Category: Pet Peeve

Not a day passes when I am not asked about the situation in Ukraine. I have few friends in Ukraine and Russia and I keep a close eye on the developments. The events on the ground are played out thousand-fold in press and social media on a previously unprecedented scale. Newly-minted Russian and Ukrainian truthers on both…

When I started this blog, I made a conscious decision to write in English. There is a billion Russian-language blogs on the Internet, some are very good, but for the past 6 years mine is the only somewhat Russian-themed blog in English in Kansas City. And, dare I say, the entire State of Kansas. And…

I am sure there is a body of research about people’s likes and preferences, explaining why we keep coming back to the same things. A childhood memory, a taste tried long ago, a chance meeting, anything can burn into subconscious and manifest itself years later without an obvious reason. I don’t have a brand loyalty,…

In the pantheon of stupid things passed around the internet this must be somewhere in the top one. Yes, when you “studied” the Holocaust in school that was the thing you pondered. And now, when you finally completed your PhD in history GED you can clearly see the horrifying parallels with what’s going on today. You…

I was renewing my driver’s license today and for the first time had them list me as an organ donor. Not that I didn’t want to share my organs before; I just didn’t want the recipient of said organs chasing my kid with some Oprah-worthy tear-jerker of a story about how he got a second…