Ant #330. Offshore.

The #panamgate provoked a huge discussion about the offshore. But many people don't really understand what's that. I found a perfect explanation of it that even a kid would understand...


When you get a quarter you put it in the piggy bank. The piggy bank is on a shelf in your closet. Your mom knows this and she checks on it every once in a while, so she knows when you put more money in or spend it.
Now one day, you might decide "I don't want mom to look at my money." So you go over to Johnny's house with an extra piggy bank that you're going to keep in his room. You write your name on it and put it in his closet. Johnny's mom is always very busy, so she never has time to check on his piggy bank. So you can keep yours there and it will stay a secret.
Now all the kids in the neighborhood think this is a good idea, and everyone goes to Johnny's house with extra piggy banks. Now Johnny's closet is full of piggy banks from everyone in the neighborhood.
One day, Johnny's mom comes home and sees all the piggy banks. She gets very mad and calls everyone's parents to let them know.
Now not everyone did this for a bad reason. Eric's older brother always steals from his piggy bank, so he just wanted a better hiding spot. Timmy wanted to save up to buy his mom a birthday present without her knowing. Sammy just did it because he thought it was fun. But many kids did do it for a bad reason. Jacob was stealing people's lunch money and didn't want his parents to figure it out. Michael was stealing money from his mom's purse. Fat Bobby's parents put him on a diet, and didn't want them to figure out when he was buying candy.
Now in real life, many very important people were just caught hiding their piggy banks at Johnny's house in Panama. Today their moms all found out. Pretty soon, we'll know more about which of these important people were doing it for bad reasons and which were doing it for good reasons. But almost everyone is in trouble regardless, because it's against the rules to keep secrets no matter what.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d8rta/eli5_the_panama_papers/d1owxn5

Ant #329. US elections.

To much "Trump" drama on my social networks...
Everybody is pissed off but he's still leading the primaries. Isn't it ironic?

Even though I support republicans I'd vote anybody but Trump... BUT... I do understand people who vote for him, and I'll try to explain you why...

Unfortunately (or luckily) there is two-party-system in US which means they only have two options when it comes to elections: they can vote only one or another. Of course the politicians argue even inside the same parties but in the end you'll only have 2 options. It's not like in Europe when there are lots of different parties, and if you always voted for right-wing parties but now you feel like your country is rich and could give something more to the poorest people you don't have to vote for socialists, you can just vote for a center-right-wing party and it will perfectly represent you.

What do we see in US?
Democrats say: Amnesty to all the illegals.
Republicans say: No f*cking way!

You have to choose between black and white. There's no grey.

But what's about people who are basically agree with receiving immigrants but with some reasonable limits? For example, like in Canada (they are open for immigrants from all over the world but you must be graduated, speak languages, have skills and experience). Who represents them? The answer is: nobody!

So what those people do? They open newspapers, read about disaster in Cologne... and vote for Trump because there are no other options: just "all the immigrants" or "none of them".

And this is sad...

Ant #328. Target audience.

I have many politically and socially active friends and I really respect them.
They post on social networks, talk to people, organize conferences etc and I respect it too.

The problem is... It's all pointless because the target audience is being chosen wrong.

Let me explain.
If you're a gay rights fighter, all your facebook friends are probably gays or gay friendly people. Homophobes don't go to LGBT conferences so you'll never be able to change their opinions.

The same with racism. Do you have any neo-nazi friends? I don't. All my friends are pretty tolerant and respecting other people.

Or my lovely socialistic friends. All the people who read you are already your "comrades", they don't need to be convinced in anything.

Identify your target audience or don't waste your time.

Ant #327. Russia: Europe or not?

It's an interesting fact!

When people talk about Russia, they call it a european country.
When you talk to russians, most of them don't like to associate themselves to Europe (thanx to Putin's propaganda).

The thing is... Russian culture is definitely European culture. Russian music, literature, art are all based on European ones. Russian language is in European group of languages. Russians are Christians. We live in the same media space, we share the same past and future. Russian etiquette is European etiquette. First Russian universities were opened by the tsar Peter the 1st who brought the education from Europe. Russian science exists thanks to European science. After all, Russia is by far the largest European country by both area and population, taking up to 40% of the continent.

But many Russians still think they have nothing to do with Europe because Europeans support gays.
Doh.

Ant #324. Kids.

All of my friends probably heard from me that I hate kids. And of course when I say this, I don't mean it.

When I was 6 years old, my sister bore a daughter. But I didn't become her uncle, instead I became her father. My sister got divorced and never had any support from ex husband. She worked a lot, so did our parents, so I was with my niece 24/7. I did all those things that fathers always do, while I was a kid myself.

