How stupid art thee?

How stupid art thee? Let me count the ways. Thou art stupid to the depth and breadth and height Thy soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. Thou art stupid to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. Thou art stupid freely, as men strive for right. Thou art stupid purely, as they turn from praise. Thou art stupid with the passion put to use In thy old griefs, and with thy childhood’s faith. Thou art stupid with a stupidity thou seemed to lose With thy lost saints. Thou art stupid with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all thy life; and, if God choose, Thou shalt but be stupider after death.

Russians are looking forward to a "Khrushchev Thaw", after Vladimir Putin retires

I was listening to Russian radio yesterday evening, Radio Svoboda, Freedom Radio, their "Archive Project", which every weekday evening presents historical analyses related to society and world culture. I was surprised to hear that the entire hour was devoted Nikita Khrushchev, and, in particular his visit to America in 1957. Now, there are certain rulers in Russia's past that are quite regularly dealt with in the Russian media -- Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Stalin. These were the great "Iron Men" of Russian history, who ruled for a long time, and accomplished great things. Khrushchev was not one of these. He was only in charge for about eight years, and, he was ignominiously shuffled off to exile in Siberia, largely because of his nearly cataclysmically disastrous miscalculations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In general, when he is portrayed at all in Russian films, it is as a crude buffoon and a clown, who has no idea how ridiculous he appears. However, in this particular radio program yesterday evening, he was portrayed rather positively, as a liberal reformer, who improved relations with the U.S., and made life easier and freer for the average Russian. Which, of course, in general, he certainly did. You see, it now appears virtually certain that Vladimir Putin will achieve his objectives in Ukraine. This latest rather large assistance package from the U.S. does not include any offensive weapons at all, it will not give the Ukrainian military any ability to actually retake even an inch of territory, and it is quite clear even President Zelensky does not anticipate any Ukrainian military offensives in future. Why is this, exactly? Well, you see, the fact is, the Ukrainians are out of manpower. The Russians have successfully exterminated the entire Ukrainian military force, although President Zelensky will never admit this, of course. This is notable in the ability of the Russians to now advance unopposed for miles at a time, there's simply no one around to fill the gaps in the Ukrainian front line of defense in their own country. So, the American and Ukrainian governments are claiming that all they need, now that the U.S. Congress has made available a large support package, is to conscript another 400,000 or so young Ukrainian men for the military. Unfortunately, there aren't any left in Ukraine itself, so, they were thinking that, perhaps, some 400,000 Ukrainian men of military age who have fled to Poland might like to lend a hand. How likely is this, exactly? I mean, they've already fled the fighting when people thought they had a pretty good chance of winning, why would they want to go back to face certain death against the Russians, now that they know that they're going to lose, anyway? That doesn't really make a lot of sense, does it? So, the Polish government is saying they are considering "deporting" them, back to Ukraine. The problem with this particular idea is, that these Ukrainian men might well prefer ending up in a Polish prison, to going back to face certain death against the Russians in Ukraine. Or, they might be very tempted indeed by the prospect of being on the winning side, and fighting for the Russians, instead. Or, if he's really clever, and he usually is, you know, Vladimir Putin might simply offer all those 400,000 Ukrainian men in Poland some nice, good paying factory work in Russia, to help with the Russian labor shortage. Lots of options, all, much, much better than fighting for Mr. Zelensky, you see. So, it appears fairly certain that Mr. Zelensky will not be getting his 400,000 conscripts. And, even he admits that without them, it won't be possible to "stabilize" the situation in Ukraine -- that is, prevent the Russians from totally overwhelming the country, at will. In other words, within a year or two, Ukraine will, once more, effectively be a province of Russia, virtually in its entirety, and will never, ever be joining NATO, which, actually is what this war was really all about. So, Russians are looking forward to a period of peace, prosperity and development for their nation, in possession of new resources and security from control of Ukraine, in its entirety. And, with Mr. Putin's retirement, in a few years, they may well have a "liberal leader" in place, who can ease international relations and tensions, and give them a freedom of speech perhaps even comparable to that of the U.S., for a time. Remember, it was under Nikita Khruschev that Alexander Solzhenitsyn -- who eventually wrote the Gulag Archipelago -- was released from prison, first became a writer, and, his first book, "Life with Marya", wasn't even censored by the Soviets, and had a good run at the bookstores. Khruschev even made something of a hit in his visit to the U.S., engaging in mock-aggressive debates with then Vice-President Richard Nixon about the comparative merits of communism and capitalism. So, while Americans are contemplating civil war on their University campuses and the possibility of an elected President having to run the country from a prison cell, the Russians are rather looking forward to a new Golden Age for Holy Mother Russia!

