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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.

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.”

Beijing National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, site of the Beijing Winter Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies, Feb. 4 and 20 respectively.. Photograph by Peter23.

To watch or not to watch the Beijing Games

February 2, 2022

The Beijing Winter Games officially launch Friday, Feb. 4, with the opening ceremonies airing on NBC, and for many of us it will be something of a guilty pleasure.

Climate change. Human rights abuses. Restrictions on freedom of expression. Covid outbreaks. Critics charge that the Chinese do not have a great track record here and that a full boycott, such as the one the U.S. instituted in 1980 against the Moscow Summer Games when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, would’ve hit them in their prestige and their wallet.

On Jan. 7, 2021, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana posted this picture with these words: “Took these pictures of the damage caused by insurrectionists who stormed our nation’s Capitol yesterday. The physical signs of this siege will only be temporary, and the People’s House still stands. God Bless America.” A year later, many of his fellow Republicans are spinning the event in a different way.

Jan. 6, Covid and the year of the false narrative

January 5, 2022

New year, same old crap. Tomorrow marks the Feast of the Epiphany or Three Kings — otherwise known as the Twelfth Day of Christmas or Twelfth Night — a time that should be one of revelry as the Christmas season reaches its climax. Instead it’s also the first anniversary of the insurrection of the Capitol, which from the get-go has been recast as a tourist excursion run amok, a peaceful protest infiltrated by Antifa and bungled by Capitol Police, a riot exploited by Democrats — anything and everything but what it was, which was an assault on the Capitol and our democracy by Trump supporters who bought into yet another fiction, that he had been robbed of victory in his bid for re-election.

Chinese doubles player Peng Shuai at the 2016 US Open. Her disappearance and then sudden “happy” reappearance after leveling a #MeToo accusation against a former Chinese official has sparked international outrage. Photograph by si.robi

Challenging the alphas: The cases of Kyle Rittenhouse, Peng Shuai and Ahmaud Arbery

December 3, 2021

When the history of the early decades of this century is written 100 years from now, it will be recorded as a time when those who had power were challenged by those who did not.

The summer of our discontent

September 21, 2021

Winter, it is generally agreed, is the harshest season. But summer may be the cruelest. It offers its promises with soft, welcoming arms only to snatch them away.