This is quite simply one of the best books I have ever read in my life. It’s fucking glorious, people. Drop everything and go read it because it matters.

I avoided Disgrace for years because every review and blurb presented it as a novel about a professor who had an affair with a student and lost his job as a result. And who wants to read something like that?

In reality, though, the novel is not about affairs with students. It’s about an abyss separating civilizations, it’s about a woman who immolates herself on the altar of post-colonial guilt, it’s about getting outraged over imagined oppressions and escaping from them into slavery, it’s about the motives of the author of the piece I linked in my post on the real #metoo, it’s about the ways in which the belief in the sanctity of emancipation creates the worst kind of bondage. It’s about everything that matters.

I’ve looked at the NYTimes reviews of the novel, and it’s clear that many readers are so blinded by the idiotic rhetoric of aggressive SJW-ing that they saw in the novel a glorification of dismantling feminism for the purpose of expiating postcolonial guilt. Which just tells us that Coetzee is not exaggerating or inventing anything in his novel.

I read the novel in under 24 hours. Which says a lot, given that I’m taking care of a toddler all day.

A funny article on the increase of crimes against women in Germany:

And yet it is important that feminists try to walk this line and start to take seemingly impossible positions: defending the religious freedom of Muslim women who want to wear head scarves, while helping girls who are forced to do so, and addressing the fact that some men newly immigrated from Arab countries hold misogynist views — while stressing this is probably not the key factor that leads to crimes against women.

The number of “and yets” and “buts” is off the charts. Of course, it’s all the fault of feminists who aren’t too good at contorting themselves into “seemingly impossible positions.” They just need to contort more actively, and it will all be fine.

It’s also funny that the difference between “Muslim” and “Arab” seems to elude the article’s author.

“Why did you scream at the pier today?” I asked Klara.

“Because I wanted to kiss my daddy and he wasn’t there any more,” she said.

They never freak out just because. There’s always a reason, and it’s often pretty profound.

All of a sudden, Klara became very difficult at bedtime. This was never a problem before, so I was puzzled. And then I figured it out: she’s afraid I’ll disappear. First, Daddy went away, and it stands to reason that mommy might also evaporate all of a sudden. So now I repeat about five hundred times that “when you wake up, mommy is going to be there,” and then she goes to bed.

My mimosa back home finally bloomed and I’m not there to see it!

This is the only tree I ever planted and took care of since it was a little sapling, so I’m very proud of it.

So what’s happened at the meeting between Trump and the North Korean guy?

It’s been a crazy day here because Klara and I decided to go explore the town, which was probably not the smartest idea because first she didn’t want to get in the cab, then she didn’t want to get out of the cab, then she wanted to hug every mannequin at the store, then she was upset that there were no daddy mannequins which reminded her that her own daddy wasn’t there, then she wanted to lie on the floor and kick the stand holding books with her feet, then she had a mega meltdown, then she thought it would be fun to throw her red ball in the traffic, then she got scared of the wooden figure of a smiling pizza man because he had a big moustache, then she didn’t want to get on the bus, then she wanted to see if my yellow pants would look nice decorated with beans from the Mexican restaurant, then I had to carry her for half a mile. And that was just the beginning of it.

It doesn’t happen often but today was one of those days. And I want to find out about the North Korean meeting but I can’t process information any more. And all I’m thinking is, wow, that’s how Trump’s aides must feel every day, poor buggers.

People at my school are very bothered that colleagues at our sister school are condescending to us. Objectively speaking, it’s clear that it’s true and the sister colleagues are, indeed, trying to condescend. I’m not bothered by it, though, because I don’t feel like they can condescend to me, no matter how hard they might try.

In order for one to feel condescended to, one needs to acknowledge that the interlocutor is in the position to do so. My research record is. . . how shall I put it? . . not inferior to anybody working at the sister school. So I can’t worry that sister colleagues don’t see me as a serious scholar. They are not in a position to pass that judgment at all.

It’s the same thing as shame. If you sincerely don’t believe something is shameful, you can’t feel shamed for it. And if you don’t believe you are even remotely beneath someone, they will never make you feel condescended to.

So do you remember Carbondale’s plan to exploit unpaid labor? Do you believe all the bad press made the school desist from the plan?

No, you don’t because I don’t have any dumb people on this blog.

A colleague who has a degree from them just got an email asking if he’d like to “volunteer” in this project.

The degree he has with them is an MA, so it seems like for now they are going for the MA holders. I don’t know if any PhD holders got this email. Which means nothing to me because I’m equally opposed to exploiting the unpaid labor of people with any degree or no degree. Work needs to be paid, that’s all I know.

Klara and I were looking at a particularly dramatic sunset.

“Why is so beautiful, Mommy?” Klara asked. “Why are all colors matching?”

From the NYTIMES:

To me, the election of Donald Trump felt like a death in the family. I couldn’t sleep. I found it hard to focus at work. I was barely a click away from wailing and rending my garments.

For the past year and a half I’ve been puzzling over this kind of statement. How can people not feel ashamed of themselves when they say this kind of thing? It’s so histrionics, so ridiculous. The next thing I expect her to say is that the election gave her vapors, whatever they are.

It’s especially funny that the very people who condemn Trump in these overblown terms have no problem feeding the stereotype that women are too emotional for serious jobs. I mean, if a woman can’t focus because of some stupid election, she definitely can’t fly an airplane, perform surgery, and arrest criminals. Or be president.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Monday that fear of domestic violence is not legal grounds for asylum in a closely watched immigration case.

Of course, it isn’t because if it were, we could move the entire population of Russia and Ukraine here immediately. OK, not the entire population but about 80% at least.