At this point, the U.S. government is spending 10% of its military budget just to keep its hand in, in Ukraine.

I'm old enough to remember the end of the Vietnam War, and the obsession of the Pentagon to achieving "Peace, with Honor." The original idea of South Vietnam, had been that Ho Chi Minh would be satisfied with the North, and would leave the South alone. By the early nineteen-sixties, it was quite clear that this was not the case, and the U.S. was becoming more and more involved, ultimately having more than half a million troops trying to hold the line in South Vietnam. They were able to do it, but, at terrific, and unsustainable cost. So, by the 1970's, the agenda had shifted somewhat. Instead of expecting the South to manage on their own, the hope was that expensive U.S. weapons and regular bombings of North Vietnam would be sufficient to control the situation, without the need for U.S. troops on the ground. This would be "Peace, with Honor." Of course, that didn't work either, and in April 1975 we saw the helicopters jammed with refugees taking off from the U.S. Embassy, as the South Vietnamese troops were routed by the Viet Cong. I've been comparing the U.S. intervention in South Vietnam, with the current U.S. intervention in Ukraine, for a couple of years now. And, again, as in South Vietnam, there have been stages and changes in the U.S. attitude. At first, the U.S. thought the Russians would be perfectly happy with the Ukrainians joining NATO, or, in any case, couldn't do anything about it. Then, when the Russians invaded, basically to defend their own space in the world, the U.S. thought they could overwhelm the Russians with their "superior" NATO weapons. This stage culminated last year, in 2023, when over 100 billion dollars were provided to Ukraine, much of it in the form of so-called "advanced", that is, incredibly expensive, offensive NATO weapons, like state of the art tanks. The idea was that these superb, invincible NATO tanks would quickly crash though the inferior Russian defenses, and rush to the Black Sea in a Blitzkrieg that would make the Crimea indefensible, and would force the Russians to realize that they were no match for the brilliant NATO scientists and engineers who designed them. Of course, we now know what actually happened. The NATO tanks were all scrap within weeks, hundreds of them, untold Ukrainians died for nothing, and the Ukrainians scarcely advanced an inch. In response to this abysmal failure, there has now been a major "paradigm shift", in terms of the American approach in Ukraine. Instead of seeking victory over the Russians, the entire theme, instead, is to emphasize that the Ukrainians are in immediate danger of being overwhelmingly defeated, and the U.S. must provide the Ukrainians the means to avert this supposed disaster -- again, as in the early 1970's, the U.S. is seeking "Peace, with Honor". There are no offensive weapons as part of the current 60 billion dollar support package to Ukraine -- just artillery, ammunition, training, intelligence and missiles. The Ukrainians cannot advance, and, indeed, they aren't even attempting to do so, anymore. Rather, supposedly, this should, at the very least, "slow the Russians down". What for, exactly? Well, quite frankly, I don't think anyone really knows. In a very general sense, the U.S. seems to want to stay involved to a significant degree, even if the only effect, as it has been so far, is to make the Russian military and the Russian economy much stronger, and to kill enormous numbers of Ukrainians. The U.S. just wants to keep its hand in, because, that's what the U.S. does!

