Clarissa's Blog

Not that I care about women’s sports, but here’s a fun development:

A biological male who identifies as a transgender woman won a women’s world championship cycling event Sunday in California.

Even this kind of job is not safe from fluidity. These are the jobs that can’t be automated away but fluidity is still messing with them.

That’s not an accident. It’s a design. Everything must constantly be in doubt all the time.

Just as I started having hopes for her:

Senator Elizabeth Warren has released a DNA test that provides “strong evidence” she had a Native American in her family tree dating back 6 to 10 generations….

OK, she’s an idiot. Let’s move on.

Right now in my blogroll: yesterday a worker for Amnesty International was kidnapped in Russia, stripped naked, and brutalized. Does anybody care about him?

I’m guessing not so much.

The same folks who shrugged off what was done to Litvinenko, Nemtsov, and so many others by a country that is neither an ally nor a valuable business partner are suddenly very worried about Khashoggi. Suddenly the fate of journalists murdered by brutal regimes is of utmost importance.

I understand that there is nothing more important than partisanship but to use a brutal murder to make some idiotic point about Trump is low. But why am I surprised if most of the coverage on the tragedy of Hurricane Michael begins and ends with Trump?

And what’s the point anyway? Those who keep ranting about Trump speak exclusively to the audience that has already heard them say a gabizillion times how much they hate him. It’s like they seek out any opportunity to talk about the object of their passion. If there is a slightest chance to emote about him, they’ll take it.

But in what concerns Khashoggi, the ranting is misplaced. The policy of the US has for a very long time been not to interfere in whatever powerful authoritarian regimes around the world do to journalists. Does anybody want to hear about a Russian journalist who was raped for 18 hours straight with all sorts of objects after which he died of his injuries? Do you want to hear about Litvinenko who was a citizen of a friendly country when he was murdered in an absolutely egregious way? None of it prevented Hillary from starting her chirpy “reset” with Russia. None of it prevented Obama from letting Russia do absolutely anything it wanted anywhere in the world. Let’s talk about how Hillary and Obama profited from their cushy relationship with Russia, shall we?

But no, unless it feeds the Trump obsession, nobody gives a crap about anything at all. I don’t know why I keep feeling shocked by this.

I knew there were many Russian-speaking tourists in Prague the moment I walked into my hotel room and saw a wall sign explaining that white bath towels are not meant for cleaning shoes and removing makeup. The sign also offered a detailed explanation of alternative (and less messy) ways to perform these tasks.

I’m an academic, so it’s not relevant to me, but this is a great link for others. “How to Disconnect from the Always-On Work Culture.“

A great article on the UBI as a taxpayer-funded gift for Zuckerberg and Co:

To the rescue comes UBI. The policy was once thought of as a way of taking extreme poverty off the table. In this new incarnation, however, it merely serves as a way to keep the wealthiest people (and their loyal vassals, the software developers) entrenched at the very top of the economic operating system. Because of course, the cash doled out to citizens by the government will inevitably flow to them.

And more:

Under the guise of compassion, UBI really just turns us from stakeholders or even citizens to mere consumers. Once the ability to create or exchange value is stripped from us, all we can do with every consumptive act is deliver more power to people who can finally, without any exaggeration, be called our corporate overlords.

The author is a former UBI enthusiast who saw how enthusiastic Silicone Valley is for it and realized what was going on.

I recommend the whole thing. God, at least there’s somebody willing to think about stuff and change his mind.

So I come to the square and feel overwhelmed by the phenomenal castle that the photo does not begin to do justice to. Loud choral music is creating a surreal experience. But it’s impossible fully to immerse oneself in the beauty because some geniuses decided to project a video of some ugly-ass naked guy on the wall next to the cathedral. You can see the bright-lit circle on the wall in the photo. Why anybody thinks it’s appropriate or cute to spoil a once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing this place for the first time with a video of a really bad quality ass is a mystery. After the ugly ass video ended, we were shown a video of people grocery shopping. At least they were dressed but the whole thing still detracted from the experience.

The worst part is that if you want to hear the beautiful music, you have to stand close to the blasted video.

I got off the train and found myself in what our Mexican friends call “the ass of the world.” A tiny little station in the middle of nowhere. I had to buy a new ticket from a machine because it’s a Sunday, and everything is closed. Shouldn’t have bothered because nobody checks them anyway.

If you have ever seen a German train ticket, you know how hard it is to read for a foreigner with no experience in code-breaking. There was no wi-fi and no food fit to eat. I mean, there was food being sold, but it was surrounded by clouds of fat black flies, and even I don’t get that hungry.

Finally, my train “to Prague” arrives, I board it and. . I get a really bad feeling. Something isn’t right. Again I start to bug passengers and they manage to communicate to me that it’s not a direct train. I’ve got to change to another one somewhere in the middle of yet another nowhere.

And talking about nowhere, there’s no indication on the ticket that this is a journey that requires a transfer.

I did get to Prague in the end and I’ll try to see what I can in the 15 minutes left before the sun goes down. I’m not upset, though. I’m glad to know I have great instincts and a functional level of German.