A mother-daughter relationship is often intensely competitive, and the competition is always conducted along the lines of who is a better woman. When the first child is born, for example, it frequently occasions a bloodbath between Mom and grandma as to who is a better expert on the feeding, the clothing and the raising of the child. But that’s not the worst case. In most serious cases, the mother pushes her daughter out of the field of childbearing completely, cannibalizing her fertility to remain the only fertile woman in the family. What makes this hard to spot is that, almost always in the ..read more

Yeah Jewish neighborhoods are all going to look like Miami in November lmao (because Biden isn't pro-Israel enough) At the same time Arab/Muslim neighborhoods will have >100% swings right (because Biden is too pro Israel) https://t.co/JGuwN7NKJP — Nikolaj (@nikicaga) April 25, 2024 Nothing, including actual door-to-door pogroms, will pry American Jews away from the most left-wing political option on the ballot. There won’t be pogroms. But the point still stands. This is an unpersuadable constituency that will not relinquish its 32 Inclusive Pride flags and its BLM stickers for absolutel ..read more

An absolutely brilliant article by Nate Hochman appeared in American Reformer. It’s a review of a leftist screed White Rural Rage, and it’s one of those cases when a badly written, unintelligent book gives rise to a brilliant, devastating response. I didn’t know which part to excerpt because the whole piece is excellent, so I went with this one: Conservatives will construct sophisticated ideological theories and perform Olympic-level mental gymnastics routines to evade the obvious. At times, this verges on absurd: In a recent interview with Steve Bannon, for example, Newsweek editor Batya Ung ..read more

I’m teaching a course on the great French playwright Molière  this summer because we don’t have enough professors, and I’m the closest to a connoisseuse of French literature that we’ve got. Yes, I know. What are you going to do. I do know Molière  exceptionally well, though. I’ve looked around for other courses on the author and found nothing except for a course at the University of Tel Aviv. Molière  is taught as part of a course in several places but it’s hard to find somebody focusing on him exclusively. Please get ready to be peppered with Molière  references for a ..read more

What did I say? Biden is chickening out again. Still not fired and AGAIN signaling to Putin a policy of "de-escalation", Sullivan emphasizes that ATACMS missiles will not harm Putin's rapidly expanding war machine INSIDE Russia. Hey Putin, don't worry, Sullivan is still there to protect you. Fire @JakeSullivan46 pic.twitter.com/e3iTyi46zP — Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) April 24, 2024 Both Mike Johnson and Trump made stronger statements on Ukraine without this incessant weaseling ..read more

I read today that in August of 1991 there was enough food in Russia to last only a month. They only survived before bloody stupid loser moron Westerners sent “humanitarian aid.” And asked for nothing in return. They saved the people they supposedly defeated from starvation and got nothing in return. To the contrary, they rewarded Russians by giving them Ukraine’s nukes. Then the bloody stupid loser moron Westerners congratulated themselves for two decades with “winning the Cold War.” What kind of win is it when you get nothing out of it and instead you feed the defeated enemy? There was no cap ..read more

Since there are new people on here (welcome, new people!), I want briefly to explain that I’m an ethnic Jew but not a religious one. Jewish is an ethnicity that shows up on genetic tests. You can get a genetic test that will tell you whether you have Jewish ancestry. What religion you practice is immaterial to this biological reality. Ukrainian and Russian doesn’t show up on genetic tests as separate ethnicities. However, you can still deduce if somebody is Russian from a test. A Russian has a high likelihood of showing Finnish ancestry on a genetic test. N has Finnish ancestry and I don’t, fo ..read more

I don’t blame her, in all honesty. Imagine looking like that with a very pretty mom who’s popular with the menz. It’s a heavy burden. An intelligent woman can find a way to create the mystique of “my daughter is the real beauty in the family” but Ilhan Omar is not an intelligent woman. “The regular-looking daughter of a beautiful mother” is not an easy role in life. It’s very much like the role of “a son of a very successful father.” The culmination of the mother-daughter relationship is when the mother hands off the crown to the daughter. But what if she isn’t ready? Or has no crown to give ..read more

A great question but why 7.5 months? The Great Lent does feel like it’s been going on that long but it hasn’t. Is it the academic year you mean? Yes, my patience and all other Christian virtues have been sorely tried this academic year. I’m counting days until April 26 when classes end. And to Holy Week because I need to get cleansed of all the accumulated garbage. And hubris. Everybody on here will be downright shocked but I am greatly afflicted by hubris. In the past several months I have received confirmation that whatever you give, you receive tenfold. And it’s best to give in such a way ..read more

I was at this DEI shindig where people had to declare their “intersectional positioning.” Everybody had to come up with statements like, “I’m a heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied, married, white person. This gives me racial, sexual, etc etc privilege.” When my turn came, I said the following: I’m trained to be a foreign language teacher, literary critic, and translator. No other part of my personality is for sale. I do not choose to enter my private life, health history, sexuality or anything else into the monetary exchange that my presence here constitutes. I am here to sell my labor for mo ..read more