What if Universities had retained their independence from the secular authority, as defined by their original charters in the Middle Ages?

The vast majority of universities originally founded in Europe, in the Middle Ages, actually had a very special exemption explicit in their charters which actually gave them independence and immunity from the secular authority in the States in which they were located, to some extent in the same way the Church had. They had a kind of "benefit of clergy", and this applied to all students and faculty, to the extent that many honest citizens tended to steer clear of University districts for fear of being raped, robbed and murdered with total impunity by the students, and even the faculty, therein. We can see this in the ribald behavior of students in Chaucer's Canterbury tales. We can see this in the behavior of the fifteenth century poet-scholar Francois Villon, perhaps France's greatest poet, author of Ou sont les neiges d'antan "Where are the snows of yesteryear". Villon was certainly a robber, rapist and murderer, as well as being a brilliant poet and scholar, but, as a student he was able to get away with it! As an adult, however, he was forced into banishment on pain of death! On a more positive note, this independence gave the University students and faculty a freedom of speech, thought, action and experiment that probably was quite helpful in terms of fostering independent thought and creativity, of a type that could be quite useful to the state. We can see this in the early genius of Roger Bacon, in England, or Thomas Acquinas, in France. These days, of course, Universities are the ultimate bastions of the status quo, serving the state, and submitting to the state. To a large extent, Universities have become precisely the opposite of what they once were, and, what they were originally intended to be -- bastions of independent thought and action. We can see this in the "zero tolerance" to sexual harassment rules on college campuses, resulting in the dismissal and humiliation of tenured professors merely for an off-color remark in class. Tenure used to be iron-clad, it was virtually impossible to fire a tenured professor, the idea being that tried and true scholars should have freedom and security. Not so, these days -- political correctness rules! Of course, one could argue that total social conformity means no social progress, creativity or originality at all, and, many futurists these days are complaining that we aren't getting any progress of real value in science or technology, to some extent because universities and colleges aren't doing their job -- producing new and original ideas. So, what if we'd never departed from the independence of universities? What if students and faculty at universities could still rape, murder steal at will, as well as saying and thinking whatever they wanted, and not having to be politically correct? Wouldn't they be more productive and creative, and would science and technology be much farther along than it is now? Interestingly, I think we have an echo of this Middle Age University ideal in the classic National Lampoon comedy Animal House (1978). Perhaps the most controversial sub-plot in this film involves a nerdy freshman who is trying to "get laid", and finds a cashier in a grocery store who likes him. He gets her drunk, but, he's too nice a guy to take her while she's dead drunk. So, he finally sleeps with her, and, she announces "I'm 13!" This got a huge laugh back in 1978, of course. But, in a way, this does hearken back to the Middle Ages, and the true original conception of the University -- total freedom! Obviously, Animal House couldn't possibly be made today! But, are we paying a price, in terms of social, scientific and technological progress, because of this?

There's a wonderful, new, unlimited source of men for the Russan military -- American Sex Offenders!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/twist-case-ex-guardsman-fled-004430431.html Isn't is wonderful how the worm turns? All those men and women on the sex offender registries -- they are more than welcome in Russia! And, they can get Russian citizenship, and get clean records there. They can certainly join the Russian military, and probably work all kinds of other jobs there. Who knows, they might hire them as Russian schoolteachers! Because, you see, the Russians really don't give a damn about all the feminist anti-heterosexual nonsense in the U.S., and unless you're actually doing a lot of physical damage, they don't really see sex as a problem, at all. Unlike in the U.S. currently, where "sex crime" is, currently , the control strategy du jour, the means of terrorizing the population into total submission. It's not about protecting women and children of course, it's about control and power, it always is, with the law. So, we can see the Russian military expanding, and the Russian population increasing all thanks to the brilliant American sex crime laws. It's a beautiful thing. Long live Russia! Long live Vladimir Putin!

