Talked to a colleague from Peru today. She teaches 10 sections per semester of a writing-heavy philosophy course at a university in Lima.

It’s not like I’m in the habit of complaining that I’m overworked (which I’m honestly not) but I still felt very spoiled in this moment.

At the kids’ section of the bookstore, a little boy exclaims, “Mommy, mommy, let’s get this book. It has real facts!”

“You don’t have to say ‘real facts’,” Mommy says severely. “If it’s a fact, that means it’s real.”

“Hello, colleague,” I think with a smile.

Years ago at work, there was an election for a leadership position. There were two candidates: a very experienced, knowledgeable, competent, feminist woman and a flamboyant, narcissistic, pudgy, outsider man with no requisite experience but with a lot of fake charm and some authoritarian tendencies. 

I swear to God I’m not making this up. This all happened. There are people reading this right now who were there, and they will confirm I’m telling the literal truth. We can disagree on interpretations (e.g. he wasn’t pudgy, he was overweight.) But the facts are these. 

I strongly voiced my opposition to the outsider. I was loud and obnoxious about being opposed to him because I usually am loud and obnoxious anyway. The people’s vote went to the woman. But the man won on a technicality. I swear, folks, I’m not making this up.

We were all upset. This was a sensitive time for us for many reasons, and we wanted the candidate we knew was competent to guide us through it. But. . . it wasn’t meant to be. The pudgy fellow with a comb-over and a much younger wife (no, seriously, it’s all true, and it happened many years ago) took the office.

On the day that happened, I stopped being upset about it. The pudgy fellow as our leader was now a fact of objective reality and militating against that reality seemed like a waste of time. I found a way to work very productively with this new boss. I learned how to co-exist with his. . . erm. . . peculiarities, and we never had a problem, not once. We didn’t become bosom buddies, I never compromised my integrity or moral character (which was something that this person thrived on), I was always completely open and honest about everything with everybody. But I worked very well and very productively during those years and got this fellow to assist me in everything I needed.

Some people – not everybody but a couple of folks – started something like a resistance. Which, thank God in heaven, they didn’t call that. But that’s what it was. Everything he said, did or suggested was sabotaged or greeted with mute resentment and avoidance. This understandably drove the guy crazy. I had been opposed to him as a candidate but I started feeling pity for the fellow who would suggest something really trivial and completely uncontroversial only to be actively sabotaged again, and again, and again. Please understand that he was somebody I actually knew, and even though I hadn’t liked him as a candidate, I could see he was suffering and I couldn’t avoid feeling compassion. I don’t like to see people suffer.

The result of all this was pretty lousy for all of us. I don’t want to go into details because the post is already too long. Plus it got to the point where the legal system got involved, and I don’t want to get in the middle of courtroom drama. But it all stank to high heaven, and even now, years later and several bosses since, the damage is still there.

And then years passed, and something similar happened in national politics. I’m one of those sentimental doofuses who actually cried when I read Hillary’s concession speech. I had to read and not watch because I was afraid I’d have a fit of hysterics if I had to actually see it. This was a big, big, big letdown.

It took me about two days to get over it. After that, I accepted the facts of objective reality and saw no reason to keep seething, fretting or emoting in any way about them. So it happened. It stinks. Now let’s see what use can be derived out of it, how the bad can be mitigated and the good can be promoted. This is what I actually call politics both at work and in actual politics. Taking a sub-optimal situation – because that’s what there normally is in life – and turning it around to maximize what I believe is good and right. 

Unfortunately, though, this vision of politics is outdated. As Zygmunt Bauman warned, the space of public interaction has been turned into the arena for the outpourings of the heretofore deeply private. It’s not about getting anything done. It’s about having a chance to emote in as public way as possible.

I apologize for the uncharacteristically long post. I will now go back to publishing cute stories about Klara, dieting, and productivity planners.

One day after launching the roadster into space, Elon Musk’s company posted record quarterly losses. I mean, it’s not like this doesn’t happen to him all the time but these particular losses were record high even for him.

Russian propagandists are all over this. He’s a loser! He’s pathetic! Ha ha, the leading US businessman can’t even run a business without losing hundreds of millions!

HUMAN ANATOMY

K: Anastacia finds out she is six to seven weeks pregnant, and witnesses her baby’s heartbeat on an ultrasound with help from her gynecologist. She’s later attacked by her fruit n’ nut bar of an ex-boss, who kicks her in the stomach. She is rushed to the hospital as a result, though none of the doctors seem to know that an average fetus at six to seven weeks is roughly the size of a lentil.

I’m sure it’s a ridiculously bad movie and I’d rather undergo minor surgery than watch it but the snark in this part of the review is utterly unjustified. I saw Klara’s heartbeat at 5 weeks. And that was 2 years and 8 months ago. I’m sure that the technology which allowed that has only grown more sophisticated. So what? I saw it, and it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen because Klara was very wanted. And yes, she was very tiny at that point, so there wasn’t much beyond the heartbeat. But it was there.

What I’m worried about, folks, is that 2018 and 2020 will be a replay of 2016. And when I see Democrats nominate people involved in ancient scandals or pronounce the word “chaos” (like in “the White House is so chaotic”) as if it were something bad, I fear that they have learned nothing. And I fear that they will come to the new elections with the same old candidates and the same antideluvian ideas of what works. This is not even about losing. What if they win, and it’s the same old crap as usual?

Running Blagojevich’s buddy for governor of Illinois, you’ve got to be kidding me. The first election in my entire life that I’ll be able to vote in, and this is who I got to vote for?

Besides, Pritzker was all buddy-buddy with Blagojevich, and here in Illinois Blagojevich is political poison. You can’t be a successful candidate for governor while tapes of you making racist comments in backroom dealings with Blagojevich are available to everyone.

I find unbelievable that anybody would consider nominating this idiot.

I turned on the Dr Phil show and saw something like a segment about an elderly couple being swindled by a slick, fat con man. I wondered what suddenly happened to the show’s team to make the footage so amateurish and fake.

And then I realized it was an ad for Pritzker, our biggest hope to defeat Rauner.

February is the best month because that’s when mystery authors release their new books. A new John Lescroart! A new Lisa Gardner! A new Jonathan Kellerman! Even a new Elizabeth George!

Who needs work, anyway?

I tried reading Spanish mysteries but there is truly nothing worse. As much as I love Spanish-language literature, I can’t stand mysteries in Spanish. They are all so painfully pompous.

It’s interesting that people hear “he is successful” and immediately interpret it as “he is a good human being.” Like when I was desperate to find proof that the successful academics I admire are good human beings with an admirable moral compass. It’s an effect of the neoliberal worldview that positions the source of success inside human beings. If you are not successful, tells us this ideology, that is because you are a faulty human being. something is not right with you.