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Just slightly over a week before the inaugurination, and we have another streaming scandal about the president peelect.
First, let me state for the record that there’s no real evidence that Yellowatergate (I didn’t coin that phrase, I borrowed it) is true. No more than there is that the Russians hacked the election, anyway. For the former, you’d have to put your faith in Buzzfeed (and even they issued disclaimers) and for the latter, you’d have to trust the CIA.
But it is totally believable, in keeping with his nasty, malicious nature, and funny as hell.
The story that’s out there is this: that Donald Trump stayed in a Moscow hotel where the Obamas had stayed and paid money to an unspecified number of Russian prostitutes to pee on the bed where they’d slept. Which part of this is hard to believe? That he would vandalize a hotel room? I totally believe that. There are even people I admire who’ve done that. That he would take vindictive pleasure in seeing someone urinate on the Obamas’ bed? It’s weird, but I believe it. There are people with such weird obsessions, I suspect it goes back to childhood, some fault in the way they were raised. It’s rather like a dog marking his territory. A very primitive mindset, but we knew that. That he would pay prostitutes? Well, I hope they demanded payment in advance, because he also has a reputation for ordering work done and then not paying for it.
As with a goodly number of scandals I would like to see more information released. Until then, I’ll keep making jokes about it, because it’s funny and since Donald “Golden Showers” Trump has not always been so honest himself, I don’t see why I should be held to a higher standard.

I often say that one of the reasons I became a teacher, as opposed to a brain surgeon or an air traffic controller, is that if I screw up nobody gets hurt. Of course, that is not completely true. A bad teacher can do a lot of damage – not as immediate or dramatic as the brain surgeon or air traffic controller, but damage nonetheless.
I did something in class today which worked, I think, but I kind of wondered, when I saw how well it worked, if maybe I hadn’t crossed a line. Here’s the situation: Two boys in the class, I’m not going to use names, always sit at the back of the room and talk and make trouble. They’re bright enough, and sometimes even funny, but for the most part they are a big pain in the ass. (4th grade, about 10 years old)
So, in the beginning of the class today, I made them move. That was necessary anyway, because I’d decided to divide the class into 3 teams of 5 for a game, and needed to move one of them over to a smaller team. But, that wasn’t quite enough. In fact, it just meant they had to talk louder.
Anyway, the game was “Which animal is the best?” so I’d give flashcards to one student from each team and they’d come to the front of the class and explain why the ant was the best, or the chicken, or the sheep, or whatever was on their card. Simple stuff. One girl gave a totally impassioned argument for her animal, I forgot which one it was, so I let her know that she’d won the point – but I was penalizing the team one point because little motormouth in the back wouldn’t shut up.
Well, my recriminations have never had any effect but when she turned on him – and turn on him she did – he crumbled, he caved, he wilted under the onslaught, and was reasonably co-operative for the rest of the hour.
But, I’m not really sure if that’s fair of me – to use the kids as enforcers, to interfere in their relationships, in their world. Because the world of children and the world of grown-ups are, as anyone who has ever come close to the borderline will agree, completely separate worlds and no adult really knows what’s going on with the kids.
But, I’m probably overthinking this. He will undoubtedly continue to be a cocky, little shit, because I’m sure he enjoys the role, and she will continue to be a class star, and they will find their places in life. Nobody died.

Mondays are always a light day. I just have the one lesson – well, it’s two lessons but back to back in one office and it’s not at all rare for one of them to cancel. Anyway, just as I was about to head out the door I checked my phone and, lo and behold, they’d canceled.
So, a light day had become a free day. I can’t say I got a lot done, but I got everything done that Helena asked me to do (get a haircut, buy food for the rabbit, and write one news article, which we do in simplified English for a school in Switzerland) so, that keeps the peace and is an accomplishment by itself, plus I wrote a very nice, little poem.
Like most poems, it didn’t quite come out saying what I wanted it to say, which is that when kids make a snowman, they are happy and employing their imaginations, creating a snow version of a human being who could, in the imaginary world, walk, talk, sing, dance, teach a classroom of students, laugh, get drunk, or explain the meaning of the universe.
Then, when a passerby sees the snowman, they get a feeling of happiness, too, because the snowman actually has come to embody happiness, it’s a bit like a Golem (which is definitely different from a Gollum).
Yes, there is snow on the ground now.
Anyway, the poem said something less than that, but it’s still not bad.
Then, accompanied Isabel and her friend to their street dance class and started reading The Lord of the Rings again, mostly because it was close to hand but also because “Why not? It’s been years.”