It was a hard time for me, since that moment I used to say I hate kids and I don't want to have my own one coz I already have one (my niece), but of course it's not true! In Russia we say that "kids are flowers of a life". I cannot say any better!

Why am I saying all these?

I've just known that my lovely friend, amazing argentinian girl that I once met in Tel Aviv, has got a second child, a beautiful boy called Noam. And I'm so happy for her that I don't even have proper words to describe my excitement! She's definitely one of the greatest moms on Earth and the boy was very lucky to be born by her.

OMG! I'm so emotional right now! ^_^

Ant #323. Another one social experiment.

Watch this video, please...

Homeless Father Vs. Homeless Drug Addict Social Experiment
I'm shocked. I couldn't believe THISCheck this out ➡️ http://goo.gl/Kw0WIK
Posted by Bryan Silva on Wednesday, July 29, 2015

So what we could see? Homeless Father Vs. Homeless Drug Addict. And most people gave money to a junkie. Do you think it's unfair, bad decision, lack of morals? I DON'T! And let me explain why... 

In all the modern countries people understood many many time ago that if they just ignore drug addicts, they are gonna start killing. I'm not exaggerating! Even though nobody like them, nobody feels like helping them, people know that junkies cannot live a normal life, they cannot work to pay their drugs, so they start robbing or even killing other people. That's why normal citizens prefer to share some money with marginals to prevent crimes. Obviously no one wants to give away money to those who don't deserve them but there's no other choice.

And what's about a young normal guy that have 2 hands and 2 legs, that is a good looking, that has a beautiful daughter, that sitting on the street during the day instead of doing something? There's no way people help this guy! NO WAY! Society doesn't support laziness. He must work. And ignoring him people are pushing him to put himself together and sort his fucking life out. I find it a good motivation.

Ant #322. Standing for Kelly Osbourne.

Once she said this...

she got this...

OMG! Such a drama with what Kelly Osbourne said...

Some people are sooo obsessed with being politically correct that they don't even wanna face the truth.

Does it really surprise anyone that in any country the most of immigrants (I'm not talking about british expats signing a 3 years long contract in a 3rd world country) do the dirties unprestigious less paying jobs? Seriously, does anybody know a common mexican that moved to U.S. and immediately became a top manager?

Kelly said what we all know but have no balls to say!
Besides, she's really pro-immigrants coz instead of claiming them to go away (like all conservatives do) she knows that any modern country needs them.

Open up your eyes! Who's cleaning your street? An immigrant. Who's cleaning your home? An immigrant. Who's sitting with your children? An immigrant.

I don't give a fuck about being politically correct, but I DO give a fuck about saying the truth.
So take the sand out of your vaginas and finally start using your brains.
Doh.

Ant #321. HIV+ people.

I have a friend (in Moscow) who is HIV positive. He doesn't know that I know it, but I know (don't ask me how).

I saw this video and I remembered about him. I remembered how he never let me to hug him, how he never let me to drink from his cup, how he refused to sleep at my home because he thought he had to force me to clean the sheets after him and didn't know how.

I left Russia more than 2 years ago, but he never opened up to me or to any of our friends. And I understand why. For many HIV+ people it's even more difficult than for gays to come out from closet. There are so many prejudges in a society about this desease.

I feel sorry that I couldn't tell him some words of support... I didn't want him to feel scared or uncomfortable. If he wanted to keep it in secret, I had to respect his decision.

I just wanna tell anybody who has HIV+ friends. They aren't leprous. They are still the same people that you once knew!

Ant #319. Disconnection.

I talked to one refugee from Russia today. She was like "OMG! There happens this, there happens that", and I found myself thinking that I don't actually care. Then I tried to remember when I read russian news the last time, and I couldn't.

It feels so strange to me. To be honest, I don't know if it's good or not. It's just a fact: I've disconnected.

Ant #318. Nudes.

I swear I could open a gallery with all the pics of dicks they sent to me...

I don't remember since when people started to send nudes to each other?! It wasn't trendy when I was a teenager. I guess it's because we didn't have cameras in our phones.

Just to make things clear! I'm not talking about artistic nude pictures, I'm talking about exact pictures of the dicks.

Honestly I do find it pretty funny to exchange nudes with your partner when you're far away from each other, it's like a game. But I don't really get a point of sending them to strangers, especially if they are in another part of the world. What do you want? Show off? Impress me? Make me jealous? Get me hard? Sorry, this doesn't work on me. Or maybe it's just an exhibitionism? Ok so, but still it doesn't work on me. Besides, there was nothing interesting or jealous worthy.

