Uncle Empire

In college, there was a men's dialogue group on campus that I joined briefly. Its mission -- educating other men's groups about harassment and women's issues -- was noble, but they eventually became overrun with members of a certain fraternity. For them, belonging to the group cemented their sensitive-guy reputations with the womenfolk, and eased the concerns of drunk girls they invited up to their rooms during foam parties.

So Russian.

Just last week, a headline in the Huffington Post reminded me of these vodka-soaked frat parties; it proclaimed, "Russian Judge Rules Sexual Harassment Is Okay As It Ensures Survival Of Human Race."

Disturbing as this may sound, one must at least consider the Russians' out-of-the-box thinking. In a world where SUVs and oil companies can go "green," isn't anything possible? Benefit of the doubt, people. Some of the world's greatest thinkers have emerged with a Russian accent: Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Herzen, Ivan Turgenev, and Mikhail Bakunin, to name a few. Could this judge be on to something?

According to the article, a Russian woman was locked out of her office after she refused to get biblical with her boss. The judge, who, surely, is in a loving and reciprocal relationship, threw the case out of court, and ruled, "If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children." Had she won, the woman's case would have marked only the third successful sexual harassment case in Russia, ever, even though 100 percent of female professionals in Russia say they have been harassed in the workplace.

It's not hard to imagine what dictums followed the judge's initial statement about where babies come from: "If you untie her, she'll run away," he might have said, knowingly. And, in a hushed warning: "If you feed her, she'll get fat."

Expanding on these Russian models of causality, I have come up with a few rulings of my own:

"Without global warming, there wouldn't be sunshine."

Or

"Without war, there wouldn't be peace."

And, of course,

"Without famine, there wouldn't be birthdays."

The last is admittedly a little sketchy, but I'm working through the fine print. (Come up with a few of your own; it's free!)

I've been thinking about the future lately, too, and I've realized a few things. One, maybe my backyard isn't a feasible host nation for the 2020 Olympics. Two, I may never sit down comfortably. And three, when my unborn daughter takes her junior year abroad to Moscow, I hope the court will keep an open ear after I karate chop the head off of any Russian business man who approaches her in a three-piece suit. My defense will be simple: Without murder, no one would ever die.

After all, by that time, we will need to start thinking about overpopulation. Because with overpopulation, how could we ever have amusement parks?