As the looming shadow of the inevitable day looms, I hear more and more phrases like “The Fall of America,” “The End of Democracy,” “The End of the World,” “The End of Life as We Know It,” etc….
Yes and no. I’m not saying a Trump presidency is likely to be a good thing, but I do have reasonably high hopes that humanity will survive it.
First of all, the land mass that forms the central slice of North America is not suddenly going to disappear, along with Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and Puerto Rico, under the ocean. The world is not going to recalibrate its orbit, so that buildings and cows go flying off into outer space. It’s not going to rain for forty days and forty nights nor are frogs going to rain down from the sky.
Certainly, Trump is a threat to civilization as we know it and likely to put forth some huge assaults on civil liberties, rather like everybody else recently, and engage in corruption on an unprecedented level, and totally endorse the wholesale destruction of the environment, although people will continue to fight back locally, and maybe he’ll start WWIII….oh
Well, to tell the truth, I think it unlikely. Maybe that’s just because it’s such a huge thing and I’m in denial, but let me try to find some rationalizations for my thought.
1. We’ve had a retarded psychopath for president once before and, although he was shockingly horrible, he never managed to extend his war beyond a couple of countries in the Middle East.
2. I don’t think Putin is actually gunning for a nuclear shootout with the U.S. He may be a nationalist, and a sometimes belligerent one, but he is not a retarded psychopath. I don’t think.

(This happens sometimes – I start off writing a piece with one point of view – in this case that the world will survive a Trump presidency – and now I’m not so sure. In any event, carry on, keep doing what you’re doing, and hope for the best. Good luck to us all.)

We were just sitting around this morning and Helena suggested we go to the Czech Press Photo Exhibit, which is an annual thing. Prizes are awarded, I guess, I don’t know if there’s a cash award but it must be fairly prestigious, and large crowds go.
I went to a couple of them, earlier in my time in Prague, but I swore I’d never go to another one, probably about 10 years ago. First off, I don’t generally get photography as an art form. That’s me and my philistine limits more than it is a condemnation of the entire field. Photographers seem to agree on what is good photography, and seriously bad photography is pretty easy to spot, but if somebody takes a picture of something pretty – a flower, a sunset, a bunch of children playing – and their hand is reasonably steady, I’m satisfied that it’s a good photo.
I’m kind of the same with my tastes in food, music and movies. I don’t try to mentally reverse engineer the dish I am served, I’m almost never critical of a cook, and if a meal fills me up and doesn’t taste hideous, I’m satisfied. I enjoy music, but I really know nothing about it. When people say key of C or key of G, I have no idea what they are talking about as I have never been capable of distinguishing one from the other. Some people rave about the special effects and CGI in films, but those don’t even require me to ‘suspend disbelief.’ I just assume that filmmakers can make whatever they want to happen on film happen on film.
In short, I am not a very discerning person.
But, I figured it was a reason to get out of the house, something to do, so I agreed and we went.
It was as I remembered. Lots of photos of desperate refugees and other sad and depressing topics. Some of the nature stuff wasn’t bad. There was nothing in particular that I looked at and said “Wow! That makes the whole exhibit worthwhile.”
One interesting point, though. There were two first prizes: The International Jury Prize and The Children’s Prize. The adults, the professionals, chose a hideously crowded shot, all flags and signs and all that you really could tell was that a lot of people were protesting something. Bearing in mind my amateur status, and that nobody who loves photography should take my opinion seriously, it was crap.
The children chose a simple black and white, a forest of tall trees in the late afternoon light, with a bench near the bottom of the center and three people sitting there, silhouettes. I don’t know what the criteria of a great photo is, but it was certainly among the best there.
So, kids win. There was that, at least.