Listen to this girl, she speaks the truth!

I can't stop laughing at what she says, but damn she's so right, like she's also going to see lots of #Madonna shows))))) #money #RebelHeartTour #bankruptcy #debts

Joking))) I don't even care about your money! :-P

Ant #317. Online dating.

If I wrote this post 2 years ago, there would be an absolutely different text. Here it comes...

I was always against it. I found it pretty desperate. But now I totally changed my mind (even tho I don't use it for myself). We live in the 21st century. There was no mobile phones just a few years ago. The ways we communicate have changed forever. So why not? Let people meet online! There's nothing disturbing to me, except of one thing...

Youngsters nowadays are so into modern technologies. I find it absolutely great, but along with communication ways, people's attitude changed as well.
Once again it's absolutely OK now to meet someone online, talk anything to a stranger, send nudes before even saying hello. As long as it doesn't hurt people, it's absolutely legal.

My point is there's no miracle anymore. Maybe, I'm too old-school, but I seriously miss those days when you had to date a person to know something about him, I miss this magic (and shaking hands) when you undress a person for the first time.

I tried a couple of web-sites when I was younger, I even tried Tinder a few months ago. It never worked on me. I still prefer meeting people in a bar or via mutual friends.

Ant #316. Uniqueness.

Many people think they are different, they are something unique, something exceptionally great while actually they are so basic. But modern society makes them thinking this way. We all see these "queens of the world" everywhere.

I don't know if it's good or not, I just see that people are terribly afraid of being normal.

I remember when I was 14 or 15, there was a parental meeting in my school and my teacher told them... "I can see a separation in the class. There are 3 groups: 1st group - boys, 2nd group - girls, 3rd group - ..."

3rd group was only me. No, I wasn't despised or bullied, never. But people always thought I was different and couldn't really contact me. I also wasn't looking for connection, but I was suffering of them thinking I was weirdo when I desperately wanted to be normal.

Ant #315. Goodbye, life.

I saw many many times people post horrible stories about suicides of gays who were bullied.

Thought #1.

In the amount of people who suicide, how many of them were gays?
Try to understand me, every case of suicide is a terrible story that should never happen, but do we ever see in newspapers that someone suicides because he lost his job or lost his money, or because his wife cheated on him? No. So what does make gays special? I don't get it.
Some people are assholes and some people suicide. This is just an ugly truth of the life. Shit happens. That's why...

Thought #2.

It doesn't matter what was the cause of suicide, we shouldn't praise it. Suicide isn't a solution. It's for weak people. That's what we should say to anyone who ever thinks about it. Don't kill yourself! Fight! We're here to help you if you need, but don't give up! This should be a massage. But instead we have "Oh poor babe, he killed himself because he was treated badly by his horrible classmates." After reading this every teenager will think "Ah, so I have to kill myself to get some compassion."

Modern humanity exists many thousands years, and during all this time we were treating each other badly. We aren't able to change it, we will always be like this. So we have to deal with it. And instead of praying for the world peace (which will NEVER happen), we should grow balls and when they drag us in dirt, get up and keep going.

Period.

Ant #313. Left - Right.

It's not about socks or driver license exam.
This time I wanna talk about serious and very important things to me...

A small pretty girl gave me a flyer. I took it. There was a logo of pro-government party. I gave it back. "No fucking way I vote for left-wing politicians."
I kept walking... and thinking that sometimes it's hard to stand people with opposite political views. Almost all of my friends in Russia (those who I chose, not those who I had in my school or university) are liberal, respect freedom and self-responsibility, believe in a power of market and think that everyone gets what he/she deserves. So do I! These views are usually called right-wing.

The problem is that since I moved to Argentina, which is absolutely socialistic country, I'm in minority. A very few people share my views. All the rest think that right-wing politicians equal to corrupted politicians. They call a fascist everyone who says he doesn't care of lazy people who never worked in their lives and have always lived for the money that the government gives them (taxpayers actually, not the government).

It's like a gulf between us. We'll never agree.

Oh, and I'd never date a socialist )))))

Ant #310. Mentality.

I talked to one of my argentinian friends about the current situation here.

My point was that there are lots of things to change and the first one is the government.

He said that the new one won't help coz they will be as corrupted as previous one and added "it's in our mentality".

I don't believe in mentalities...

North Korea <-> South Korea

East Germany <-> West Germany (till 1990)

South Italy <-> North Italy

And many more example of absolutely the same people choosing different ways.

