Clarissa's Blog

People are listing books that turned them conservative:

Here are the major conservative books that impacted my thought. https://t.co/T3nudJKFCp pic.twitter.com/TrXDlTxsHc

— Dr Daniel Pitt (@DanJTPitt) April 30, 2026

I, however, read (not all but some) of these books after I became a conservative. Zygmunt Bauman, a Marxist, turned me conservative. Poor dude would have been horrified. I’m sure, though, that if he were 30 years younger and could witness the complete neoliberalization of the Left, he would have been one of us.

Bauman’s Liquid Love is an ode to stability and permanence in personal attachments. There’s nothing more conservative than that.

Fewer than half of US adults read a book last year.

Even fewer read an actual novel, and the trend is looking worse still for teenagers.

Why is nobody talking about this?? pic.twitter.com/OHP5jzo2vg

— Athenaeum Book Club (@athenaeumbc) April 30, 2026

This number is about the same among college professors.

At the exact same time as cars are being turned into surveillance devices in the US, it happens in the EU:

🇪🇺 From July 2026, a new EU regulation will require all new cars to include driver-surveillance systems (ADDW), using interior cameras to track eye movement, head position and attention levels to detect “distraction or drowsiness.”

The systems are designed for in-car safety… pic.twitter.com/TM6dmGDKki

— Europa.com (@europa) April 30, 2026

Who is really governing us if such synchronicity is in evidence?

Also, the rhetoric of deep, unresolvable conflicts between EU countries and the US that we’ve been hearing recently seems to exist in order to conceal the synchronicity of the establishment of a surveillance state.

“Screen time” isn’t as bad as you’ve been led to believehttps://t.co/cKCjEEn2Xd pic.twitter.com/9RxgYs9t3u

— Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) April 29, 2026

I don’t know from research but my 10-year-old finishes a book every two days, knows large chunks of the Bible by heart, composes poetry, writes and draws graphic novels, and the other day she spent 5 hours cleaning and decorating her room and creating beautiful little installations for her book case. I have no idea how giving her a smartphone would have improved her life, so this fellow can stick his research up his.

The only criterion of doing something with your kid is how this will be helpful to the kid. “It’s not as bad as some people say” is a terrible operating principle. Show me how it’s good and makes her life better because my method is bringing excellent results and I see no reason to abandon it.

Our reader sent an update on the RD situation:

My friend, I’m with you on this beyond what you can even imagine. I’m in this every day, and I’m at the end of my tether. Here’s an example.

I have a colleague, Professor T, who is retiring. Being a very responsible and meticulous person, Professor T informed the administration in July of 2025 that he was going to retire in August of 2026. More than a year in advance. He emailed everybody who might be affected by his retirement and cc-ed me. I also informed the administration that he was retiring. I put it in the budget and in the Annual Report. I signed the retirement paperwork in February. I created and posted a schedule for Fall of 2026 without Professor T who is – get that – retiring. So he won’t be teaching. Because he’s retiring.

Yesterday, yes, yesterday, my friend, April 29, 2026, an angry administrator showed up to tell me that we failed to inform them that Professor T was retiring.

“You didn’t file any of the paperwork!” he said.

Professor T and I stared in mute amazement. The secretary was the first to come to and she rolled in the ream of paperwork we all signed and submitted months ago.

“Well, we’ll have to re-sign it because there are no signatures on my copy,” said the administrator, waving a blank copy of the exact same form we showed him.

In silence, I signed his document.

I’m not burnt out because I don’t like teaching or research. No, students are great. Research is going fantastic. It’s this kind of shit that’s getting to me. Because Professor T’s situation is one of I don’t know how many ludicrous things that I have to deal with. He’s my most responsible, reliable professor who is taking early retirement because he’s tired of this absolute crap. Nobody is being hired to replace him. Just like nobody was hired to replace the other 4 professors at my department who retired since 2022.

You simply can’t make a university run on 1/3 of its workforce and expect good results. Now the general public, whom we are supposed to serve, is noticing. I’m extremely embarrassed about what your friend experienced and I confirm that this isn’t an outlier. It’s how things are because we are terribly mismanaged.

Sorry for the rant but you hit a very sore spot. Thank you for bringing it up because it’s very important and must be talked about.

Klara spent last evening composing cheers for her Dad and performing them on the lawn outside while he was mowing.

Here’s one of the cheers:

“We love Daddy, he’s our man. To every challenge he replies “yes, I can!””

She went on and on in this vein like a Basque improviser.

The idea of multiculturalism and replacement of whites is the motivating force of today’s Russia. Here’s one of many Russian propaganda videos expressing this idea:

"I am Kazak, I am Buryat, I am Tatar, I am Chechen!"

Weird Russian 🇷🇺 video showcasing the multiracial nature of their invasion force in Ukraine, followed by "Allahu Akbar!"

These are the freakish terrorists occupying Ukraine for Putin's glory. pic.twitter.com/iMnEuRPXmo

— Martinez Politics (@martinez_clips) April 28, 2026

I remind you that the word “Russian” has been banned from official use in documents in Russia for 15 years because it’s offensive to minorities.

JD Vance, on the other hand, is a charmless, gormless idjit:

JD Vance refused to clap for “nature,” during the King’s speech to Congress.

Even Speaker Mike Johnson was puzzled. In fact, he looked a bit afraid as he rose to clap while JD, emissary of the White House and president of the Senate, sat silently. But the Speaker found the… pic.twitter.com/rRqsqpD3rf

— JP Lindsley | Journalist (@JPLindsley) April 29, 2026

He is new to conservatism and hasn’t managed to find out that conservatives love nature. We are conservationists. We love the natural world. We hate windmills and solar farms because they are ugly and destroy nature.

I don’t like this dude. Let’s not run him. We have a deep bench of serious people who can easily beat Kamala.

People, did you hear Trump’s speech on the occasion of King Charles’ visit? I only now had time to listen, and it’s a beautiful, uplifting speech. Here’s an excerpt:

For nearly two centuries before the Revolution, this land was settled and forged by men and women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and the great Britain’s distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride. And that’s what it is, glory, destiny, and pride.

The American patriots who pledged their lives to independence in 1776 were the heirs to this majestic inheritance. Their veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right, good, and true.

I’m not remotely English, as we all know, but I stand in awe of the magnitude of the English achievement in every sphere.

A beautiful speech. I recommend listening to the whole thing.

I did something so cool today, folks, I’m really happy. I’ve been teaching Spanish drama this semester. And two of my colleagues in Ukraine are also teaching Spanish drama. So we agreed to teach the same plays. And today, we had a joint class session with my students and my friends’ students in Ukraine. Imagine what a powerful experience it is to connect with your peers across the ocean who, in the time of war, are also reading a Spanish play from 1806.

The activity really worked because these students don’t have a language in common that isn’t Spanish, so they had to make an effort to understand each other.

The entire course has been outstanding. It turns out that students love reading plays. We had really profound discussions throughout the semester. And the culminating experience of the course was this transatlantic debate.