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First responders on the scene of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Courtesy Voice of America.

The Uvalde shooter, the literature of rejection and the death of American exceptionalism

May 29, 2022

If you’re a reader of this blog, then you know that I’ve developed a theory I call the “literature of rejection,” in which men both historical (John Wilkes Booth, Adolf Hitler, Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh, Osama bin Laden) and fictional (Achilles, Milton’s Lucifer, Heathcliff) display a disproportionate rage at rejection, an overbearing sense of entitlement and grievance.

To this we can now add — as if we didn’t know this before — the Uvalde shooter, whom I refuse to name, just as I will not name the Buffalo shooter. Part of the M.O. of these malignant, nihilistic narcissists is their “notice me” moments of manifestos and livestreaming. I’m not going to add to their 15 minutes of infamy.

Anna Netrebko as Leonora in Giuseppe Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” in 2014 at the Salzburg Festival, where she first achieved international acclaim. Photograph by Christian Michelides.

The Ukraine invasion and a new kind of culture war

March 6, 2022

In Bernard Taper’s biography of Russian-American choreographer George Balanchine, he describes a moment of deprivation during the Russian Revolution that haunts me still: A horse drops dead in the street, and the starving populace rushes out to carve it up.

Historically, the Russian people have careened from one kind of oppression to another, from the czars to the Soviets, whose empire Vladimir Putin is now seeking to reconstitute with his brutal siege of Ukraine.

The official portrait of President Volodymyr Zelensky — the defiant, courageous face of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. *Courtesy* *the Ukrainian government.*

Narcissus at the gates of Kyiv: Putin and the siege of Ukraine

February 27, 2022

“He is ‘pretty smart,’ Mr. Trump said on Wednesday at a Florida fundraiser, assessing the impending invasion like a real estate deal. ‘He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions,’ he said, ‘taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.’”

That was former President Donald J. Trump —a former president of the United States of America —in a New York Times article praising Russian President Vladimir Putin in the run-up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which the former KGB agent instigated to. assuage his ego and bolster his notion of former Soviet glory.

Anna Shcherbakova, newly minted Olympic women’s figure skating gold medalist, in happier times atop the podium of the 2021 Russian Figure Skating Championships. Photograph by Yuuliiya.

'Irreparable harm': twilight of the Olympic goddesses

February 18, 2022

In my last post, I wrote that short of a meltdown, embattled Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was a shoo-in for the gold medal in the women’s free skate Thursday, Feb. 17.

Later I thought the better of it and said to myself, “I bet she finishes fourth.”

Yeah.

Kaori Sakamoto, seen here at the 2018 Winter Olympics, was a surprising third place finisher after the women’s short program Tuesday, Feb. 15, in which embattled Kamila Valieva took first. Photograph by David W. Carmichael.

The Kamila chronicles continued

February 15, 2022

The Olympic doping saga continued Tuesday, Feb. 15, in Beijing as Kamila Valieva, who tested positive for the banned heart medication trimetazidine, was allowed to compete in the short program by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), pending a fuller investigation of the obvious. Despite finishing first in the short program, ahead of Russian Olympic Committee teammate Anna Shcherbakova and Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto, Valieva is in a lose-lose situation — sure to be asterisked if she wins and still facing possible disqualification.

Indeed, there are no winners among the skaters as no one will be awarded medals until the investigation is complete, and that could take months.

For others, however, there may be a “silver lining.”

Kamila Valieva demonstrates her superb extensions in the International Skating Union Junior Grand Prix Final in 2019. At the Olympics, she finds herself mired in another Russian doping scandal. Photograph by
Luu.

Iphigenia in Beijing: the inexorable politics of the Olympics

February 12, 2022

Held in a country known for its abuses of nature and human nature, attended by the president of a nation banned for doping but whose athletes are still allowed to compete, how could the Beijing Games not be a hot, hypocritical mess?

The game within the Games

February 5, 2022

Like most people, I’m not thrilled to be proven wrong. But here is one instance in which I’m glad: I said in my previous post that I didn’t think the Beijing Winter Games would withstand an actual geopolitical analysis of the host country, China. But I was wrong. NBC tackled the human rights abuse issues on Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, the day of the opening ceremonies.

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