” The art of the Iberian culture is now considered colonialist and in need for removal. For instance, the famous Dama de Elche that dates to the 4th century BC is being cancelled in service of “decolonization.”

4th century BC, folks. Here’s the stunning Dama de Elche:

Thank God, there are no nipples because then the statue would have been both Nazi and colonialist.

The criticisms of “colonialist art” weren’t expressed by some online crank. No, these were official statements by Spain’s Minister of Culture. His Ministry has produced or sponsored no piece of art worthy of standing in the shade of Dama de Elche or the portrait of Sor Juana by Miguel Cabrera (another artist slated for cancellation. But that never stops leftist fanatics who detest beauty.

The goal is to strip museums of this beautiful art and fill them with hideous, politically correct images. Here is, for instance, a painting by Sandra Gamarra, one of the chief proponents of “decolonize museums” who received €400,000 from the Spanish government to produce an “anti-racist” exhibit in Madrid:

My readers understand art, so I’ll leave it to them to decide whether it makes sense to throw Dama de Elche and Miguel Cabrera out of museums to make space for the ideologicall correct art of Sandra Gamarra and Co. It is very clear, though, why woke art can’t peacefully co-exist with actual art.

Yes, “activists” are stupid everywhere. Here is an example of recent Russian activism. I translated the quote with Google Translate and changed not a word so that people don’t think I manipulate these news to make Russians look particularly deranged:

Activist from Bashkiria Rasul Akhiyaretdinov turned to Vladimir Putin with a request to remake the sculpture “The Motherland Calls.” In his opinion, the monument has “provocatively protruding nipples,” which provokes bloggers to “touch” them in photos or videos, reports v1.ru.

Akhiyaretdinov said that he talked with representatives of the Muslim and Orthodox clergy and realized that none of them liked the look of the monument. He believes that the Soviet Union made many mistakes, one of which is this statue.

“Our mother cannot look like that. We demand reconstruction. Volgograd residents want to hide the shameful places of this monument,” the social activist concluded.

https://www.m24.ru/news/obshchestvo/09022024/664853

Ha-ha, you’ll say, but it’s not all fun and games. A young woman was arrested in Russia last year for doing something with the statue’s nipples that in some way furthered the goals of Nazism. This is the official charge, and please don’t ask me what Nazism has to do with the statue and its nipples. I also have no idea how the woman in question managed to reach the nipples of a 280-feet-tall statue but there you have it. Follow the above link for the whole story.

Here is the statue with the shameful nipples:

The Russian “activist” is right, not even in the prudish USSR did people make a big deal out of the nipples. The statue is hideous but I can’t wait to see how Russians will dress it up to cover its “shameful places.” Maybe a burqa is in order, given where the country is moving demographically.

I know I promised to pipe down about the book but things keep happening and I have to share or I’ll burst into flames.

I received an email from a famous professor of Ukrainian philology in Kyiv. He obtained the manuscript of my book and says it’s a diamond in the rough. The rough part being my command of Ukrainian. He edited the whole book, making hundreds of changes. Literally, hundreds. When you make a mistake, you tend to repeat it on every page, which is why there are so many corrections. For instance, in Ukrainian you don’t say “the people who”. You say “the people that”, of which I had absolutely no idea. Plus, there are some cultural things and connotations of which I’m ignorant. So he changed all that. It took me all day to wade through the corrected proofs.

It’s incredible how sweet people are. The professor apologized 3 times for correcting my manuscript. Like I’d be offended that people want to help for free.

There are other things he said that I won’t repeat because they are so complimentary that I feel embarrassed.

The book hasn’t been published yet. And already there’s all this support and interest in the pre-production stage. I’m stunned and overwhelmed.

Community notes on Twitter keep bringing joy:

One more Russian vessel was sunk last night. A third of the entire Russian fleet (and counting) has been wiped out by Ukraine.

You are welcome.

The President of the Association of Ukrainian Hispanists is organizing a presentation of my book at the Spanish Embassy in Ukraine. I’ve never had any contact with this kind person. He’s not doing it because we are bosom buddies, or anything. Isn’t it great?

Yes, there’s corruption in Ukraine, as everywhere. But its extent is vastly exaggerated. Also, things really changed since the nineties. Back then, nobody would do anything unless you paid exorbitant amounts of money, and then they’d do it badly. Ukrainians have learned how to do things because of passion and enthusiasm when before everybody was completely sapped of energy and joy by the recent Soviet past.

OK, I’ll try to pipe down about the book for now, even though it’s hard.

Kevin Williamson wrote beautifully about the rebirth of Durantyism on the right:

I understand not liking the United States—I really, really do understand: As I have written before, I still love my native country, but I think we should start seeing other people. Ours is an often ugly, often vulgar, spiritually sick society. But turning instead for inspiration to a brutal police state in which 1 out of 5 families do their necessary business in a hole in the ground is—counterintuitive! Finding inspiration in the gulag where Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich currently is held as a political prisoner—a real political prisoner, not the victims of the “patriot purge” of Tucker Carlson’s daffy imagination—is also counterintuitive. But, then, what Carlson was up to in Moscow wasn’t journalism—journalism is what Evan Gershkovich did, and what Tucker did was, at best, tourism. It is tempting to call him a useful idiot, but he isn’t an idiot. He knows what he is doing. I myself don’t speak Russian, but I think I could read the look on Putin’s face, which said: “Good doggie.”

https://thedispatch.com/article/the-full-duranty/

And gosh, how humiliating it is to see an American being a good doggie for people who despise Americans for a living. America gave Tucker everything. Dude truly can’t complain. Yet he betrays the most wonderful country in the world, a country that everybody (including Russians and Putin himself) painfully wants to like them, for a bucket of slop he’s asked to get on his knees to lick.

I understand nobody can read it but it’s my first interview in Ukraine, so I have to post it.

The photo is oldish and it’s a selfie. I wanted to have a professional photo done and asked the official photographer of our university. But his vision of me is different from mine. The photo is hideous. A huge, toothy smile, one eye larger than another. I look like an idiot in it. So I had to go with the selfie.

Klara says, “Daddy had two clipboards but now he says they are both gone. I think they must have gotten married and rode away to have babies.”

Happy Valentine Day!