Punching women in the face is a terrific idea!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/men-punching-random-women-nyc-100005215.html There's a new craze sweeping New York these days -- punching women in the face! All kinds of men are doing it, and, who can blame them, really? After all, just trying to kiss a woman these days can get you ten years in prison or more as "sexual assault". You can't mess with women sexually, at all, it's the worst crime conceivable. But, just punching a woman, without doing serious damage? It's just common assault, a few months in jail, tops, even for a repeat offender. You might not get any time at all probably! And, there's absolutely nothing the feminist courts can do about it, either! Because, we can't really be wasting the police' and the courts' time simply for a simple common assault, can we? Doesn't make any sense with all kinds of murders and serious physical assaults going on. So, this is actually a way men can mess with women, and get away with it. Over, and over again! Isn't that great? At last, men have a way of fighting back against feminists. Just punch them in the face! They're asking for it, aren't they? Sure they are! Isn't it wonderful how men can adapt to female oppression, and find ways of fighting back? And, this is with total strangers, of course, so, it's not even domestic violence. No way of escalating the charges here. How very ingenious men are. Well done guys, you've finally figured it out! It's not even a hate crime, there's no indication they had any particular hostility to the particular woman, or women in general. They just felt like punching someone, and a woman happened to be there. Way to go, guys! Way to go!

Apparently, you can't even refer to pedophilic scenes in old films without being censored these days

https://www.quora.com/Did-National-Lampoons-Animal-House-break-any-barriers-when-it-came-out-in-1978/answer/Jerry-Kraus-9 I was responding to a question on Quora about the film "Animal House", about whether it broke any barriers, and said no, not particularly. However there were scenes that wouldn't go over too well these days. Like the scene in which one of the nerdy Animal House freshman has sex with a thirteen year old girl he met at the supermarket. These days, he'd go to prison for life. It was just treated as a joke in the film. Quora immediately censored the response, something they rarely do. Is merely referring, accurately, to a detail in a film that implies pedophilia unacceptable these days? Is that kind of weird? Have they edited that scene out of Animal House, these days?

Russia isn't invading or conquering Ukraine. Russia is devouring and absorbing Ukraine.

Much is made in the West about the fact that what was supposed to be a "three day war" in Ukraine is still going on. Well, that's a fair point. Why can't Russia "defeat" Ukraine more quickly? Well, fact is, Russia was never really trying to "defeat" Ukraine. Russia's initial intention was simply to stage a kind of lightning coup against the Zelensky government, and replace it with a more Russia friendly regime. As it happened, the NATO airlift of weapons forestalled this option. Instead, Russia has settled down to the process of systematically absorbing all the best parts of Ukraine, and, they may get around to the rest of the country, as well. Compare this to Napoleon's rather rapid conquest of European Russia -- in just five months -- and its disastrous aftermath. Or, pretty much the same deal for Adolf Hitler, over a century later. Sure, they conquered a lot of territory quickly, but, they couldn't hold any of it, and were ultimately crushed themselves. In contrast, Russia is solidifying its position, importing hundreds of thousands of Russian colonists into Crimea and Mariupol, among other territories. They're building bridges, railways, roads all linking these new territories to the rest of Russia. Sure, Ukrainian terrorists are trying to blow them up, with mixed success, but, Russia is turning these provinces back into Russian territories, in all senses of the word, very quickly indeed! Sure, Russian soldiers are dying in Ukraine. But, so are a lot of Ukrainians, and, it's Russia that's on the move, taking hundreds of square miles of Ukrainian territory daily. What NATO still doesn't quite get, is that all they're doing by "helping" Ukraine, is hurting the Ukrainian people, and hurting themselves, and their own economies. NATO is trying to teach Russia a lesson, and, they're doing it. NATO is impotent, incompetent, and corrupt, and the Russians can take whatever they want, and do whatever they want, and there's nothing whatsoever that NATO can do about it.