There's no mentality. There is an ignorance.

Ant #308. Madonna at Brit Awards.

Superhuman, triumphant, living icon, hero...

That's how tabloids all over the world called Madonna after her epic performance at Brit Awards last night. But it wasn't only epic because of the show itself. She took a tumble...

It was one of the most heartbreaking moments in my life. My heart stopped when her dancers pulled her cape (as it was obviously planned) and she fell downstairs along with it. And I almost cried when I saw how this little fragile woman got up, put herself together and continued the ‪show‬. And she killed it all! Who even remembers there was a ceremony? Everyone talks about Madonna!

One of my friends posted on Facebook that suddenly he remembered one "Sex & the City" episode where Carrie Bradshaw fell on runway. So did I.
Here it is... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDOdrcV5dfs

And that moment Carrie thought: "I had a choice – I could slink off the runway and let my inner model die of shame, or I could pick myself up, flaws and all, and finish. And that’s just what I did. Because when real people fall down in life, they get right back up and keep on walking."

There's no one to blame for what happened. I think it's a fault of many people: of a designer/costumer who didn't make a velcro for the cape, of dancers who didn't notice she wasn't ready and pulled her down, of choreographers who decided that the cape should be taken off while she's on stairs (if she was standing on the floor she wouldn't fall, or at least not that hard), and of course of her own, coz in the end she's an artist and she's responsible.

But after all Madonna is a human being too. Shortly she posted on her Instagram.

Armani hooked me up! My beautiful cape was tied too tight! But nothing can stop me and love really lifted me up! Thanks for your good wishes! I'm fine! ❤️#livingforlove

A photo posted by Madonna (@madonna) on Feb 25, 2015 at 2:50pm PST

She didn't cry, she didn't look for compassion like some singers always do, victimizing themselves, she smiled and said she was "fine"! She proved once again that she has a right to be called ‪Queen Of Pop‬, she's the biggest professional in the music industry, she's a ‪‎showgirl‬, and she knows that ‪"Show Must Go On"‬.

I still feel said for what happened, but we all fall sometimes, literally or metaphorically. ‪Love‬ her even more now!

P.S. Smile of a real triumphant! God bless you Madonna! ^_^

Ant #307. Interactions classified by mechanism.

Oh, it's so about human beings.

Interactions classified by mechanism:
Symbiosis
The term symbiosis (Greek: living together) can be used to describe various degrees of close relationship between organisms of different species. It is used only for cases where both organisms benefit.
Competition.
Competition can be defined as an interaction between organisms or species, in which the fitness of one is lowered by the presence of another.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_interaction#Interactions_classified_by_mechanism

Ant #305. First impression.

"When you meet a person for a first time, try to do your best, because you never get  a second change to make a first impression!"

That's what my professor of marketing  told me when I was in university.
Smart, isn't it?

I'd like to meet my clone to see what impression I make.
I hope it's not that bad.

Ant #304. Living For Love.

I read many comments about new Madonna's video, all the people seem to love it, but some of them were a lil bit confused with its aggression and violence. They said that the song itself is so bright, it's about getting stronger and not being disappointed, it's about believing in love.

Hard to disagree, but...

I feel something different. Yeah, it's a dance track, but lyrics sound bitter to me. I'm not sure if it's about interpretation or life experience. I guess anyone who was betrayed and thrown out even once, knows how painful it can be. You can survive, you can learn this lesson, you can get stronger and blah blah blah, but every break-up leaves a scar on your heart, if you have it and you truly loved. And it's good if you staying above the situation and not willing to revenge, but come on, I'd never believe that someone felt fine after all this shit.

Madonna sings, "I can forgive, but I will never forget." And you keep saying that the song is bright?

Ant #300. Mountain top you cannot get.

I won't be doing retrospectives any longer as I did every 100th post.
Let's better talk about something more interesting.

Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation with one of my best friends. About love, of course.
She asked me how many times I've been refused in my life. I replied that just once. And she said that I shouldn't be worried about possibility to die alone. Well, yeah, maybe... But it made me think about another thing.

Imagine that you perfectly play chess and lost the championship in the final. Or you do yoga and can strike any pose except of the only one. Or maybe you're the best alpinist and the only mountain top you cannot get is Everest.

And then imagine that you play chess so-so, don't do yoga at all and the only time you were in mountains was in your high school with your teacher of geography.

Do you know what I mean?

I don't know how it feels to hear NO. I've got everyone I wanted... Well, almost...
I've been refused once, but I still cannot forget it. It follows me. And I guess that it's even worse than if it was kinda usual for me.