People have gone nuts because a kid in Utah wore a Chinese dress to the prom. But people who are actually in China are stunned by the idiocy of the reaction:

When the furor reached Asia, though, many seemed to be scratching their heads. Far from being critical of Ms. Daum, who is not Chinese, many people in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan proclaimed her choice of the traditional high-necked dress as a victory for Chinese culture. “I am very proud to have our culture recognized by people in other countries,” said someone

What’s especially hilarious is that some little fool wrote this:

My culture is NOT” your prom dress, he wrote, adding profanity for effect.

In reality, his “culture” has nothing to do with China. His is a culture of cheap outrage over issues of consumption.

And citing a widely discredited book from the 1970s by Arthur Koestler called “The Thirteenth Tribe,” he posited that Ashkenazi Jews were descended not from the biblical Israelites but from the Khazars, a Turkic people who converted to Judaism in the eighth century.

Oh, so it’s not true? I thought it was because that’s what I was taught in college. Which is why I thought I couldn’t be Ashkenazi. My ancestors moved East from Western Europe. And my Ukrainian ancestors did the same, moved to the East. Because we are so smart.

Russian military spending fell by a fifth last year, its first decline in nearly two decades, with tighter purse-strings likely to affect Moscow’s military activity ahead, a report by defense think-tank SIPRI showed on Wednesday.

It simply means they are that less likely to invade anybody else. Or the same folks as always. And that’s great news.

At its annual F8 developer conference on Tuesday, Facebook announced it was playing the dating game. The company will be getting into the $3Billion online dating category to build “real long-term relationships, not hookups” as its beleaguered of late CEO said.

I wonder who is dumb enough to want to build a long-term relationship between Cambridge Analytica and Co and their private life.

Ukraine decided to stop collaborating with the Mueller investigation. This is a decision that will hinder Ukraine’s own internal anti-corruption efforts but the investigation produced zero results so far and dragging it out to undermine the administration that has been very favorable to Ukraine and aggressive towards Russia seems suicidal.

Ukraine has tried to facilitate Mueller’s investigation for a while but it is continuing into infinity and looks quite pointless at this time. And Ukraine can’t afford to die just to entertain Americans and boost Rachel Maddow’s ratings.

These are the candidates Democrats are considering for 2020. I prefer candidates with executive experience for this role, so I’d say maybe Hickenlooper.

Joe Biden, former Vice President

Cory Booker, New Jersey Senator

Julian Castro, former HUD Secretary

Andrew Cuomo, New York Governor

Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles Mayor

Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Senator

Kamala Harris, California Senator

Eric Holder, former Attorney
General

John Hickenlooper, Colorado Governor

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Senator

Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts Governor

Bernie Sanders, Vermont Senator

Tom Steyer, Environmental and Trump Impeachment advocate

Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senator

Oprah Winfrey, Media Entrepreneur

None of the above – I support Donald
Trump

A company that tries to sell me educational materials is offering a game where students have to give a correct answer to questions like, “What do you like to do in summer?” The answers are:

1. swim
2. study
3. work
4. clean

The correct answer is supposed to be “swim.” Well, at least one of the wrong answers isn’t “read.”

When Klara was younger, aside from everything else I had to drag around, I had to have in my humongous backpack her dolly, her dolly’s dolly, the dolly’s blanket, the dolly’s pillow, the dolly’s bottle, and sometimes the dolly’s stroller.

Now, however, she’s older and finally – finally! – has an imagination. So we play for hours with an imaginary dolly, feed her imaginary food that we heat up in an imaginary kitchen, take her temperature with an imaginary thermometer, etc. Not only is it amazing to see a little human being sprout an imagination, but it also makes for a lighter backpack.

Today, I picked Klara up and she slaughtered me with, “Put me down, mommy. You can’t carry me all day. Your back’s gonna hurt. You’ll need to go to a doctor. Doctor will give you medicine.” I still can’t get over her giving these little speeches that are very much to the point.

We are trying to hire a Director of Equal Opportunity, Access and Title IX Coordination because we have to. Very few colleagues seem to care or understand the power of the person in this position. And it’s probably the most crucial thing happening on campus right now.

I watched the videos of all three candidate talks, and I’m very worried. One of the candidates rattled on and on about the usual intersectionality and microaggressions claptrap. The second candidate was all about how businesses are going to dominate all public schools anyway, so let’s make it all convenient for them. I think she understands “access” as giving big business access to dominating the campus.

The third candidate gave me hope because she actually talked about the true meaning of access and equal opportunity, which, in my view, is about the rights of the disabled. The other two candidates didn’t even mention the disabled at all.

I’ll let you know which candidate wins but I’m afraid that the champion of the rights of the disabled stands no chance.

The real-estate market around here is so overheated that house owners don’t have the time to post for-sale signs before the house has a buyer. Folks who are trying to buy can’t get any showings for months because everything is sold the second it hits the market.

We are not a highly desirable economic area. No high-tech companies have moved into the region. There is no economic boom. We literally have nothing but the university in a deepening financial crisis and St Louis next door, which is not a hub of exciting economic activity, to put it very mildly.

This worries me. I don’t want to be a doomsayer but this smells like another real estate bubble to me. But yet again, nobody talks about it because folks are too busy moaning that a comic said “fuck” and “pussy” during a routine.