… Bayrakdar.

But most of the information about this no-name politician, who just voted against a resolution expressing support for Ukraine, points to psycho more than asshole. The impression is that of a sadist who derives pleasure from withholding desperately needed things from people. I see the dude relaxing after work by locking all the bathroom doors in his house and watching in trance-like bliss as his children writhe in agony and beg to be allowed to relieve themselves. Daddy please PLEASE we’re begging you…

… up the legal system. A French lawyer who wants to wear a hijab in court keeps suing to do so – and losing – in one court after another. Having been refused by France’s highest court, she apparently plans to head over to the European Court of Human Rights, which okay I wish her luck. All she’s so far done is force the issue in France so that now there’s an explicit ban on hijabs in court.

Boucar Diouf explains why this matters.

Yachts, wha hae from Hamburg fled,
Yachts, wham Vlad has aften led;
Welcome to your glory bed,
         On to victory!

Now’s the day, and now’s the hour;
See the front o’ battle lour;
See approach proud Biden’s power—
         Chains and slavery!

Wha for yachtman’s king and law
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa’,
         Let him follow me!

Yachts, wha hae from Hamburg fled,
Yachts, wham Vlad has aften led;
Welcome to your glory bed,
         On to victory!

In a string of tweets sent from his prison cell, [Alexei Navalny,] the Russian opposition leader, called Putin “our obviously insane czar” and sent out a call to action. “We cannot wait any longer,” Navalny wrote. “Wherever you are, in Russia, Belarus or on the other side of the planet, go to the main square of your city every weekday and at 2 pm on weekends and holidays. If you are abroad, come to the Russian embassy. If you can organise a demonstration, do so on the weekend.”

… Badenov.

The How do you write about The Villages if you are writing for the New York Times? problem would seem to be insoluble; but Michelle Cottle has figured out a way. The editorial decision to call her observations “Opinion” was a good call, but SOS doesn’t think this will stop people from noticing a certain… uh…

It is easy to mock all the clubs and events as boomer hedonism mixed with golden-years YOLO nihilism. Eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow you may get diagnosed with shingles or need a double hip replacement! And the frenzied socializing can definitely veer in that direction. Residents mentioned that alcohol abuse is a real problem here. And for years, the community has fought its reputation (based in part on a 2008 book) as a den of sexual iniquity, where seniors get jiggy in golf carts and S.T.D.s run rampant.

LOL. Demographically speaking, SOS is a hyper-typical NYT reader, and she’s as alive as the next person to the specific comedy of old people doing it in golf carts. Knowing this, Cottle really goes to town and amuses the hell out of me with extensive descriptions (it’s a long, er, opinion piece) of anile debauchery. I’m thinking the piece will generate serious blow back – not just from outraged Villagers, but from oldies more broadly, and, of course, from political scientists who will worry, worry, worry about the societal implications.

*********************

Update: Ja, ja, serious blowback. The NYT publishes a selection of angry letters. UD’s favorite, however, goes like this:

When I visited the Villages some years back, I changed my will to indicate that if I ever exhibited any characteristics that could be interpreted as a desire for the Villages’ lifestyle, I was to be considered incapable of making rational decisions and enrolled in an assisted care facility, where I would not be allowed to leave voluntarily.

… but the death of a very young, championship, Stanford University athlete in her dorm room has everyone thinking it.

Thinking too of how shocking we always find these sorts of deaths – sudden deaths of brilliant, beautiful, vivacious winners seemingly at the top of their form. Soccer team captain, “fiercely competitive,” Katie Meyer was a senior at one of America’s great universities who had taken on a challenging major: International Relations with a minor in history. She could have done pretty much anything.

If it was suicide, and not some unforeseen sudden health crisis (heart failure, for instance), we will probably hear that Meyer in fact suffered from depression; we might hear that her underlying problem escalated as she pondered her imminent transition to post-university life. Or she might have been fragile enough to have been sent reeling by a romantic breakup…

In any case, it’s notoriously true that super-elite athletes may be more prone to depression, for all kinds of reasons.

************

Update: Self-inflicted.

[I]f we were to use traditional measures for understanding leaders, which involve the defense of borders and national flourishing, Putin would count as the pre-eminent statesman of our time…

Democrats have gone to extraordinary lengths to discredit Putin. Why? There really is such a thing as a Zeitgeist or spirit of the times [and Putin embodies it for Russia]…

[W]e say the Russians don’t believe in democracy. But as the great journalist and historian Walter Laqueur put it, “Most Russians have come to believe that democracy is what happened in their country between 1990 and 2000, and they do not want any more of it.”…

So why are people thinking about Putin as much as they do? Because he has become a symbol of national self-determination.

Christopher Caldwell

********************

UPDATE: Comrades! If you really want a bellyful of this sort of thing, there’s a whole new journal full of Caldwell and his fellow travelers. Name: THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY: A USER’S MANUAL.

Stephen Cohen. If you seek his monument, look around you in Kharkiv.

Some of it, anyway. She was one of hundreds of people who increased the Ridgeland Library’s funds after the town’s homophobe mayor refused funding when he found out that libraries have books and all.

… old televangelist.

Even Hungary is taking in Ukrainian refugees; but Eric Zemmour says absolutely not. Not one Ukrainian refugee should be accepted into France.

It’s a little difficult to see France voting for its very own Vlad Putin, Eric Zemmour, especially (cough) now.

Zemmour’s tanking poll numbers suggest he might have backed the wrong butcher.

There is blood on the Republican Party’s hands. They were partially responsible for what is happening in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump were basically as popular on Russian TV as they are here in this country. They’re constantly being played there. What is the impression given? The United States is divided, and there’s an opportunity there. So these folks now own it.

The Met.