Toastmasters barbecue. Child psychiatry. Covid/totalitarian psychology.

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The Toastmasters meeting at our place Saturday came off marvelously. We were planning to set up chairs on the lawn if the weather was good, in the house if it wasn’t. The weather could not make up its mind! We kept the chairs on the porch and let the speakers brave the elements. We had maybe five minutes of drizzle followed by a beautiful afternoon.

Oksana and I always disagree about how much food we need. She is on the generous side, I on the conservative. Although we put uncooked shashlik, sausages and fish back in the freezer, she was more right than wrong.

The secret is the generosity of the guests. They brought a great selection of cheeses, fruit, olives, desserts and drinks. Although it is quite well known that I gave up drinking six months ago, we have enough left over for a couple of evenings’ entertainment.

Eddie delivered an amazingly good impromptu speech about little Lolika, he and me getting caught in a summer downpour as we were out boating. I don’t think any of us will ever see lightning up that close again. When we finally got back to the dock, the boat had about 3 inches of water in the bottom and we were all soaked to the skin. He told the story well.

Meanwhile, Zoriana was climbing all over me, which I tolerated because it kept her busy. We discovered in the evening that the Internet didn’t work. It turns out that the little imp had taken some scissors to the fiber-optic cable where it enters the house. She has been doing this sort of destructive stuff more and more lately. She takes scissors to her clothes – I remember other daughters doing that – and at the end of the party she bit one of the tumblers hard enough to break the glass. She has taken our cell phones and other personal stuff without asking, though mercifully enough she will tell you where they are when asked.

In the United States they keep psychiatrists on speed dial for this kind of emergency. In my observation, after a few thousand dollars of useless blather the problem goes away, no thanks to the shrink. Not without a bit of guilt for what the parents might have done wrong, and a plea not to be too harsh on the little dear. It doesn’t work that way here. The little dear in question has a promise of a severe spanking if she does anything like that again.  I’m more in the Dr. Soloman camp, as in Proverbs, than Dr. Spock.

Here is the group photograph that Eddie took after our meeting. For the first time in my 16 years with this club we have more attractive single guys than girls. Despite the fact that we are a little bit off the beaten track, attendance was good and the affair went from the meeting starting at 12:00 to the last guests walking home at 7:30.

The walking part is worth mentioning. There was only one car. One couple walked here from their home two miles to the north, and a group of five walked home to the Metro two miles to the south. I had a conversation about bicycles with one of the guests. It’s now 15 years since I gave up cars upon arriving in Kyiv. He came to the same conclusion when he got here five years ago. You don't need them. He compared the attention that a car needs to that which a dog demands. Public transit and taxis are cheap, the city is compact, pedestrian and bicycle friendly, and the regional trains allow you to bring your bike.

Last week I sent a brief SMS to my two grown daughters – the ones that never return my calls, the ones in whose young lives Spock got the upper hand  – saying briefly that Zoriana is bicycling 1 ½ miles to music lessons at an age in which they were still strapped like sacks of flour into car seats. It’s a different world. Not judgmental whatsoever, just a comparison of two societies. They would have to read between the lines to infer that I think this one will produce better adults. Which is, of course, what I do think.

Here are pictures of some of the adults produced by this society at our summer garden parties of 2016 and 2017. Back in the day, as I mentioned above, when the club seem to consistently have more women than men. Where are they now? The redhead and the little blonde between she and me are in England, brightening up that soggy island.  The brunette on the other end is doing the same for Greece.

Mattias Desmet, who made a name for himself with the concept of Mass Formation, just-released his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism. I wrote about him two years ago when he popularized the idea that Covid was more of a psychological than a medical phenomenon. In his interviews with the leading lights of Team Reality he pounded the same points over and over, to the point that I wondered what else he had. My concerns are assuaged. It is a deep, brilliant book.

My guess is that, understanding the short attention span and fickle nature of the public, he used his moment of renowned to pound the same simple subject home again and again, knowing that the average media consumer can only absorb about two ideas at a time. I am pleased to find out that he has vastly more substance. This is the beauty of books over video.  There is room to fully explore a subject.

I was almost finished reading the Mattias Desmet book on Kindle for PC when Eddie dropped the machine and broke the power connection. Without the Internet I can’t read it online. In reading Eddie’s history of Ukraine I don’t have the Internet to look up translations. I truly am dependent on these machines.

This morning’s task is to go get some redundancy. Last year I confirmed that the cell phone people can sell me a wireless Internet connection from my computer, and even a router to plug it into so everybody in the house will can be online. I learned the hard way that it is necessary to have at least two banks and two credit cards, because you can never trust these institutions not to impose insane restrictions or simply go out of business. Same for the Internet.

That’s my message for today, June 19. I am packing my computer in my backpack and seeking out an Internet café so I can send this as we wait for the fiber-optic repairman to show up on Tuesday.          

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man has to deal with strong minded little girls, even in a situation in which ten psychiatrists would have ten different, expensive and hard-to-implement suggestions.  The good-looking woman is good enough to let me use my own judgment, tempered by her advice, even though we both know that nobody could know for sure. Lastly, the guests saw none of this and we will let them continue to think that the children are nothing short of a full-time delight.

Graham